________________ BOOK REVIEW David Seyfort Ruegg, La Theorie du Tathagatagarbha et du Gotra. Etude sur la Soteriologie et la Gnoseologie du Bouddhisme. Paris: Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1969 (Publications de l'Ecole Francaise d'ExtremeOrient, volume LXXVI). Professor D. S. Ruegg has made a brilliant contribution to the cause of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies by presenting in this voluminous book an exemplary exposition of the doctrine of the tathagatagarbha, which is of great importance in the history of Mahayana Buddhism. The * tathagatagarbha means the embryo of the tathagata that exists in all sentient beings (sattva) without exception and functions as a cause of the final liberation of the sentient beings. The deep significance of the tathagatagarbha-doctrine is found in that the said soteriological aspect of the doctrine is closely combined with the metaphysical and gnoseological aspects, since the tathagatagarbha is considered as equivalent to the Ultimate Reality (dharmadhatu, dharmata, etc.) that becomes the sphere of operation of the pure intuitive knowledge. The tathagatagarbhadoctrine was preached in a number of Mahayana sutras, such as the Tathagatagarbha-s., Srimaladevisimhanada-s., etc., and was systematically expounded in the Ratnagotravibhaga (= RGV) and some other sastras. The RGV1 was first translated by E. Obermiller from the Tibetan version in 1931.2 The publication of E. H. Johnston's edition of the Sanskrit text in 19503 provided a new stimulus to the study of this important treatise. Several passages and verses were presented in translation by E. Conze 4 and E. Frauwallner 5 in their books describing the development of the Buddhist thought. J. Takasaki prepared a new complete translation, which was published in 1966 with the introduction containing an analysis of the structure of the text and a brief sketch of the genealogy of the tathagatagarbha-theory based on his examination of the sutras and the sastras. A Japanese translation was made by H. Ui and was published together with his studies of the related materials Journal of Indian Philosophy 2 (1972) 53-64. All Rights Reserved Copyright (c) 1972 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland