VAIDYANATHAN, T. G. & KRIPAL, J. J. (eds.). Vishnu on Freud's Desk - A Reader in Psychoanalysis and Hinduism. New Delhi:  Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp.  482. Hbk. Rs. 775.00.

Although Freud himself never went to India, he corresponded at length with Romain Rolland about Indian mysticism, and with the Indian psychiatrist, Girindrasekhar Bose, about psychoanalytic theory. From as long ago as the inter-war years his ideas have gained a currency there that has not been limited to the medical profession. This volume traces the history of the dialogue between psychoanalysis and Hindu culture, and offers a rich sample of the insights that it has thrown up. The rather strange title refers to the presentation of an ivory statuette of the god Vishnu made to Freud by the Indian Psychoanalytical Society on the occasion of his seventy fifth birthday in 1931. The statuette joined the collection of ethnic artefacts on the master's desk, as a symbol of ‘the proud conquests [psycho-analysis] has made in foreign countries’ (Freud's letter of acknowledgement).

The book contains seventeen essays, all by different authors, plus an introduction and an afterword by the editors. Of the authors, some are Indian and some apparently American, or Indian academics resident in America. Some are practising analysts, others