Review: [untitled] Author(s): Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.

106, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1986), pp. 617621 Published by: American Oriental Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602157 Accessed: 13/07/2010 12:23
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Reviews of Books
Honganji forces, which, with Fujiki Hisashi, he regards as "the major event of Nobunaga's life" (p. 101). McMullin also takes up here Nobunaga's "most notorious single act," the destruction of Mt. Hiei, but balances this with a discussion of his associations with several temples with which he formed alliances. In Chapter Four, he considers measures taken by Nobunaga to suppress the economic strength of the templesmeasures such as the confiscation of temple lands, the destruction or seizure of temple and precinct towns (monzenmachi and finaimachi), and the establishment of free markets to compete with guilds controlled by the nobility and the temples. However, the picture of Nobunaga that McMullin develops in these chapters is less that of a man bent on "eradication" than that of a seeker of power whose every act was governed by the rule of expediency. As McMullin notes in discussing his economic policies, for example, "Nobunaga had no intention'of confiscating all, or even most, of the lands that were owned by temples in his domain" (p. 167), and he cites approvingly Wakita Osamu's view that "more often than not [Nobunaga] supported the guilds and permitted them to operate in the commercial centers" (p. 198). Above all, Nobunaga was a very practical man, a fact that McMullin well appreciates. Because he argues this point persuasively, however, his assertion at the outset of Part Three that "the eradication of the power, wealth and independence of the temples was a process that reached its climax with Nobunaga . . ." (p. 234) seems strangely out of place. No doubt, Nobunaga's efforts to bring the temples under his control may accurately be described as groundbreaking, and they are well worth the close attention that McMullin gives them; but, as the author himself in other passages seems willing to admit, it was Hideyoshi and Ieyasu that brought them to fruition. More troubling in this final section, however, is McMullin's characterization of Japan after the sixteenth century as "PostBuddhist." It is one thing to argue that dramatic changes took place in the military and economic status of the Buddhist establishment in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; it is another to conclude that thereafter the religion was without significant influence. While McMullin claims that "Buddhism made no appreciable contribution to the intellectual foundation of the Tokugawa regime" (p. 272), Herman Ooms has clearly shown that this was not the case. And McMullin's depiction of Tokugawa Buddhism as merely a religion in decline (with minor qualifications offered in the closing paragraphs) fails to take into account research by Tamamuro Fumio, Kashiwahara Yfisen, Okuwa Hitoshi and others that has moved the discussion beyond this longstanding, but incomplete, characterization. These reservations notwithstanding, McMullin's study represents a marked advance in our understanding both of Nobunaga and of the profound changes that Japanese Buddhism underwent at the

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end of the medieval period. For that, it should be read by students of Japanese history and religion alike.
PAUL COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

