The Buddhist Heritage

·期刊原文
The Buddhist Heritage
Reviewed by Collett Cox
The Journal of the American Oriental Society
Vol.112 No.4

Oct-Dec 1992

p.666-668

Copyright by American Oriental Society

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This book is a collection of papers that, for the most part, were
originally delivered as part of a symposium of the same name held in
1985 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University
of London. According to the editor's "Preface," this volume is the
first volume in a projected series entitled Buddhica Britannica
intended to embrace studies on various aspects of Buddhist
traditions throughout Asia. Appropriate then for the inauguration of
this series, the subject of this first volume is the "Buddhist
Heritage" in India and in the larger Asian and Western worlds, here
amply celebrated by a highly diverse assemblage of articles
considering both scriptural and wider-ranging cultural expressions.
The initial contribution, David L. Snellgrove's "Multiple Features
of the Buddhist Heritage," also serves as a kind of introduction,
first discussing some of the significant characteristics shared by
various branches of the Buddhist tradition throughout Asia, and then
examining some changes in Buddhist practice and, in particular, the
influence of tantric developments. In addition to setting forth
certain generalizations, Snellgrove wishes to correct others,
particularly those concerning Theravada versus Mahayana, where
typically the former is seen as less ritualistic and the latter as
devaluing monastic life.
In "Aspects of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia,"
Heinz Bechert sketches some of the pivotal events and factors in the
development of Buddhist religious life in Theravadin cultures. These
include the institutional changes brought about by the progressive
interaction of the original sangha with state authority, the
interplay of "great" and "little" traditions, and the impact of the
colonial period. In conclusion, Bechert refers to the problem of the
emergence of Buddhist sects, which he sees as one of the most
important and least understood factors in the development of
Buddhism. To clarify this issue, Bechert appeals to a distinction
between sects and schools, i.e., respectively disciplinary and
doctrinal differences, which he has discussed at length in other
works.
K. R. Norman, in "The Pali Language and Scriptures," systematically
and with ample documentation from primary and secondary sources
surveys the most important issues in the history of the Pali canon
including among others: the councils, the bhanaka system, oral and
written phases, linguistic developments, relationships with other
traditions, later phases of the indigenous traditions, and Western
scholarship. This paper develops topics covered in the author's Pali
Literature (1983), to which it provides an important continuation
and complement.
Building on the lifelong research of Christian Hooykaas, Anthony
Christie, in "Buddhism in Southeast Asia: an Anecdotal Survey,"
discusses the relationship between Saiva and Buddhist ritualists in
modern Bali. To his treatment, Christie contributes additional
Southeast Asian material, consideration of the issue of
vegetarianism and of the practice of constructing sand cetiyas.
In a long essay, "The Unique Features of Newar Buddhism," John K.
Locke describes and explores the background and history of the
salient characteristics of Newar Buddhism. Locke locates these
unique features not simply in Newar Buddhism's being tantric or
being "mixed up with Hinduism," but in its being "embedded in a
dominant Hindu society confined within a very small geographical
area." The expression of these unique features in the "lifestyle of
the sangha and the viharas in which they live" is examined in terms
of ritual, architecture, social history, and historical antecedents.

E. Zurcher, in "The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Culture in an
Historical Perspective," concisely delineates the main strands of
the history of Buddhism in China: the silk road and the geography of
transmission, the main periods, the social stratification, state
relations, and cultural vicissitudes in different periods.
In "Buddhist Monuments in China: Some Recent Finds of Sarira
Deposits," Roderick Whitfield catalogues some of the numerous finds
of sarira deposits recorded in Chinese archaeological journals from
1957 to 1988, arranged conveniently here by dynasty.
The Fang-shan Chinese stone carvings of the Buddhist canon form the
topic of Lewis R. Lancaster's "The Rock Cut Canon in China: Findings
at Fang-shan." Lancaster examines the history, archaeological
details, and significance of the stone carvings begun in the seventh
century by a monk named Ching-wan of the Chih-ch'uan monastery and
continued in Fang-shan district during the next seven centuries to
include ultimately a major portion of the Buddhist canon on 14,260
stone slabs. Containing in some cases versions of texts even earlier
than those found at Tun-huang, and largely representing a version of
the canon contemporaneous with the oldest sources for our current
editions, the Fang-shan canon, Lancaster believes, is an invaluable
source that must be used in any future critical studies of the
Chinese canon.
Youngsook Pak, in "Excavations of Buddhist Temple Sites in Korea
since 1960," surveys, with plates, excavation reports on five
important temple complexes built in Korea between the fifth and
tenth centuries. In addition, along with diagrams of groundplans, he
discusses the layout of the monasteries uncovered at these sites
with a view towards placing them in the history of sacred
architecture in East Asia during this period.
In "Word and Wordlessness: The Spirit of Korean Buddhism," Hee-Sung
Keel first presents a short overview of the basic social groups and
major personalities of Korean Buddhism. Next, the author examines
the key relationship in Korean Buddhism between Kyo (older
established doctrinal schools) and Son (Ch'an or Zen), as
exemplified in the writings of Hyujong, a central figure of the Yi
dynasty, on the relationship between verbal doctrine and ineffable
truth.
In "Contemporary Lay Buddhist Movements in Japan: A Comparison
Between Reiyukai and Soka Gakkai," Kubo Tsugunari offers a
conspectus, enriched by the knowledge and unique insights of an
insider, on this pair of lay Buddhist religious groups. Both
Reiyukai and Soka Gakkai, under the impetus of a common heritage of
Buddhist thought and, in particular, the Lotus Sutra, have
originated, expanded, and eventually flourished in modern era Japan.
Kubo first sets out the personalities and history of each movement,
succinctly situating each in its larger social context, then
describes practice and belief, and, in conclusion, summarizes their
most important similarities and divergencies.
A. Piatigorsky first presents some general observations about the
nature of religious syncretism, connected here to the specific
interaction between Buddhism and shamanism, in "Buddhism in Tuva:
Preliminary Observations on Religious Syncretism." Following this
treatment of Buddhism and shamanism, the author adds a short
chronology of Buddhism in Tuva and concludes with personal
ethnographic observations of the religious situation in Ivolga.
In "The Buddhist Notion of an 'Immanent Absolute' (tathagatagarbha)
as a Problem in Hermeneutics," D. Seyfort Ruegg traces the attempts
of the later Buddhist tradition to reconcile the notion of a
spiritual germ, matrix or Buddhanature (gotra, tathagatagarbha) with
the fundamental teaching of non-self or (anatman). One prominent
mode of reconciliation was hermeneutical: drawing upon ideas shared
with Indian poetics, Buddhist interpreters elaborated a hierarchy of
statements, in which unacceptable overt declarations could be
rendered acceptable by declaring them to be intentional surface
presentations of deeper meanings accessible only through the
requisite exegesis. For a more detailed treatment of this problem
and its solutions, both hermeneutical and doctrinal, we are referred
by the author to the first chapter of his Buddha-nature, Mind and
the Problem of Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective (School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1989).
In "Contemporary European Scholarship on Buddhism," a fitting final
contribution to this wide-ranging volume, Russell Webb surveys the
most prominent European researchers on Buddhism by area of
specialization, with background information and bibliographical
record of their publications and activities.
All scholars of Buddhism will undoubtedly find something of interest
to be read with profit in this diverse collection of papers. The
editor and the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Tring, are to be
thanked for bringing about the publication of this, and we hope
future volumes of the Buddhica Britannica series.