REVIEW ARTICLE 89 imagination, because secessionism and hegemonism in the contemporary world are not political improprieties, merely, but violations of cultural and spiritual ecology1 (p. 110). If we may extend Gandhi's reading somewhat: In a country where the Babri Masjid—or, as some would call it, the Rama Janmasthan—and Sita-ki-Rasoi stood together, cheek by jowl, for nearly five hundred years, the two are now severed; and once again, pressured by ungrateful citizens and ignorant pupils, Sita is consigned to a lonely existence. We can only hope that the banishment of the Babri Masjid from our midst is, like the banishment of Sita by Rama from the kingdom of Ayodhya, at the level of appearance alone; or else, if that 'otherness* acquires an ontological reality, the fall of the Babri Masjid will surely and most unfortunately be remembered as, in Gandhi's wonderfully evocative phrase, 'advaita's Waterloo*. In this little gem of a book, Ramchandra Gandhi gives us a great deal to hope for, and shows that he is in every respect worthy of those great traditions of Indian spirituality which he has so masterfully and yet with utter humility brought before us for our introspection. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Thailand, I might note parenthetically, has an important ancient Buddhist city by the name of Ayuthaya, also known as Ayuthea or Ayudhya, undoubtedly by way of homage to Buddhist Ayodhya in India. The present-day Ayodhya in India, however, may not be the Ayodhya of the Valmiki Ramayana or of the Buddhist texts, a matter too complicated to be considered here. 2. That the lila is under the full moon is not insignificant, for such a lila is 'under the sponsorship of enlightenment' (p. 57). Sita's Kitchen is replete with these extraordinary insights. The Buddha, Gandhi adds instructively, was bom on a night of the full moon, and his death and enlightenment also occurred on nights of the full moon; Mahavira's birth, enlightenment, and death, on the other hand, all took place on moonless nights. 'The full moon represents the power of illumined mind which, in the form of the Buddha, came to the aid of that sunless age'; by way of contrast, on a moonless night, 'when, symbolically, neither the sun of self-realization nor the full moon of enlightenment is at hand, we have to walk on the earth very gently, lest we hurt fellow living beings. Ahimsa (non-violence) is bom, Mahavira is born' (pp. 22-23).