B. WATT

Dge-Idan legs-bshad. By BSOD-NAMS GRAGS-PA. Edited by DON-GRUB. Pp. 233. Lhasa: TIBETANPEOPLE'S PUBLISHING HOUSE. 1983. Rmb 0.47. Ever since the appearance of Csoma de K6rds' articles on Sa-skya Pandita's (1182-1251) Legs-par bshad-pa rin-poche'-gter in 1855 and 1856, scholarship on this text and its Indian subhdsita background has continued unabated. The first complete translation of this work, together with its Mongol version, was published by Bosson (1969). Jackson (1983:5) provided a survey of the major Tibetan commentaries and lexical glosses on Sa-pan's Sa-skya legs-bshad, as it is alternatively known, to which we should add the recently published exegesis of Bsod-nams rgyal-mtshan, the Sa-skya legs-bshad-kyi 'grel-pa gsar-bu'i dga'-ston, Part One (deb gong-ma), Lhasa: TPPH, 1982, p. 79, and Part Two (deb bar-pa), Lhasa: TPPH, 1983, p. 156 (up to Chapter 4). The last, state-of-the-art paper on this work was published by Hahn (1984). Besides pointing out that, despite Bosson's pioneer edition of the Sa-skya legs-bshad, a good deal of philological weeding still remains to be done, Hahn also established once and for all (p. 60) that it is "ein uberwiegend selbstandiges und originelles Werk der tibetischen Literatur" and "nicht . .. eine blosse Adaptation oder Imitation indischer Vorlagen." The date of its composition is not given in the colophon of the various available prints. Van der Kuijp (1984:48) conjectured that it should fall somewhere betwen 1219 and 1232. At least as far as the terminus ad quem is concerned, this is now supported by the fact that the Sa-skya legs-bshad is cited in a collection of 'Bri-gung-paBka'-brgyud-pa precepts which, on the basis of intertextual criteria, was most probably composed between 1228 and 1232.' ' See Dbon-po Shes-rab 'byung-gnas' (1187-1241), Choskyi 'khor-lo'i gnad-bsdus-kyi tshoms, in Dgongs-gcig yigcha, Vol. 1, Bir, 1975, p. 413: legs-bshad rin-po-che'i gterlas / mkhas-payon-tan dpag-med kyang / / gzhan-gyiyon-tan chung-ngu len / / de-Itar yun-du spyad-pa-yis / / myur-du thams-cad mkhyen-par- 'gro / /. This verse corresponds neatly to the Sa-skya legs-bshad, Chapter One, verse 10. Elsewhere,

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Dbyangs-can dga'-ba'i blo-gros; the original blocks for his work are housed at Dge-'os (?) University. Consisting of 125 "gnomes," the Dge-ldan legs-bshad is both more succinct than Sa-pan's work, and more topically restricted as is belied by the full title which reads: "A Treatise which Investigates [the Differences between] the Wise and the Fool, The Dgeidan gnomes, A Bouquet of White Lotuses" (mkhas-pa dang blun-po brtag-pa'i bstan-bcos dge-ldan legs-bshad padma dkar-po'i chun-po). While undated, the colophon (p. 221) suggests that it was written by the Pan-chen at Dge (= Dga')ldan rnam-par rgyal-ba'i-gling. Since we know that he was the fifteenth abbot of this monastery from 1529 to 1535/6, after which he remained affiliated with it until his call to mount the abbatial throne of all of 'Bras-spungs in 1542, we can assume that it must have been written between the years 1529 and 1542. Its first subtitle of Dge-ldan legs-bshad leads us to suspect that he clearly wanted to demarcate it from Sa-pan's work which, by that time, probably was already known as the Sa-skya legs-bshad. Indeed, gnomes 121 to 123 explicitly refer to Sa-pan's work; they read (pp. 217ff.): mkhas-pa'i dbang-po sa-pan-gyis // mkhas-pa rnam-par dbye-ba-yi /a legs-bshad rin-chen-gter zhes-pa // jig-rten mig-tu byin-na-yang // deng-sang mkhas-pa'i nyin-byed-rnams // zhing-gzhan nub-ri'i rtser-son cingb blun-rmongs zla-ba'i gzugs-shar-bas // legs-bshad padmo phal-cher zum / / slar-yang bdag-blo 'i skyed-tshal 'dir // rnam-dpyod nyi-ma'i zer-'khyil zhing // brtson- 'grus char-gyis bran-pa las / / legs-bshadpadmo dkar-po 'khrungs // 121

