Reviews Of Diffeent Books

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

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REVIEWS
in India there is already a very large amount of published work available, mainly in English, but also in French and German. This subject is thus comparatively easily treated, and one's main task in this case is to correct the liberal-minded rationalizing approach, from which the retelling of Sākyamuni's life may suffer distortion." It is certainly true that much more has been written on the Buddhist origins in India than on Tantrism and the conversion of Tibet to Buddhism but whether this subject is therefore comparatively easily treated is another matter. For instance, in recent years several scholars have been trying to determine the nature of the earliest Buddhist doctrine by distinguishing different layers in the sūtras, by isolating verse passages and by comparing Buddhist doctrines with Jain doctrines and teachings found in the Upanişads. Snellgrove does not once refer to the writings of scholars such as Schmithausen and Vetter in Europe and Aramaki and Nakamura in Japan. Secondly, one wonders whether it is still necessary in the nineteen-eighties to correct the liberal-minded rationalizing approach which was widespread towards the end of the last century and which is only rarely found in recent times. It was obviously Snellgrove's intention to dwell only briefly on topics which have already been studied by other scholars unless he considered it necessary to correct wrong ideas. It is necessary to keep this in mind when reading Snellgrove's book and not to expect a well-balanced treatment of the various aspects of Buddhism Snellgrove has made a wide use of Sanskrit and Tibetan materials, translating many passages of hitherto untranslated texts. In the case of texts. already translated he presents his own translations.
The first two chapters deal mainly with Hinayāna and Mahāyāna. Snellgrove stresses that one cannot treat them as two distinct phases: “They may be regarded, however, as two fluctuating tendencies, usually mingling together, and only kept strictly apart in certain philosophical texts" (p. 32). He also points out that in Mahāyāna Sākyamuni, the Buddha of the present world-age, remains the centre of Buddhist devotion. According to Snellgrove "The central object of worship was in the first instance the stūpa and then later as the anthropomorphic form of Sākyamuni was elaborated, the Buddha-image itself, either superimposed upon the stūpa or enthroned alone" (p. 51). In chapter four Snellgrove remarks that in the seventh century Hsüan-tsang is greatly interested in all the historical and legendary sites connected with Sākyamuni's life and that the only celestial Bodhisattvas, whose cult impressed him, are Maitreya and Avalokitesvara. He also points out that there seems to be a time lag of two or three centuries between Mahāyāna sūtras preaching the benefits of devotion to other Buddhas as well as Sākyamuni and their iconographical representation. As to Tantric iconography Snellgrove writes that "there is little surviving iconographic