The Buddhist Forum, vol. 1, Semnar Papers 1987-1988

·期刊原文
The Buddhist Forum, vol. 1, Semnar Papers 1987-1988
Reviewed by Collet Cox
The Journal of the American Oriental Society

Vol.113 No.3

July-Sep 1993

Pp.511-512

Copyright by American Oriental Society

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The essays collected in this volume are based on papers given during
the 1987-1988 academic year in a seminar series at the School of
Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. The
series, entitled "The Buddhist Forum," was not organized in
accordance with a single theme, but encompassed various aspects of
Buddhism and was intended to "provide a forum for the presentation
of new research and for the exchange of opinions and ideas." In
"Recovering the Buddha's Message," R. F. Gombrich discusses the
historical and intellectual context in which the earliest Buddhist
scriptures, assumed to reflect the teaching of the Buddha himself,
are to be read. He first briefly reviews certain methods by which it
has been suggested that chronological layers can be discerned within
texts: for example, stylistic criteria or inconsistencies in
argument. As a general guide to interpretation, Gombrich supports
analogous application of the textual principle of "difficilior
potior" to the Buddhist teaching and argues that the tendency of
later tradition would be to eliminate contradictions and
inconsistencies that are thus more likely to derive from the Buddha
himself. Further, assuming that the earliest teaching was based on
direct mystical experience, Gombrich suggests that its linguistic
expression would accordingly be multifaceted, given its attempt to
describe in a variety of modes something not amenable to univocal
discursive expression. Finally, Gombrich argues, with examples, for
a closer reading of the Buddhist texts in a Vedic, brahmanical
context; as objects of jokes or puns, or as foils for arguments,
many Buddhist passages require knowledge of this context to be fully
intelligible.
In another contribution, "How the Mahayana Began," Gombrich offers a
novel perspective on the long-discussed and still murky origins of
Mahayana. The decisive event leading to the emergence of Mahayana,
according to Gombrich, is the introduction of writing and the
emergence of written texts. This enabled dissenting or heretical
ideas to be preserved independent of what he sees as the inherent
tendency of collective oral transmission toward status-quo
standardization. Gombrich finds a confirming echo of this pivotal
event in the predilection of Mahayana texts to celebrate their own
worship in written form.
In "Pali Philology and the Study of Buddhism," K. R. Norman argues
for the pressing need for more philological work on Buddhist
scriptures. Concisely and with well-chosen examples, he underscores
that errors and ambiguities mar the reading of most published texts
of Pali Buddhist scriptures. The textual deficiencies of Pali texts,
and by extension other branches of the Buddhist tradition, Norman
argues, cannot be ignored as trivial by scholars intent on larger
doctrinal issues. Unless basic work is undertaken to produce sounder
texts, interpretative arguments built on a porous textual foundation
will ultimately founder.
In a relatively longer essay, "How Buddhist is Theravada Buddhist
Law? A Survey of Legal Literature in Pali-Land," A. Huxley
undertakes to examine comparatively the development of "Buddhist
secular law" in the "predecessor kingdoms" to modern Burma, Laos,
Kampuchea, and Thailand (for which Huxley coins the neologism
"Pali-land") in the period from 1044 to 1893 A.D. After a lengthy
and detailed historical survey of the various genres of legal
literature in each of the three regions, Huxley turns to a
discussion of common underlying legal concepts in secular law of the
Pali-land as a whole, and more briefly to the various Buddhist
social contexts influencing the development of law in each
subregion. In his conclusion, Huxley includes developments in Sri
Lanka to throw further into relief the conditions that led to
divergent and individual expressions of legal tradition in each
culture. In his contribution, "Kill the Patriarchs," T. H. Barrett
investigates the emergence of the notion of spiritual lineages in
the Ch'an Buddhism of seventh-century China. After a short survey of
recent Western and Japanese studies examining the historical
background and context of the notion of authoritative tradition in
China at that time, Barrett offers his own perspective focusing on
the crisis of authority in Chinese Buddhism provoked by the new
translations of the returned pilgrim Hsuan-tsang. One response to
this crisis, Barrett suggests, was the assertion of the notion of an
already established lineage of authoritative patriarchs, in the case
of Ch'an, extending unbroken back through the key figure,
Bodhidharma, to shadowy origins in India. In a second essay,
"Exploratory Observations on Some Weeping Pilgrims," Barrett
examines certain underlying, particularly Chinese, modes of
intellectual and affective perception that shaped the experiences of
medieval Chinese pilgrims to India--Fa-hsien, Hsuan-Tsang, and
I-ching--and formalized the literary record of their journeys. Much
of the unique character and interest of their experiences Barrett
sees as springing from the contrasting and conflicting interaction
of Chinese sensibility and Indian Buddhist belief heightened by the
rare event of actual pilgrimage to India.
In the final essay of this collection, "Images and Permutations of
Vajrasattva in the Vajradhatu-Mandala," I. Astley-Kristensen
explores some of the complex correspondences that configure the
worship of Vajrasattva in the Naya Assembly sub-mandala of the
important Vajradhatu-mandala. By tracing the scriptural sources,
delineating the doctrinal precedents, and articulating the ritual
form of this one sub-mandala, the author illustrates the remarkable
degree of condensation of tradition effected by the Tantric Buddhist
tradition.
The editor is to be commended for bringing about the publication of
this collection of essays so that a wider audience can also
participate in some way in the evidently interesting seminars of
"The Buddhist Forum" of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
The volume contains essays of interest to scholars of varied
specialized interests in Buddhist Studies and succeeds admirably in
providing, as the editor notes, "a broad cross-section of British
scholarship in Buddhist Studies today."