The Tibetan Bstan- 'gyurcanonical collection contains some eight Indian texts of the "gnomic" (legs-bshad, subhdsita) genre. Only one of these seems to have been commented upon by a Tibetan scholar. This was Nagarjuna's Janaposanabindu on which 'Dul-'dzin Grags-pargyal-mtshan (1374-1436) wrote a little work by the name of Skye-bo gso-ba'i thigs-pa (zhesbya-ba'i) rnam-bshad nor-bu'i-rgyan. It was recently published as Skye-bo gso-thigs (ed. Gsang-bdag, Peking: People's Publishing House, 1984, p. 68) on the basis of a handwritten manuscript. The mala text is a corrected Snar-thang print for which the blocks were prepared by Hor-khang sras Bsodnams dpal-'bar (1918- ), the well known scholar of the house of Hor-khang in Lhasa, in 1945; Hor-khang-pa has just published an informative biography of Dge-'dun chos-'phel in Bod-ljongs zhib- jug 2 (1983), 1-31. Gsang-bdag, the editor of this little volume, suggests that 'Dul-'dzin's alias was Blo-gros sbas-pa, but this is an error. Blo-gros sbas-pa was a student of 'Dul-'dzin and his dates are 1400 to 1475. It should furthermore be said that the commentary is not mentioned in the available listings of 'Dul-'dzin's oeuvre.2 The Dge-ldan legs-bshad, therefore, did not occur ex nihilo and presupposes a considerable amount of earlier Tibetan "gnomic" literature. To date, I know of two articles that have been devoted to this text; one by Chang (1983), the other by Mig-dmar tshe-ring (1985). I am to some extent indebted to their surveys for what follows. Although the cover of the booklet under review simply states Dge-ldan legs-bshad, it contains in fact the mula text of Pan-chen Bsod-nams grags-pa (1478-1554)-Chang (1983:77) wrongly dates him as 1481-1556-plus the commentary by

122

Dbon-po also refers to a Legs-bshad rin-chen-gter verse which reads: brtson-pa dor-nas 'dug-pa-la // 'diphyignyis-ka 'grub-mi-'gyur / / 'bad-pamed-na zhing-bzang yang / / lo-tog 'thob-par mi- 'gyur-ro //; see the Kun-la phanpa rten- 'brel-gyi gnad-bsdus in the same volume, p. 502. Though the titles are very much alike, this verse is not found in the Sa-skya legsbshad. The original Dgongs-gcig precepts derive from 'Brigung 'Jig-rten mgon-po (1143-1217) whose nephew (dbon-po) collected and transcribed them at Mkhar-chu in 1228, not in 1226 as the Preface states. In the absence of any reference to Sa-pan's critique of a number of 'Jig-rten mgon-po's propositions as contained in his Sdom-gsum rab-dbye (usually dated as 1232), 1 would suppose that Dbon-po's commentary was written between the years 1228 and 1232. 2 See, for instance, Las-chen Kun-dga' rgyal-mtshan, Bka'gdams-kyi rnam-par thar-pa bka'-gdams chos-'byung gsalba'i sgron-me, Vol. II (New Delhi, 1972), pp. 480ff. and Pan-chen Bsod-nams grags-pa, Bka'-gdams gsar-rnying-gi chos-'byung yid-kyi mdzes-rgyan, in Two Histories of the Bka'-gdams-pa Tradition (Gangtok, 1977), p. 63 which is a somewhat misleading summary of Las-chen's list.

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a. Gdong-thog-pa (1979:139) reads mkhas-blun rnampar phye-ba-yi / / which is confirmed by Dbyangscan's commentary. Despite Mig-dmar tshe-ring (1985:44), which adopts the reading of the Dgeidan legs-bshad, this is the preferred one. b. Gdong-thog-pa (1979:139) has zhing for cing which is unproblematic. "Even though the Legs-bshad rin-chen-gter By Sa-pan, the lord of the wise, Which distinguishes between the wise and the fool, Has provided an eye [to observe] worldly commerce, Nowadays, the suns of learning Have gone to another region, to the peak of the western mountain,

