This ambitious book promises much: a new understanding of the development of Indian Buddhism, repositioning the role of archaeology in that study, and developing the theoretical approach to the archaeology of religion. In pursuing these aims, it is both more and less than an “archaeological history of Indian Buddhism”. More, because it engages with the art historical and textual sources far beyond the level they are usually considered by archaeologists of South Asia, provides a genuinely new explanation of religious change within Indian Buddhism, and delivers a welcome injection of archaeological theory. Yet less, because it is far from comprehensive and prone to generalizations.
The introduction establishes Fogelin's stance on a number of issues: what he means by archaeology vis-à-vis South Asian studies, the relationship between archaeological and textual evidence, and the archaeology of religion. We are also introduced to the main argument of the book – that contra traditional (textually derived) thinking, the Buddhist sangha was “domesticated” from the start and became ascetic over time with the invention of an ascetic tradition. It is proposed that the development of Buddhism can be explained in terms of an inherent tension within it between individual and communal desires.
Chapter 2 provides an engaging introduction to the multiple theories used to support and demonstrate this argument, from Marxism to semiotics and materiality. Fogelin argues convincingly for the necessity and value of applying a number of contradictory theoretical perspectives to the study of region, which itself is inherently incoherent.
The next five chapters reconstruct a history of religious change within Indian Buddhism through the analysis of changes in architecture, iconography, symbolism, ritual and doctrine, all with reference to wider societal developments. Starting with the period c. 600–200 bce, Fogelin argues that there was a dynamic tension between the individual and communal desires of the sangha, who inhabited monasteries, and the laity, who worshipped at stūpa complexes – defined as “pilgrimage centres” for the rest of the book. In doing so, Fogelin sets up an uncomfortably rigid division between these categories of Buddhist sites and two halves of the Buddhist community.
In chapter 4 we learn that between 200 bce and 200 ce, pilgrimage centres (and thus the laity) became more geared towards egalitarian ritual, while changes in the design of chaitya-stūpas within monasteries reflect the gradual legitimization of the sangha's religious authority. These ever-diverging trajectories are charted in chapters 5 and 6. The coincidental emergence of Mahāyāna Buddhism, invention of a textual tradition of asceticism, appearance of the Buddha image and associated changes in monasteries and ritual practice are all seen as reflecting the increasing isolation of the sangha between c. 100–600 ce. While the laity's gradual abandonment of Buddhism in favour of other rival religious groups is explained, somewhat unsatisfactorily, as a reaction to the sangha's ritual changes, and the simultaneous adoption of certain familiar elements of Buddhism by Hinduism and Jainism. The laity, afforded so much agency in earlier chapters, are now passive entities that simply needed a familiar religious leader to satisfy their religious needs. Chapter seven covers the development of Tantric Buddhism within monastic Buddhism in the late first millennium – a final attempt to balance the sangha's individual-communal tensions – before its eventual collapse in the early second millennium. This is explained as the sangha no longer having enough support from the laity to withstand the effects of the Ghaznavid and Ghurid invasions.
In concluding, Fogelin highlights the demonstrable value of both a pluralistic application of different theories in the archaeology of religion, and an archaeological approach to the history of Indian Buddhism. In doing so, he is at pains to stress that this book is by no means the last word on any of the topics raised, nor is it intended to reject textual scholarship. Rather, he ends with the hope that archaeologists and textual scholars can learn to work together.
No one can disagree with this. These two types of evidence and bodies of scholarship must be brought together, and this book makes an excellent attempt at this within a well-argued and multidisciplinary grand narrative. However, the idea of greater rapprochement between archaeology and texts is not what many readers, familiar with South Asia, are going to react to. There are numerous associations and inferences that need greater clarification. Mention has been made of the rigidly exclusive conflation of stūpas with the laity and monasteries with the sangha. This analysis does not fully accommodate the fact that stūpa complexes were designed and built by the sangha who continued to live in permanent monasteries at these sites, or the involvement of the laity in rituals at monasteries. Further, many arguments are built on selective comparisons between sites in very different geographical areas, which ignore possible differences between Buddhist sects.
Beyond these issues, and perhaps of necessity given its remit, the book also leaves out a great deal. For instance, discussion of the interplay between archaeology and the history of art (very much the third party in Buddhist studies) is conspicuously absent. So too is any consideration of Buddhism outside of South Asia. There is no mention of the debate surrounding the date of the Buddha, which must surely be factored into consideration of the earliest phases of Buddhism. As must the archaeologically visible incorporation of folk religion into early Buddhism, and existence of isolated and secluded caves dating to the later centuries bce that may have housed Buddhist ascetics. Missing from the discussion of later periods is, among other things, the construction of Buddhist temples on the “Hindu” model, and Hindu and Jain monasticism.
The sheer number of these interpretive and evidentiary oversights is hard to overlook, but none of them necessarily undermine the basic argument of the book, which is of indisputable value to the study of Buddhism and archaeologies of religion. The book deserves to be read, and it is sure to stimulate much needed debate. I just hope that this debate centres on the arguments that are put forward, and not the omissions that might be called into focus.
