Book Reviews

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

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BOOK REVIEWS
THE ESSENCE OF METAPHYSICS. Abhidharmahsdaya. Translated and annotated by Charles Willemen. Publications de l'Institut Belge des Hautes Études Bouddhiques, Série "Études et textes" No. 4. Bruxelles, 1975. XXVII, 366 pp. et 25 pp. de texte chinois. LE COEUR DE LA LOI SUPRÊME. Traité de Fa-cheng. Abhidharmahydayaśāstra de Dharmasri. Traduit et annoté par I, Armelin. Paris, Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1978. 388 pp.
THE PUBLICATION of two translations of the Abhidharmahşdaya (T. no. 1550) testifies to the growing interest in Abhidharma studies in recent years. In 1977 José van den Broeck published a French translation of Ghoşaka's Amộtarasa (T. no. 1553) and Marcel van Velthem a French translation of Skandhila's Abhidharmavatāraśāstra (T. no. 1554).1 Mrs. Armelin's translation was already finished in 1963. Since then she has added a long introduction (pp. 3-48) in which she makes much use of Yamada Ryūjō's Daijā bukkyo seiritsuron josetsu (Kyoto, 1959). In her preface she announces a translation of Dharmatrāta's Samyukta-abhidharmasāra (T. no. 1552) and a book on the importance of the Abhidharma in Indian thought (L'importance de l'Abhidharma dans la pensée indienne).
Willemen's introduction (pp. V-XXVII) is divided into two parts. The first deals with the three texts called (Samyukta) abhidharmahsdaya (T. nos. 1550, 1551 and 1552), their authors and the Chinese translations (pp. V-XXVII). The name of the author of I (T. no. 1550) is Fa-shêng. Western scholars assume that his Sanskrit name is Dharmaśrī but several Japanese scholars prefer Dharmaśreșthin. In his L'aide-mémoire de la vraie loi (Paris, 1949, p. 51, n. I) Lin Li-kouang pointed out that Dharmatrāta in his Ch'u-yao ching (T. no. 212, p. 643a) quotes the opinion of Tan-mo-shih-li on the importance of the
1 La saveur de l'immortel (A-p'i-t'an Kan Lu Wei Lun). La version chinoise de l'Amộtarasa de Ghosaka (T.1553). Traduite et annotée par José van den Broeck. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1977. Le traité de la descente dans la profonde loi (Abhidharmävatāraśāstra) de l'Arhat Skandhila. Traduit et annoté par Marcel van Velthem. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1977. Reviews of both works will be published in the Toung Pao.
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