Reviews of Books
And because dummies and the dim [in the] form of the moon have emerged, The majority of the lotus[-like]c gnomes have closed. [So,] again, white lotus[-like] gnomes Were born in this grove of my mind Through the radiant disk of [my] sun[-like] intellect, Moistened by [my] rain[-like] vigilance." c. The "lotus"here refersto the Nelumbium Speciosum whose petals close in the evening. Quoting these lines, Gdong-thog-pa (1979:139-42) severely criticizes Bsod-nams grags-pa for his series of similes (dpe-rgyan, *upamalamkdra)-Mig-dmar tshe-ring (1985:44) speaks in this connection of a metaphor (gzugs-rgyan, *rapakalamkara)!-and, I think, rightly so. His first point is that the Pan-chen is implying here that the transmission of the Sa-skya legs-bshad had become interrupted and the Tibetan gnomic tradition lost. To be sure, this was never the case, for not only has the Sa-skya legs-bshad remained even to the present day a basic textbook in the Sa-skya-pa seminaries,3 but the same Dbyangs-can has written a series of lexical glosses on it around the turn of the nineteenth century. Thus there can be no question that the composition of the Dge-ldan legs-bshad could have been motivated by the silent neglect to which Tibetan gnomic literature had allegedly fallen. Bsodnams grags-pa's pseudo-reason must therefore be interpreted against the background of his very strained relations with contemporary Sa-skya-pa scholars which, at times, have led him elsewhere to concoct a number of fictions relating to fifteenth-century Tibetan intellectual history. Secondly, Gdong-thog-pa legitimately complains that Bsod-nams gragspa was suggesting that he had written the Dge-ldan legs-

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bshad independent of earlier Tibetan gnomes; he calls this a "howler" (ham chen-po). There is a large body of evidence that Bsod-nams grags-pa freely borrowed from a select number of Sa-pan's gnomes. Chang (1983:79) has indicated that Dge-ldan legs-bshad no. 60 (= Chang no. 61) is virtually identical with Sa-skya legs-bshad no. 134 (Bosson 1969:65, 229), the minor differences being the verb tenses and the dosage of categoricalness proffered in their respective illustrative last two feet of the gnomic quatrain-Dge-ldan legs-bshad no. 28 is the only instance of a gnomic quintain.4 Chang's (1983:79-80) juxtaposition of Sa-skya legs-bshad no. 30 (Bosson 1969:65, 206) with Dge-ldan legs-bshad no. 18 (= Chang no. 17) is a less happy matter, steered as it is by a totally erroneous set of presuppositions. The issue revolves around their respective illustrations and their implications; the former refers to the extraction of musk from a less-than-living Muschus Moschiferus, whereas the latter speaks of a living spotted deer (ri-dwags ru-ra kha-sha?) who becomes the benefactor of a wicked individual. Chang (1983:79) employs these exemplifications for drawing some strange conclusions; he says: The religious beliefs of Bsod-nams grags-pa and the great teacher Sa-pan are not the same; the aims of both the Sa-skya-pa and Dge-lugs-pa schools have differences, hence there are also differences with respect to their understanding of physical entities. The Sa-skyapa school's religious discipline with respect to killing living beings, matrimony, and child birth are not quite as strict as that of the Dge-lugs-pa.... This is completely off the mark and merely reflects Chang's insufficient acquaintance with the prescriptive vinaya formulae to which both Sa-pan and Bsod-nams grags-pa were, at least theoretically, bound as fully ordained monks. This curious misconstrual may have been due to the fact that, in contradistinction to the nominal head of the Dge-lugs-pa, the Dga'idan khri-pa, the head of the Sa-skya-pa school was, with only a few exceptions, usually not an ordained monk but a layman. As such, Chang's remarks pale into something it was better never to have been said.

3 Dung-dkar Blo-bzang -'phrin-las, Synan-ngag-la ]ug-tshul tshig-rgyan rig-pa'i sgo-'bved (Hsi-ning: Ch'ing-hai PPH, 1982), p. 628 recommends the Sa-skya legs-bshad and the Chu-shing-gi bstan-beos as essential works for the subsequent study of the more complex Tibetan literature, particularly, Tibetan poetics. The latter text consists of a series of gnomes on themes that have to do with water and wood, and was written by Gung-thang Dkon-mchog bstan-pa'i sgron-me (1762-1823). Aside from the print contained in his collected works (New Delhi, 1976), it was published once in Dharamsala (1977) and once as the Legs-par bshad-pa chu dang shing-gi bstan-bcos brda-don dang-bcas-pa, Lhasa: TPPH, 1981; the glosses (brda-don) were authored by Dbyangs-can. Both works, as well as the Dge-ldan legs-bshad, have been extensively used to illustrate grammatical paradigms in Skal-bzang 'gyur-med'sexcellent Bod-kyi brda-sprod rig-pa'i khrid-rgyan rab-gsal me-long.

