Sprigg, R. K.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studieshttp://journals.cambridge.org/BSOAdditional services for Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies:Email alerts: Click hereSubscriptions: Click hereCommercial reprints: Click hereTerms of use : Click herePradyumna P. Karan: Bhutan: a physical and aultural geography. [vi], 106 pp., 16 plates, map. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1967. $17.50.R. K. SpriggBulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 32 / Issue 01 / February 1969, pp 231 ­ 231DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X00094532, Published online: 24 December 2009Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0041977X00094532How to cite this article:R. K. Sprigg (1969). Review of Pradyumna P. Karan 'Bhutan: a physical and aultural geography' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 32, pp 231­231 doi:10.1017/S0041977X00094532Request Permissions : Click hereDownloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/BSO, IP address: 212.219.238.14 on 26 Oct 2012SHORT NOTICES 231behaviour as manifested in the ' average'villager. This enables the author to stress thecontinuity of the social system, and is inkeeping with his adherence to an antiquatedview of social change as disruptive of thatsystem. Modernizing currents, especially thoseexternal to the village, are deprecated ascauses of disharmony. Rising expectations arecontemptuously dismissed as ' artificially gene-rated by outside propaganda ' and regarded as' the most insidious factor threatening toundermine the stability of village life '. Indeed,the author appears to doubt the accounts ofchanges occurring on the subcontinent—onp. 147 he writes of the ' social changes allegedlytaking place in rural India ' (my italics). Hefinds that traditional institutions in Shivapurhave remained basically unaltered and hypo-thesizes that ' what is typical of Shivapur istypical of village India'. In the process heignores the considerable literature on Indianvillages (there is no bibliography), and thisproves to be one of the book's major faults andrenders it theoretically uninteresting. On thedust-cover it is claimed that Professor Ishwarangives a new direction to the study of Indianpeasants and their way of life. Unhappily,that direction is anywhere but forward.LIONEL CAPLANPEADYUMNA P. KAEAN : Bhutan : aphysical and cultural geography, [vi],106 pp., 16 plates, map. Lexington,Ky. : University of Kentucky Press,1967. $17.50.Its title makes this book a companion toMr. Karan's earlier Nepal: a cultural andphysical geography (reviewed in BSOAS, xxiv,1, 1961, 156-9). In Bhutan he draws on a widerange of descriptions of various aspects of thecountry written over the last 200 years, towhich he adds his own observations as amember of the 1964-5 geographical expeditionfrom Phuncholing to Thimbu via Paro, andthence to Dewangiri via Punakha, Tongsa, andTashigang (p. 64). Until one reaches thispoint, more than half-way through the book,it is by no means clear how much of Mr.Karan's description rests on personal observa-tion ; it would have been helpful if he hadgiven this information much earlier, and, withit, some account of the time spent at each ofthe major places visited or en route from oneto another, not only in 1964-5 but also duringan earlier visit that he appears to have madein 1961.Eight or nine pages each, on average, aregiven to such topics as geographic exploration,the physiographic setting, the climate, vegeta-tion, and soil, the economic pattern, thepopulation, the different cultures, transportand trade, and politics, with maps, plans, andillustrations. The political sections are writtenin a journalistic style altogether different fromthat of the rest of the book, and contain suchloose statements as that ' Bhutan . . . hasalways [my italics] been within the Indiansphere of influence '. This claim is at odds withthe interesting and useful ' Appendix ' con-taining principal treaties and documents, andalso with the account of the Tashi Lama'smediating between the East India Companyand the Deb Rajah in 1773. Indeed it was notuntil 1910, within living memory, that theBhutan government agreed ' to be guided bythe British Government in regard to itsexternal relations ' (p. 96), and not until 1949that this provision was inherited by a specifi-cally Indian government (p. 97) (incidentally,a misprint in the text of the 1949 treaty, p. 97,has the effect of increasing the Indian subsidytenfold, from ' one lakh' to ' 1,000,000'rupees).Throughout the book titles and personalnames seem to have given the author sometrouble. ' Shabdung ' appears now as a title(' the shabdungs or dharma rajas ', p. 63) nowas a personal name (' Shabdung, the Tibetanmonk', p. 7) ; ' Deb Raja ' alternates,similarly, with ' the Deb Raja' (p. 3) ; andQueen Kesang appears on p. 86 as ' QueenAshi', a title (spelt ' aji' in the ' Glossary ',p. 99). For those who appreciate etymologicaltranslations of proper names there are a numberof fine specimens, including ' Jigme DorjiWangchuk (the " Fearless Mighty One ") '(p. 12) ; then why not Lai Bahadur Shastri(p. 19) as the ' Red Brave Scholar ' ? The' Glossary' (p. 99) disguises the connexionbetween ' Brug-yul Land of thunder (Bhutan) 'a mis-transliteration of the Tibetan 'brug-yul,and ' Druk Gyalpo Dragon king (ruler ofBhutan) ' (Tib. 'brug rgyal-po) and ' Druk-pasect' (Tib. 'brug-pa).Since any information on Bhutan is stilldifficult to come by, this book, expensivethough it is, and comprising barely 100 pagesof text, can still be sure of a welcome ; andthis is particularly true of its maps and plans.B. K. SPEIGGALASTAIB LAMB : Asian frontiers :studies in a continuing problem, x,246 pp. London : Pall Mall Press,1968. 35s.Having made the study of specific frontiershis own special field—in diplomatic, military,economic, and ethnographic terms—the author

Pradyumna P. Karan: Bhutan: a physical and aultural geography

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Pradyumna P. Karan: Bhutan: a physical and aultural geography

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