Reviews Of Diffeent Books

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

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REVIEWS
Snellgrove tried to deal with many topics without being able to treat them adequately within the limited space given to them, a much more satisfactory picture is to be found in chapters three and five which deal respectively with Tantric Buddhism and the conversion of Buddhism.
Snellgrove is one of the leading specialists in Buddhist Tantrism. His edition and translation of the Hevajratantra (London, 1959) is one of the best studies of a Tantric text ever published. His book-length chapter on Tantrism is a major contribution to the study of Tantrism and will be welcomed both by the general public and by specialists. The Tantric literature is very vast and only very few texts have been adequately studied by modern scholars. What Snellgrove has achieved in this chapter is an overview which forms a solid basis for further studies. He makes a distinction "between Mahāyāna Buddhism including those tantras that are closely relatable on the one hand and the form of tantric Buddhism, which may accurately be described as Vajrayāna, on the other” (p. 279). According to Snellgrove the traditional arrangement of four categories of tantras (kriyā, caryā, yoga and anuttarayoga) is of a rather arbitrary nature (p. 119, n. 5). He devotes one section to various kinds of tantra in which he distinguishes tantras relatable to Mahāyāna sūtras and tantras with non-Buddhist associations (pp. 147-160). To these later groups belong the anuttarayogatantras which introduce many new and un-Buddhist concepts. Throughout this chapter on Tantrism Snellgrove shows the progressive tantric development from Mahāyāna sūtras to Vajrayāna tantras. In the course of his treatment he explains the main characteristics of the tantric literature such as magical formulas, mandalas, Buddha-families, initiations and consecrations, etc. Snellgrove takes great pains to determine the meaning of important tantric concepts: siddha, sādhana, vajra, vidyā, hrdaya, bija and samaya, etc. Nobody will read this chapter without learning much about Buddhist tantrism. Especially welcome are the many passages from tantric texts of which most have not been translated before.
One of the texts most quoted by Snellgrove is the Sarvatathāgatatattvasamgraha which Snellgrove has studied for many years. In 1959 he announced the discovery of an early manuscript of it in Nepal. In 1981 Snellgrove published a facsimile edition of this manuscript provided with a long introduction of more than sixty pages. In the same year Isshi Yamada brought out a romanised edition of this same manuscript compared with the Tibetan and Chinese translations. Recently Lokesh Chandra published a devanāgari edition which we have not yet been able to consult.8 The STTS has also been edited in Japan by Horiuchi Kanjin. In translating passages from the STTS Snellgrove refers only to Yamada's edition. Even with the