4 Mig-dmar tshe-ring (1985:44-45) has brought to attention two further evident borrowings from the Sa-skya legs-bshad (though more can be easily traced): Sa-skya legs-bshad no. 25 (Bosson 1969:43,205) and Dge-ldan legs-bshad no. 21; Sa-skya legs-bshad no. 116 (Bosson 1969:60, 226) and Dge-ldan legsbshad no. 5. He rightly insists, however, that Bsod-nams grags-pa's work is still largely an original one. 5 Chang (1983:79): Suonan zahaba yu saban dashi xinyang butong, sajiapai yu gelupai erzhe zongzhi you yi, suoyi dui shiwude renshi ye yu qubie. Sajiapaide jielu dui shasheng, quqi shengzi jiu meiyu gelupai nayang yanjin....

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.3 (1986)

can be employed with some success in elementary (and not so elementary) Tibetan language courses. Don-grub, the editor of the Dge-ldan legs-bshad, is to be congratulated on the publication of the mula text and Dbyanscan's commentary. The mila text included in the commentary stands, however, in dire need of critical editing. Let us hope that it will be printed in the collected works of Pan-chen Bsod-nams grags-pa which is currently in press in India.8
LEONARD W. J. VAN DER Kuijp

The author of the commentary styles himself (p. 222) "Dbyangs-can dga'-ba'i blo-gros" which is his nom de plume for the original "Blo-bzang don-grub," otherwise known as the tutor of one of the A-kya embodiments (A-kya Yongs'dzin) of Sku-'bum monastery in Amdo province.6 His floruit must be placed between ca. 1760 and 1830. In his chronicle of Sku-'bum monastery, Gser-tog-pa (1982:76) mentions that A-kya Yongs-'dzin Blo-bzang don-grub was among the editors and proofreaders of the Sku-'bum edition of the collected works of Tsong-kha-pa, Rgyal-tshab and Mkhas-grub. This edition was undertaken by the forty-ninth abbot Bum-par Ngag-dbang chos-kyi nyi-ma-he is identical to the thirtyfifth abbot of Sku-'bum's tantric college-who ascended the throne in 1824. The A-kya embodiment whose tutor (yongs'dzin) Blo-bzang don-grub was, must be identified as A-kya Ye-shes skal-bzang mkhas-grub rgya-mtsho (1817-1869).7 In addition, Blo-bzang don-grub had also been one of the more important preceptors of An-ja'-su Zhabs-drung 'Jam-dbyangs bstan-'dzin nyi-ma who was elected as abbot of Sku-'bum's tantric college in 1843. The commentary, which is undated, follows the same format as all the other known exegeses of gnomes in Tibet which, starting with Dmar-ston Chos-rgyal on the Sa-skya legs-bshad (Legs-par bshad-pa rin-po-che'i-gter dang 'grel-pa, Lhasa: TPPH, 1982), merely consisted of illustrative anecdotes or short stories, that were usually drawn from the vinaya collection. Though the subhdsita, legs-bshad, geyen or gnome cannot be said to belong to the most inspiring genre of the literature of India and Central Asia, it does have a use apart from giving a glimpse of the folk wisdom which it compactly expresses. Following the long established tradition of Tibet, they can serve as useful illustrations to the kind of complex turns of phrase classical Tibetan is capable of. As such, they

