PORTRAITS OF CHOGEN: THE TRANSFORMA-TION OF BUDDHIST ART IN EARLY MEDIEVALJAPAN. By John M. Rosenfield. Japanese Visual CultureSeries, vol. 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2011. Pp. 296; 162 plates, 2maps. $132.00.

In this beautifully produced book, Rosenfield, HarvardUniversity professor emeritus of Japanese art, has written asuperb account of the state of Japanese Buddhism at a pivotalmoment in time, through the lens of S. Chogen (1121-1206),the monk who led the restoration of Japanese Buddhism’sgreatest national symbol, the temple complex of Todaiji inNara, which was destroyed in a ruthless civil war in 1180.Although few of the products of Chogen’s efforts at Todaijihave survived, Rosenfield interweaves documentary sourcesand extant imagery to bring this tumultuous age to life. Inthe process, he explicates how renewed contacts with Chinathen played a critical role in the faith’s transmission, impact-ing both developments within Japanese Buddhism and itsrelated material culture. His chapters address wide-rangingtopics including reasons for the unusual architectural styleadopted for the restored Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall) atTodaiji, the renewed realism in painted and sculpted icons,the history of East Asian portraiture generally and priestportraiture in particular, and the uses of Buddhist ritualobjects. Rosenfield explores the complex interpersonaldynamics that shaped Buddhism’s reception in Japanthrough a discussion of Chogen’s relations with monks ofother sects, esteemed lineages of Buddhist sculptors, politi-cians, and lay patrons. This excellent book is a rarity in thatRosenfield’s clear writing and careful explanations makethis complex topic accessible to nonspecialists while concur-rently, his use of diverse primary sources, includingChogen’s own memoir (translated in an appendix), distin-guishes it as an invaluable resource for specialists as well.

Patricia J. GrahamUniversity of Kansas

THE CONSTANT AND CHANGING FACES OF THEGODDESS: GODDESS TRADITIONS OF ASIA. Editedby Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis K. Herman. New Castle,UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. Pp. xi + 294.$79.99.

This edited volume collects selected papers given at a2005 conference on goddess traditions of Asia. Like someconference anthologies, this volume has an overly ambitioushistorical and geographic coverage and lacks an overarchingmethodological and theoretical direction. The studies take avariety of disciplinary approaches, ranging from sociologyand anthropology to religious studies and history, and theyrange in scope from Korea, India, and Vietnam to China andHong Kong. The goddesses covered include Mago of Korea;Buddhist dakinis; Hindu goddesses such as Bharat Ma, Sita,Durga, Lakshmi, Kali, Saraswati, and Goma; and the ChineseMazu and various incarnations of Guanyin in Chinese Bud-dhism. Unfortunately, the editors fail to offer cross-culturalinsights beyond generic and problematic references to “the

divine feminine” or “the Goddess.” Neither the editors norany of the authors offer a definition of the frequently invokedcategory “the Goddess” and so miss the chance to explore theinterpretive and analytical implications of this unquestionedcategory, especially the tendency to slip all too easily intonormative claims and ideological heavy-handedness. Thechapters that do make significant contributions are too fewand all too brief. Nevertheless, the strength of this editedvolume tends to be in the study of the goddess traditions ofHinduism and popular Chinese religions. For this reason,scholars specializing in the latter two areas should be awareof this volume, but it would not be suitable as a text for eitheran undergraduate- or graduate-level course.

Cuong T. MaiUniversity of Vermont

THE UNENCUMBERED SPIRIT: REFLECTIONS OFA CHINESE SAGE. By Hung Ying-ming. Translated byWilliam Scott Wilson. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2009.Pp. 224. $19.95.

This book is a rarity: it serves 1) as a “coffee-table book”for anyone interested in “Eastern Thought”; 2) as a “supple-mental text” for students in courses on Asian Thought orReligion; and 3) as an enhancement of scholars’ appreciationof the near-universal acceptance of the mutual validity of“The Three Teachings” (i.e., Confucianism, Taoism, and Bud-dhism) in Late Imperial China. Wilson translates a workcalled Ts’ai-ken t’an (Caigentan, “Vegetable Roots Dis-course”) composed ca. 1590 by a Chinese literatus herenamed Hung Yung-ming (Hong Yongming), otherwiseknown as Hung Tzu-ch’eng (Hong Zicheng). Wilson says thatwhile the Ts’ai-ken t’an “was briefly enjoyed in China,” it“achieved its greatest popularity in Japan, where it was firstprinted in 1822,” and bases his translation on a Japaneseversion (pronounced Saikontan). It comprises 357 parallel-prose verses on living in simplicity, rooted in life’s eternalverities. The first segment deals “with the art of living insociety, the second . . . more with man’s solitude and con-templation of nature.” Wilson suggests that to late-imperialliterati like Hung, “sagehood was no longer an unattainableideal”: as the eleventh-century Confucian theorists ChouTun-i (Zhou Dunyi) and Chang Tsai (Zhang Zai) had main-tained, “sagehood was now understood to be the formation ofone body with Heaven and Earth and all things.” Scholarsmight have wished for mention of pertinent scholarlystudies or previous English translations. But for studentsand general readers alike, this contribution is certainlyworthwhile.

