Campbell's second volume, like the early Primitive Mythology, is at once challenging and edifying, if at times dryer and dated. Look to <i>The Masks of God</i> for its purpose: an archaeological exploration (in both earth and narrative soil) of how the ideas of humankind have developed.

Along the way readers learn of Campbell's methodology (I have doubts at points about his own adherence to it--mostly when he gets carried away with an idea), about his notions of the numinous, of the power of myth as a vehicle for wonder (always marvelous passages when they appear), and occasionally for his whims on reason and sound thinking (subtle but incisive). But readers should not mistake this edition for a wholesome embrace of the practice of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the like. 

Instead, Campbell wonders at how these traditions were assembled, from the Neolithic archetypes to the movements of cultures across the rivers and plains of history. He discovers, convincingly, that some of the "contradictions" we might see in various religious doctrines might have been the result of reconciliations after cultural assimilations, apologetic tokens of earlier ideas reframed, even politically savvy revisions of earlier myths to retain forms of power. But since his scale of scholarship is thousands of years instead of mere generations, it is difficult to place one's thumb on exactly the wheres and hows. 

Nonetheless, Campbell marks his speculations for what they are, reasoning away earlier thinkers and dismissing contemporary "theories" based upon principles he has earlier established. What becomes most fascinating (and at times problematic) is his framing of "epochs" of mythopoetic thought: of mythological identification to mythological inflation to mythological subordination, for instance, which at one and the same time help us understand umbrella-like structures of religious thought but at the same time provoke too-hasty generalizations or blind spots to exceptions. 

Campbell, too, as is his wont, will spend many pages offering us a single story as emblematic of a concept or a single ritual as central to a movement. While illustrative, one wonders how representative these are. As ever with his thicker writing, readers must be cautious of his argumentative structure: what seems a simple but isolated concept in one chapter will quickly become a signature catalyst some sections later, and sometimes he will move back and forth across centuries inside a few paragraphs, not clearly signaling to readers that he has done so. These are all part of his style of writing and candor in thinking, elements which have given critics some fodder for attacks, as well. 

Even so, Oriental Mythology is a powerful (and evidence-based) humbling for pop-culture believers of Eastern thought as it demonstrates the foundations for habits capitalistically acquired by Westerners (a behavior Campbell abhorred). More, it provides a powerful bridge volume to the next two volumes of Occidental civilization and the psychological creative impulse.