Reviews Of Etienne Lamotte

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

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REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS
determining the date of Nagarjuna. Rather surprisingly, L. quotes this statement, although he attaches no value to the biography (cf. Vk., p. 76).2
The Upadesa has traditionally been attributed to Nagarjuna (cf. Demiéville, op. cit., p. 381, n. 1). In his preface to the first volume L. wrote as follows: "Il [=Nāgārjuna] vécut probablement au IIe siècle de notre ère et joua un rôle de premier plan dans la formation du bouddhisme du Grand Véhicule. Originaire du Sud (pays d'Andhra), il étendit son influence jusqu'au Nord-Ouest de l'Inde" (p. x). In an article, published in 1954: "Sur la formation du Mahāyāna" (Asiatica, Leipzig, 1954, pp. 377-96), L. had changed his point of view and wrote: "La critique moderne y va de sa légende à elle et propose de chercher les origines du Mahāyāna dans l'Inde du Sud, en pays Andhra" (p. 386). Nāgarjuna exercised his activity in the north-west of India and his role in the formation of Mahayana Buddhism is not primordial: "Nagarjuna est bien postérieur à l'éclosion des Mahāyānasūtra, car on trouve dans ses œuvres et notamment dans son Upadesa (T 1509) et sa Daśabhumivibhāṣā (T 1522) des références et des citations empruntées à une bonne cinquantaine de sutra et sastra mahâyânistes" (p. 391). L.'s change of opinion, which was characterized by Demiéville as a "volte-face" (OLZ, 1959, Sp. 248), is carried to a logical conclusion in his most recent discussion of the problem of the authorship. Whereas in 1954 he still considered Nagarjuna to be the author of the Upadesa, in the introduction to Volume III of this translation (henceforth: III, Intr.) the author is said to have lived after the first Madhyamika: Nāgārjuna, Aryadeva and Rahulabhadra, probably in the beginning of the fourth century (p. xl). L. even sketches in some detail the spiritual development of the author as a sarvästivädin converted to the Madhyamaka (cf. also Demiéville, JA, 1950, p. 382). The date of the author depends on two lines of argument. The first shows that Nagarjuna lived between A.D. 243 and 300. The second that the author of the Upadesa quotes not only Nagarjuna's works, but also those of his pupil, Aryadeva, and of his contemporary, Rahulabhadra. The date of Nagarjuna has been studied by L. in his Vk. (pp. 70-7). In III, Intr. L. quotes the same texts but the argumentation is not entirely the same (pp. li-lv). The texts, quoted by him, are well known (cf. Mochizuki, op. cit., p. 4996a-b). According to Tao-an of the Later Chou Kumārajīva adopted 637 B.C. as the date of Buddha's Nirvāņa (Vk. p. 73; III, Intr. p. li). Robinson rightly queries the authenticity of this passage which was written in A.D. 568, a century and a half after Kumārajīva (op. cit., p. 23). In the second place L. quotes a preface to the Satyasiddhiśästra, written by Seng-jui, a disciple of Kumārajīva. This preface is lost, but is quoted by Chi-tsang in his commentaries. According to this quotation Asvaghosa was born 350 years after the Nirvana of the Buddha and Nagarjuna in the year 530. L. explains that this can be understood in two ways: (1) Aśvaghosa and Nagarjuna were born, respectively, 350 and 530 years after the Nirvana; (2) Aśvaghoşa was born 350 years after the Nirvana and Nagarjuna 530 years after Asvaghosa. L. tries to prove that the second alternative has to be preferred. However, Mochizuki has already pointed out two other quotations of the same preface, in which the addition of hou or ch'i hou clearly indicates that 530 years after Asvaghosa are meant.3 Consequently Nagarjuna was born 880 years after the Nirvana of the Buddha (637 B.C.) A.D. 243. L. arrives at the date of A.D. 300 for his death by referring to the Lung-shu p'u-sa chuan, as mentioned above, and to the Tibetische Lebensbeschreibung Sakyamuni's (tr. A. Schiefner, St. Petersburg, 1848, p. 310) according to which Nagarjuna lived 60 years. Schiefner's work is an abridged translation of a text written in 1734 (cf. T'oung Pao, XLIII, 1955, PP. 317-18). Moreover, L. quotes as "un indice, permettant de contrôler l'exactitude de la date 243 p.C. proposée pour la naissance de Nagarjuna" the fact that
2 Thomas Watters already referred to the Biography: "If we regard his Life as having been composed by Kumārajīva, its professed translator, he lived in the latter part of the 3rd century of our era" (On Yuan Chwang's travels in India, Vol. II, 1905, p. 204). Cf. also Mochizuki Shinko's Bukkyōdaijiten, Vol. V, 1933, p. 4996b; Robinson, op. cit., p. 25.
3 Op cit., p. 4996b1-2. Mochizuki refers to Taishō 1855 (p. 119a21 ff.) and to Hui-ying's commentary on the Upadeśa (Dainihon bukkyō zensho, Vol. XCIV, p. 110b).