Greg Bailey has been teaching Sanskrit, Indian religions and Indian Literature at La Trobe University for the past twenty-four years. He has a PhD in Indian Studies from Melbourne University (1980). In the semester 1998 he was a visiting research fellow in the Seminar for Indian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Tübingen. He is a member of the International Consultative Committee of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies and a member of the Board of the Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Puranas. Ian Mabbett was Professor of Indian and Buddhist Studies, Aichi Bunkyo University, Nagoya, 2000–2, and has made frequent research trips to India and South-East Asia (including visiting forest monasteries in Thailand). He is author of A Short History of India (1983); co-author (with David Chandler) of The Khmers (1995); and contributor to Jon Ortner (photographer), Angkor: Celestial Temples of the Khmer Empire (2002) and to reference books such as The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (1992) and Encyclopedia of Asian History (1988).

'It is a scholarly and objective study, despite the fact that it tends to underrate other opinions.' Expository Times

• Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. The problem: asceticism and urban life; Part I. Context: 2. The social elite; 3. Economic conditions; 4. Urbanization, urbanism and the development of large-scale political structures; 5. Brahmins and other competitors; 6. Folk religion and cosmology: meeting of two thought worlds; Part II. Mediation: 7. The holy man; 8. Preparation of the monk for the mediatory role. Evidence from the Sutta Nipata; 9. The Dhammapada and the images of the bhikkhu; 10. The mediating role as shown in the Canon; 11. Exchange; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Greg Bailey has been teaching Sanskrit, Indian religions and Indian Literature at La Trobe University for the past twenty-four years. He has a PhD in Indian Studies from Melbourne University (1980). In the semester 1998 he was a visiting research fellow in the Seminar for Indian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Tübingen. He is a member of the International Consultative Committee of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies and a member of the Board of the Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Puranas. Ian Mabbett was Professor of Indian and Buddhist Studies, Aichi Bunkyo University, Nagoya, 2000–2, and has made frequent research trips to India and South-East Asia (including visiting forest monasteries in Thailand). He is author of A Short History of India (1983); co-author (with David Chandler) of The Khmers (1995); and contributor to Jon Ortner (photographer), Angkor: Celestial Temples of the Khmer Empire (2002) and to reference books such as The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia (1992) and Encyclopedia of Asian History (1988).

'It is a scholarly and objective study, despite the fact that it tends to underrate other opinions.' Expository Times

• Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. The problem: asceticism and urban life; Part I. Context: 2. The social elite; 3. Economic conditions; 4. Urbanization, urbanism and the development of large-scale political structures; 5. Brahmins and other competitors; 6. Folk religion and cosmology: meeting of two thought worlds; Part II. Mediation: 7. The holy man; 8. Preparation of the monk for the mediatory role. Evidence from the Sutta Nipata; 9. The Dhammapada and the images of the bhikkhu; 10. The mediating role as shown in the Canon; 11. Exchange; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.