Reviews Of Diffeent Books

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

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230
REVIEWS
party". It is sometimes necessary to consult the Tibetan text in order to understand Hopkins's renderings. On p. 417 "the definitive great scholar" renders Tibetan res-pa don-gyi mkhas-grub "the Perfect one who knows the definitive meaning". However, such mistranslations are rare. Hopkins has an excellent knowledge of Tibetan Buddhist texts and his works could be so much more readable if he would be willing to give up some of his idiosyncratic renderings.
NOTES
1 Cf. Donald S. Lopez, A Study of Svātantrika (Ithaca, 1987), p. 229. 2 Mind and Liberation: The Sautrāntika Tenet System in Tibet. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms 1981 (cf. Hopkins, p. 455). 3 JIABS, vol. 9, no. 1 (1986), pp. 124-128.
Australian National University
J. W. DE JONG
Dieter Michael Back, Rig pa no sprod gcer mthon ran grol. Die Erkenntnislehre des Bar do thos-grol (Freiburger Beiträge zur Indologie, Band 18). Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1987. IX, 142 pp. DM 58,
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Back's book comprises a critical edition and translation of a text which belongs to the corpus of the Bar do thos-grol (BTG) literature. In his introduction Back studies the composition of different collections of BTG texts. According to Back the original collection consisted of eight texts (p. 9). Other texts were added later and a collection of 17 texts was formed (p. 10). Larger collections of texts contain commentaries on these texts or texts which share the same world of ideas (p. 10). In the English summary Back distinguishes an "edition for use" which comprises the texts necessary for the ritual of death and the guidance of a dead person to salvation or a good rebirth and a "library edition" which adds texts which deal with the ideas and doctrines of the BTG (p. 135). Only a detailed study of the texts in the different collections will enable us to clarify the history of their composition.
According to Back the Rig pa no sprod gcer mthon ran grol reflects the fundamental ideas of the Vijñānavāda school. Although the text contains idealistic theories it is not possible to detect any definite influence of the doctrines of the Vijñānavāda school. Back's edition of the text indicates the variant readings found in different editions. The edition and text are
Indo-Iranian Journal 32: 1989.