Reviews Of Diffeent Books

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

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REVIEWS
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unknown to Strong and it is therefore perhaps not superfluous to quote the following passage from the English summary: "My first object of this study is to make clear the political and religious realities of the Asokan Age through a critical study of the legends, with my second object being to show one'aspect of the spread of Indian culture by clarifying the acceptance and modification of Asoka legends in the countries surrounding India" (p. I). Strong's study is mainly based upon the Sanskrit text of the Aso kävadāna and does not quote any of the important Chinese sources at first hand. He quotes a great number of books and articles (cf. Bibliography, pp. 313-327) but important publications have escaped his notice, and those which are mentioned in the bibliography he does not seem to have always studied carefully. Moreover, his use of the existing literature is not very critical. To mention only a few examples: Strong writes that in India the concept of the cakravartin goes back to the tenth century B.C. (p. 48), referring in a note to a book by Charles Drekmeier;3 it is of course completely impossible to adduce any proof in support of this statement. On the interpretation of the epithet "Beloved of the Gods" (devānāmpriya), Strong refers to publications by Louis de La Vallée Poussin, Sylvain Lévi and F. Kielhorn (p. 11, n. 29), but completely ignores a recent article by Minoru Hara. On p. 13 Strong quotes from Rock Edict VIII the phrase: "(he) left for Sambodhi (complete enlightenment}” without pointing out that this interpretation is not accepted by the majority of scholars. Strong attributes the Süträlamkāra to Ašvaghosa and states that Kumāralata's Kalpanāmanditikā is in both style and contents closely akin to it (pp. 31-32). Although Strong quotes in a note Lüders' Bruchstücke der Kalpanāmanditikā, he does not seem aware of the fact that Lüders showed both works to be one and the same.
Strong, who is more interested in the interpretation of the legend than in a critical study of the legend and its background, likes to make sweeping statements. For instance, he writes that, according to Max Weber, early Buddhism was a classic example of other-worldly mysticism divorced from any real involvement in political rule or in worldly economic activities (p. 38). Strong adds that, today, this Weberian viewpoint has been fundamentally undermined, and in a note he refers for one aspect of this discrediting of Weber to a book by Heinz Bechert. However, Strong does not mention an important article by Bechert, in which he discussed Weber's interpretation in much greater depth. In his English summary Bechert writes: "Weber's opinions about the character of early Buddhism can be considered correct even today to a great degree, in spite of some misconceptions in Weber's book. Original Buddhism has been conceived as a way to final salvation, not as a social movement. The followers of the Buddha's teachings tried to evade implications of their religious movement in political and social matters as far as possible" (p. 294). Strong clearly prefers the "pulsating galactic or mandala model" of Buddhist kingship as described by Stanley Tambiah!
Strong criticises de La Vallée Poussin for translating pratyudyāna in the Abhidharmakosa by "spontaneous surrender" (reddition spontanée) which, according to him, hardly does justice to the sense of "meeting" or "encounter" implicit in the term (p. 52, n. 37). Strong refers to de La Vallée Poussin's translation of kārika III, 96 of the Abhidharmakośa.7 If Strong had taken the trouble to find out how de La Vallée Poussin arrived at his interpretation, he would have found the answer on p. 202, where de La Vallée Poussin translates a passage of the Abhidharmakośabhasya: “Le souverain à la roue d'or triomphe par pratyudyana. Les petits rois viennent vers lui, disant: 'Les districts riches, florissants, abondants en vivres, pleins d'hommes et d'hommes sages, daigne Sa Majesté (devādhideva) les gouverner! Nous-mêmes nous sommes à ses ordres'." De La Vallée Poussin's translation is fully confirmed by the Sanskrit text published in 1967: yasya sauvarnam cakram bhavati tam kotarājānah svayam pratyudgacchanti...8 It is rather surprising to see Strong in the same note characterise the Mahāvyutpatti as a great encyclopaedia of Buddhism.
In his chapter on Asoka and the Buddha, Strong studies several versions of Asoka's attempts to obtain Buddha's relics from the nägas (pp. 111-116). However, no mention is made at all of Przyluski's article on the division of the relics of the Buddha, although it is listed in the bibliography. Strong refers to a very late work, the Thupavamsa, but does not pay any