The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan. by Wm. Theodore DeBaryReview by: Robert J. MillerThe Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Nov., 1970), pp. 168-169Published by: Association for Asian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2942739 .

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168 JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES

This is no rehash of secondary sources. It is an original work resting on careful study of the important texts. It is the product of fine scholarship; it communicates with the un- initiated student without the penalty of mis- guiding generalizations. It is an effective guide, an authentic introduction. The aim al- ways is to clarify, never to mystify. Such no- tions as emptiness (sfinya), consciousness-only (as in Vijfidnavida), Maitreya, Dharma-body and its immanence, preaching the Dharma in the celestial Buddha-land, and those of the esoteric school (Vajrayana) are presented in such a way as to give a convincing rationale for their development.

The chapter on Gautama is especially good, tracing his development within the sixth cen- tury B.C. Indian religio-cultural context, its thought patterns and ascetic disciplines. The twenty page section on China is full and lucid, relating Buddhist developments to the Chi- nese milieu. The Chinese love for exotica and addiction to magic help explain early fascina- tion with the Buddhist tradition. Meditation techniques, already current in the time of Lao- tzu and Chuang-tzu and enriched in Han Taoism, prepared the way for Buddhist dis- cipline. Portraits of the Pure Land and Ch'en (Zen) movements show distinctive Chinese elements and also the persistence of earlier Indian elements.

Some rather common theses are challenged, but not thoroughly argued. If this does not solve the problems, it does serve to question assumptions and provoke more work. The great importance of Ch'an, the author sug- gests, is not so much that it Sinified Buddh- ism, but that it "extracted, concentrated, and made efficacious the essence of the Dharma." Again, concerning the interaction of Bud- dhism and Tantra he reverses the usual thesis that the degenerating influence of Tantra caused the downfall of Buddhism in India, concluding it more accurate to say that "Bud- dhism crushed the life out of the Tantras." The case either way is inconclusive. There are causal factors in the fading of either tradition which lie deeper in the human spirit than an encounter with another cult or some new his- torical situation.

The bibliography is limited, but very help- ful, as is the outline of the Pali, Chinese, and

Tibetan Canons. And there are many paren- thetical explanations within the text.

W. LAWRENCE HIGHFILL

North Carolina State University

The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan. EDITED BY WM. THEODORE DEBARY.

New York: The Modern Library, I969. xxii, 398 pp. Bibliography, Index, Title list. $2.45.

In this most recent compilation of readings the search for a way of presenting the depth and breadth of Buddhist thought continues. as with any religion having such temporal, spatial, and philosophical scope, the student often depairs of following the multiple threads of doctrine, schools and teachers, changes of interpretation which arose, all designated as "Buddhism." Immediately after the "secular" death of the historic Buddha, compilers at- tempted to bring together the teachings of the master and his spiritual descendants. With time and dispersion in space, the difficulties of coverage mount. In his preface, DeBary rightly notes that this compilation does not represent

the whole of Buddhism, and one can only regret . . . the varieties of Buddhism found in Southeast Asia, Tibet and Korea could not be included." Why then The Bud- dhist Tradition when only Indian, Chinese and Japanese Buddhists' writings are trans- lated and excerpted? DeBary argues that ". . . these are texts and thinkers recognized by Buddhists themselves as representing the mainstream of Buddhist thought and prac- tice."

The book is useful. A student will have at least a low-cost and sturdily bound source for exploration. The small type forces "right con- centration," though conducing to myopia, both literally and figuratively. The introduc- tory essay is an excellent short statement of some problems in understanding Buddhism, but its concluding remarks sum up the prob- lem of the user of compilations: "There (in the test of the book) the reader may discover for himself the continuities and discontinui- ties, the central themes and innumerable vari- ations . . . that together have given Bud- dhism its universality."

Aided by introductions and commentaries,

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BOOK REVIEWS 169

a fresh reader may begin to grasp some prob- lems that have moved Buddhist thinkers at various times and places. To the collector of previous compilations, familiar "friends" will be found, and some newer translations or less reprinted pieces. For example, Chapter 2, "The Life of the Buddha as a Way of Salvation," presents selections from Ashvaghosa's Bud- dhacarita; in Chapter 7 ("Schools of Chinese Buddhism II") there is a new translation of the "Platform Scripture of the Sixth Patriarch."

But the principle of compiling from one's own compilations bothers me. A full compari- son of this work with the various Sources (of Indian Tradition, Chinese Tradition, Japa- nese Tradition) volumes edited by DeBary indicates much which is wholesale transposi- tion. Almost all of the India material in this volume is taken from the previous work bod- ily (with excision of some paragraphs and smoothing transitions). Only the China sec- tion has a new concluding essay, which helps place all previous material in perspective. Much work seems to have been expended on the Japanese section, particularly in the intro- ductions and commentaries on selections. Why previous selections have been dropped and others added is not explained. And if one wants to compare, then it is easier to lay comparative material side-by-side with the three older volumes than to flip back and forth in the new-or properly, restructured- volume. For some courses, and pleasurable "dipping," I would have the book. Since most of the work was done however-why not is- sue the old and new introductory sections as a short Guide to Study of Buddhism in I, C & J, and the translations (expanded) as separate collections? We could then have the student do the cut and paste job as an exercise.

ROBERT J. MILLER

University of Wisconsin

China: Area, Administration, and Nation Building. BY JOSEPH B. R. WHITNEY. Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, I970. Xiii, I72 Pp. Bibliography, Glossary, Index. Paperback, $4.00.

Professor Whitney's study employs the most modern concepts, theories, and methodology of both political science and geography in

dealing with problems of territorial organiza- tions in an immense country. It is a pioneering study of the political geography of modern China, and should be invaluable not only to specialists on China but also to political scient- ists and geographers in general.

The objective of the study is threefold: to shed light on the problems of transforming China from a predominantly cultural entity to a political entity in the twentieth century; to assess the role that the hierarchy of territorial- administrative areas has played in this process; and to evaluate the impact that the processes of political and economic development have had both on the size and the number of echelons in the hierarchy of territorial-admin- istrative areas. Following a critique of con- cepts and terminology in political geography, the author provides a stimulating analysis of the structure of China's traditional space-polity and its modern changes in relation to the needs of political integration and economic growth. The author is well equipped with new techniques in social sciences, and applies them to the Chinese experience whenever ap- propriate. Chapter 4 is entirely devoted to the construction of a model to derive the optimum size of administrative area in terms of po- tential revenue and total administrative costs; it provides a useful hypothetical framework in which to evaluate the effectiveness of tradi- tional territorial organization, though readers rnay wish to know some non-economic pur- poses and values of territorial divisions in im- perial China as well. The concluding chapter which summaries the author's argument is the apogee of the book and could stand as an independent article in its own right.

The extensive use of maps and graphics to illustrate the spatial relationships of China's territorial organizations and their changes through modern times greatly strengthens the author's thesis. From the cartographic view- point, however, a few technical points merit discussion. For example, the base map with administrative divisions of the late I950's has been used for plotting data of I893 and I93I in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8, distorting some spatial reality. In the same figures, the random ar- rangement of quantitative area symbols in the legend seems to indicate that the compiler has ignored a fundamental principle in statistical

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