Reviews Of Diffeent Books

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

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REVIEWS
Gareth Sparham's work is a translation of the Tibetan version of the Udanavarga, a work different from the Pāli Dhammapada. The Tibetan Udanavarga was first translated by W. W. Rockhill in 1883.' Gareth Sparham discovered Rockhill's translation when he had nearly finished checking his translation against the Commentary by Prajñāvarman. He decided to publish his own translation which he considered to be an improvement upon the one that Rockhill had done because the extensive training in the scholastic tradition of Buddhism that he had received made him more familiar with both the technical language of the text and the specifics of the mental development being presented (p. 12). Gareth Sparham's translation was first published in 1983. It is only after the publication of his translation that he discovered the existence of a critical edition of the Sanskrit text. However, Gareth Sparham did not consider it necessary to compare his translation with it and to make the necessary revisions. He declares that it has become apparent in the last twenty years that serious Buddhist scholarship must, where possible, base itself primarily on Tibetan sources and use extant Sanskrit texts as an aid, not vice versa. It is obvious that Gareth Sparham has not the slightest notion of the philological problems connected with the translation of a Tibetan version of a Sanskrit text. Knowledge of Tibetan and assistance from Tibetan lamas are not sufficient to arrive at a correct understanding. In the case of the Udanavarga a translator of the Tibetan version is at present in a much more favourable position than Rockhill who could only make use of parallel verses in the Pāli Dhammapada. As Lambert Schmithausen has shown, there are two different recensions of the Udānavarga.2 The first is the Vulgate which is represented by most manuscripts and which is the basis of Bernhard's edition.3 The second formed the basis of the Tibetan translation of the Udanavarga. Because the Tibetan version represents a text different from the Sanskrit text, it would be useful to translate both the Sanskrit text and the Tibetan version. Although the Sanskrit text represents a different recension, it is not possible to arrive at a satisfactory translation of the Tibetan version without consulting the Sanskrit text. Very important in this respect also is Prajñāvarman's commentary which Gareth Sparham has consulted but without making sufficient use of it. To mention only a single example: in verses 14 and 15 of chapter four the text mentions a byis-pa'i sin-rta which Sparham translates as 'an infant's cart'. However, Prajñāvarman explains that sin-rta stands for sin-rta-pa 'a waggoner' and a byis-pa'i sin-rta is 'a foolish waggoner' as Rockhill correctly translated. The Sanskrit text differs but contains the word śäkatika which, undoubtedly, figured in the text translated into Tibetan. In other instances, a better translation would