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

BuddhismBUDDHAYANA: LIVING BUDDHISM. By Anil Goone-wardene. London: Continuum, 2010. Pp. 298. $27.95.

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Readers of English today still need comprehensive intro-ductions that de-colonialize Westerners’ inherited interpre-tive frameworks by integrating the data of all Buddhisttraditions and creatively integrating the varying Buddhistperspectives on the variously understood key issues.Goonewardene—a Sri Lanka-born attorney who “has taughtfor twenty years at the London Buddhist Vihara’s DhammaSchool”—states that he met there a Japanese Zen nun andthat they “agreed that the central teaching of the differentschools and traditions of Buddhism is the same or verysimilar.” But even Japan’s two principal Zen traditions standopposed on basic issues. This book’s few pertinent para-graphs depict Zen practitioners’ “worship” mainly as chant-ing before a shrine and mentions Pure Land Buddhists onlyonce. The Shingon tradition, in toto, is explained in eightwords. Even Indian Mahayana traditions are explained herewith less interest (much less substance or precision) than C.Humphreys explained them sixty years ago. ConcerningBuddhists today, Goonewardene says that “some listen tochanting on cassettes and CDs at home and while goingabout daily tasks.” In sum, this book explains “living Bud-dhism” as it is practiced in a London community that seemsmired in Englishmen’s nineteenth-century fixation on Palitexts. Some might agree that “a high degree of intellectual oracademic attainment is not necessary to begin to understandBuddhism.” Yet Buddhists of many stripes have explainedtheir practices in profound and nuanced ways. Studentstoday hoping “to begin to understand” them will need to relyon other publications.

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

IN THE FOREST OF FADED WISDOM: 104 POEMSBY GENDUN CHOPEL, A BILINGUAL EDITION.Edited and Translated by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Buddhism andModernity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.Pp. vii + 191. $26.00.

This slim and elegant volume is a key contribution to thestudy of Tibetan poetry and a fine resource for exploringBuddhism and modernity. Gendun Chopel (1903-51)—scholar, traveler, and ex-monk—was one of the most cos-mopolitan and controversial Tibetans of his day, thrown injail by the Lhasa government after a twelve-year sojourn inIndia and Sri Lanka. Lopez continues his work on this impor-tant figure, whose Madhyamaka philosophical treatise wastranslated and published in the same series as The Mad-man’s Middle Way (see RSR 33:175-76). In the introduction,Lopez surveys Chopel’s life and the development of poetry inTibet, highlighting key themes. The remainder of the bookgathers and translates his poetry with minimal annotation.While readers of Tibetan will delight in the poet’s masterlyverse, it is no small feat of the translator that Chopel’s dis-tinctive voice leaps off the page in spare and lucid English.The subjects of these poems vary widely and are frequentlyautobiographical. Themes of wandering, disillusionment,and loss mingle with heartfelt veneration of Buddhist

masters, pointed critiques of Tibetan society and monasticinstitutions, and encounters with other religious traditionsin South Asia. This book is indispensable for students ofTibetan literature and modern Tibet and offers an alternativevoice on Buddhism and modernity in Asia that engageswith—and goes beyond—Christian and colonial encounters.

Nancy G. LinDartmouth College

READINGS OF THE LOTUS SUTRA. Edited by StephenF. Teiser and Jacqueline I. Stone. New York: Columbia Uni-versity Press, 2009. Pp. 304. Paper, $24.50.