FREIE UNIVERSITXT BERLIN Other legs-bshad publications from the People's Republic of China include Mi-pham rgya-mtsho's (1846-1912)-alias 'Jam-dpal dgyes-pa'i rdo-rje-Rgyal-po lugs-kyi bstan-bcos sa-gzhi skyong-ba'i-rgyan (Lhasa: Tibetan PPH, 1983), p. 304. This work, the largest legs-bshad collection of Tibetan provenance, was started in 1895, and consists of 21 chapters. Another little booklet is the Legs-bshad gces-btus, ed. Thubdbang (Lhasa: Tibetan PPH, 1981). This "precious collection" consists of a select number of verses (with some lexical glosses) taken from the Sa-skya legs-bshad, the Chu-shing-gi bstan-bcos and Mi-pham's work.
8

ABBREVIATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHIC Bosson (1969) J. E. Bosson, A Treasury of Aphoristic Jewels: The Subhdsitaratnanidhi of Sa Skya Pandita in Tibetan and Mongolian, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Chang (1983) Chang Ch'ing-yu (Zhang Qingyu), "Shih-lun So-nan cha-pa ho t'a-te 'Ke-tan ke-yen,"' in Hsi-tsang yen-chiu/Bod-ljongs zhib-]ug 1, pp. 77-80. Gdong-thog-pa (1979) Gdong-thog-pa Ngag-dbang thegmchog bstan-pa'i rgyal-mtshan, Dus-kyi me-Ice. New Delhi. Gser-tog-pa (1982) Sku- 'bum byams-pa gling-gi gdan-rabs don-Idan tshangs-pa'i dbyangs-can. Hsi-ning: Ch'inghai PPH. Hahn (1984) M. Hahn, "Zu den Quellen einiger Strophen aus Sa Skya Pandita's Subhasitaratnanidhi,"in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Korbs, ed. L. Ligeti, Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, Vol. 29-30. Budapest: Akademiai Kiad6. Jackson (1983) D. Jackson, "Commentaries on the Writings of Sa-skya Pandita: A Bibliographical Sketch," in The Tibet Journal 8.3, pp. 3-23. van der Kuijp (1984) L. W. J. van der Kuijp, "Marginalia to Sa-skya Pandita's Oeuvre," in The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 7.1, pp. 37-55.

For some but not all of his writings, see his Collected Works, Vols. I, II (New Delhi, 1971) which testify to his extreme versatility as a scholar of the traditional IndoTibetan sciences. 7 Taube (1984:510), writing his name as A-kya Ye-shes blobzang rgya-mtsho (!), accepts him as the eighteenth A-kya embodiment but as Gser-tog-pa (1982:73) has pointed out, there are some problems with this line. The "nineteenth" was A-kya Blo-bzang bstan-pa'i dbang-phyug bsod-nams rgyamtsho (ca. 1870-1909). The year of his birth is controversial; Taube (1984:511) gives 1874, Gser-tog-pa (1982:73) has 1870, and Tshe-tan Zhabs-drung (1982:273) provides us with the year 1871. His successor was A-kya Blo-bzang lung-rtogs jigs-med bstan-pa'i rgya-mtsho (1910-?1949) and Tshe-tan Zhabs-drung (1982:288) lists his subsequent reembodiment as A-kya Blo-bzang thub-bstan jigs-med rgya-mtsho (1950-) who apparently is still alive and well.

Reviews of Books
Mig-dmar tshe-ring (1985) Mig-dmar tshe-ring, "Pan-chen Bsod-nams grags-pa dang des-mdzad-pa'i 'Dge-ldan legs-bshad'," in Bod-ijongs zhib-jug 1, pp. 38-45. Taube (1984) M. Taube, review of H. Eimer's The Tibetan Indexes (dkar-chag) to the Collected Works (bka'- 'bum) of A-kya gSan-'dzin rdo-rje, Tokyo: The Reiyukai

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Library, 1980, in Orientalische Literaturzeitung 79.5, pp. 509-11. Tshe-tan Zhabs-drung (1982) Tshe-tan Zhabs-drung, Bstanrtsis kun-las btus-pa. Hsi-ning: Ch'ing-hai PPH.