| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 108.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Kunal Chakrabarti. Religious Process: The Purååas and the Making of a Regional Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press. 2001. Pp. viii, 368. $39.95.

This book focuses on the Bengal Puråånas, a set of scriptures composed largely in the Bengali region during the medieval period. Kunal Chakrabarti sets out to explore what the Bengal Purååas reveal about Bengali regional identity, especially as this identity, like other regional identities in India, involves interaction between pan-Indian and local levels. To this end, he argues that the Bengal Puråånas helped create and propogate a Bengali regional identity that accommodated and absorbed local beliefs and practices while preserving hegemonic bråhmaåa privilege. The process by which this occured, which Chakrabarti terms "the Puranic process," involved both strong affirmation of local customs and practices as well as the preservation and repeated assertion of Vedic authority (the traditional domain of bråhmaåa privilege), with the Bengal Purååas attempting "to make the two appear consistent" (p. 32).

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