The Lotus Sutra is arguably one of the most importantMahayana sutras to have shaped the East Asian Buddhisttradition. As such, it deserves the close scrutiny that thisvolume of “readings” of this sacred text provides on a varietyof important themes and issues. In their opening chapter,“Interpreting the Lotus Sutra,” the editors provide anextremely useful overview of key teachings, associated reli-gious movements, and textual and commentarial traditionsthat not only introduces students to the Lotus but also, veryconveniently, to the study of East Asian Buddhism as awhole. Designed “for first-time readers and to survey some ofthe major issues in how the text has been understood withinthe rich history of Buddhism,” this reader includes chaptersby major Buddhist scholars covering a variety of fascinatingtopics—from the doctrine of expedient means to gender andhierarchy to art in the Lotus. Its only shortcoming is that itlacks any detailed study of the “Universal Gateway chapter.”Devotion to Avalokitesvara (Kuan Yin, Kannon), especiallyvia pilgrimages, is, of course, directly tied to the Lotus and isa major dimension of Buddhism’s popularization throughoutEast Asia. This lacuna, however, can be easily filled byadding as a class reading C.-F. Yu’s online essay on thattopic, “An Introduction to Kuan Yin: Goddess of Compassionand Mercy” (http://worldpulse.com/files/upload/1111/introduction_to_kuan_yin.pdf).

Mark MacWilliamsSt. Lawrence University

ECHOES OF THE PAST: THE BUDDHIST CAVETEMPLES OF XIANGTANGSHAN. By Katherine R.Tsiang. Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, University ofChicago, 2010. Pp. 269; plates, map. Paper, $45.00.

The University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art andthe Smithsonian Institution’s Arthur M. Sackler Galleryorganized the exhibition for which this book was publishedin Chicago in 2011. The catalog is a major resource foranyone interested in Buddhist art, architecture, culture, andreligion. The volume, with its many color plates, map, anno-tated chronology, and glossary, focuses on the Northern QiDynasty (550-77) cave temple sites known today as theXiangtangshan (“Mountain of Echoing Halls”) Caves in thesouthern Hebei province. W. Hung’s preface conciselydescribes the research, technology, collaborations, andevents the project generated and its “future-oriented

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approach.” Tsiang’s excellent essay provides analyses of thebasic concepts and sutras represented by the caves’ imagesand iconography. N. S. Steinhardt’s close reading of archi-tectural and textual sources for the caves places them in thebroader contexts of Buddhist cave architecture through themid-sixth century and China’s monastery and palace archi-tecture (534-77). She also traces the caves’ internationallinks to monuments in Central Asia, Iran, and India. A. E.Dien’s vivid narrative makes clear the complex history of theperiod and brings the royal patrons to life. J. Chen examineshow the caves’ form and use reflect the monks’ and royalpatrons’ purposes, aspirations, and religious practices. J. K.Wilson and D. Yiyou Wang extensively document thetwentieth-century “discovery” and fate of the caves and theirsculptures. Finally, the application of digital imaging andthree-dimensional models for reconstruction of the caveshas quite literally added exciting new dimensions to arthistorical scholarship.

Marilyn GridleyLawrence, KS

THE DISPELLER OF DISUPUTES: NAGARJUNA’SVIGRAHAVYAVARTANI. Translation and commentaryby Jan Westerhoff. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.Pp. 142. $24.95.

In this tidy little volume, Westerhoff offers an accessibleyet philosophically rigorous translation of and commentaryon Nagarjuna’s Vigrahavyavartanı. This work, which isa defense of Madhyamaka against objections based on

contemporary epistemological and semantic theory and animportant adjunct to Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika,includes much to interest the student of Western and Bud-dhist philosophy alike, and Westerhoff does an admirablejob of negotiating between the needs of these two audiences.Westerhoff’s translation, based on a new critical edition,improves greatly upon the philologically problematic 1978translation by K. Bhattacharya. The specialist may miss theSanskrit text (included in the Bhattacharya edition) or par-enthetical references to the Sanskrit, but Westerhoff’s trans-lation is easy to follow, and he adequately notes and explainsnonstandard translation choices (e.g., “substance” forsvabhava). Although a bit repetitive in places, Westerhoff’scommentary is lucid, philosophically engaging, and includesample references for the serious student of Indian orWestern philosophy. It also features a useful topical rear-rangement of the objections and replies that constitute thetext, though Westerhoff might have done more to contextu-alize the objections in light of Nyaya semantic and epistemictheory. He does not explain these theories until they areexplicitly addressed in the text, and this may be too late forthe uninitiated reader. Despite this and the fact that Wester-hoff is decidedly more interested in the contemporary philo-sophical relevance of the text than its historical andsoteriological context, this volume represents an accessible,philologically solid, and philosophically satisfying presenta-tion of Nagarjuna’s text.

Karin MeyersCenter for Buddhist Studies, Kathmandu University

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