Chinese Buddhism: A Volume of Sketches, Historical, Descriptive, and Critical by JosephEdkinsReview by: Leon HurvitzJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 89, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1969), pp. 650-651Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/596641 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 23:17

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofthe American Oriental Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.25 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:17:40 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

650 Journal of the American Oriental Society, 89.3 (1969)

tuWM "Southern Flavors," p. 251-252, otL elle avait 6videmment sa place.

Mais, encore une fois, voilh un bien beau livre, qui abonde en pr~cieuses informations.

JACQUES GERNET

UNIVERSITA DE PARIS

Chinese Buddhism: A Volume of Sketches, His- torical, Descriptive, and Critical. By JOSEPH EDKINS. Pp. xxxiii + 453. New York: PARA- GON BOOK REPRINT CORP., 1968. $15.00.

The original preface to this work is dated 1879, the second preface 1893, both almost a century ago. Dr. Edkins was a member of one of the English missions in China, but I have not troubled to find out whether he was an Anglican or a non- conformist. His fundamentalism would seem to point to the latter, but surely the Church of England is not totally devoid of fundamentalists.

While we might well be arrested by what one of our own contemporaries might have to say about Chinese Buddhism, a book published over a century ago can have for us no more than historical interest. In fact, we might consider it from two points of view, that of the author (and this alone has several aspects) and that of the Paragon Book Company, which has chosen to reprint this book.

Whether Anglican or non-conformist, Dr. Ed- kins was in China for one purpose, to propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, unless he was a very unusual Protestant missionary indeed, what zeal he may have had for the study of Chi- nese civilization in any of its aspects had a single motive, viz., to understand "the heathen Chinee" and his thought processes in such a way as to make it easier to undermine these latter. Yet it would be an overstatement to say that the civil- ization of the Chinese had no power of attraction for him. When all is said and done, however, a world of difference separates Dr. Edkins from Mgr. Et. Lamotte, the latter no less devout a Christian then the former was.

Another factor in considering the case of Dr. Edkins is the state of scholarship (for he WAS a

scholarly man) in the Europe of his time. Though it is not possible to test his knowledge in retrospect with real accuracy, there can be little doubt that Dr. Edkins had a command over the Chinese written language that must have put him head and shoulders above the general fellowship of Protestant missionaries. In addition, he read both French and German in addition to English. What he knew of India had to be derived from the writ- ings of his fellow Europeans. Thus he was better equipped in this regard than many of our own contemporaries who pose as "Asian experts." In particular, one is impressed by his awareness of the problems involved in the transcription of Indic words in Chinese characters, as well as by the relatively high degree of accuracy with which he reconstructs the ancient sounds of Chinese words borrowed from the Sanskrit. In that respect as well the late Dr. Edkins could give lessons from the grave to some of our contemporaries who attempt Chinese etymologies on the basis of the speech of Peking today (as recorded in Mathews' Dictionary).

Dr. Edkins was probably as openminded as a man could be with his undisguised Christian bias. He suffered from a number of drawbacks, however. Ever since the Confucian revival of the Sung, China's intellectual class had been (and still is) anti-Buddhist, but anti-Buddhist with a twist: "To understand that Indian nonsense, there is no need to read all those mountains of gibberish. Our own Chu-tzu and his learned fellows have said what needed to be said, and in an elegant Chinese of which the Buddhists are incapable." Thus a learned Chinese would know what he knew of Buddhism only by reading the writings of its enemies, and this bias he would naturally pass on to his disciples, whether Chinese or foreign. (One need look no farther than the USA to see it hap- pening right now.) In order to gain an unbiased understanding of Chinese Buddhism, Dr. Edkins would have had to have recourse to a learned Chinese Buddhist, whether monk or layman, and this might have been impossible to a man in his circumstances.

For another thing, Dr. Edkins clearly wished to set down in writing everything he knew about

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.25 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:17:40 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Reviews of Books 651

Chinese Buddhism in all of its aspects. At its best, this wish would have condemned the work to disunity. The wish was not at its best, however. For the author simply could not keep his cate- gories straight. There is thus a disunity not only in the book as a whole but in almost each and every individual chapter. The general impression is rather that of a hodgepodge.

The fact remains, in spite of anything said above, that for its time (1879) the book was a landmark. Whatever the motive or motives, the mere willingness of a member of the China mission to deal with Buddhism, in the face of a mandarin resistance ranging from indifference to hostility, was in itself a remarkable thing. The range of topics covered bears witness, if not to a meticulous sense of category, then at least to an all-encompas- sing zeal. Appearing when it did, the book prob- ably created a stir, and rightly so.

The book's time, however, was 1879, nearly a century ago. As said above, the only valid motive for reprinting a book, other than a creation of belles-lettres, nearly a hundred years old would be historical. This would mean, in the present case, providing supplementary annotation indicating what the world has learned about all these matters in the intervening period. Such annotation, which would swell the book to at least four times its present size, would scarcely be worth the time and effort involved, and the result of these labors would not make any bookseller a penny richer. The Paragon Book Company is not to be con- demned for not following this particular course of action. A practical alternative would have been to reproduce the 1893 edition without change, as has in fact been done, but to provide it with a well- reasoned preface, one that would place the nine- teenth-century work in its historical context and that would, at the same time, indicate to the reader, being specific and yet not going into too much detail, what the world has learned of the subject since the book made its appearance. An undertaking to be specific without going into too much detail is by any standard an ambitious one, but by no means impossible. If a publisher is reluctant to do even that, it is still not too much to ask of him that he exercise a more judicious

choice of what to reprint. If he himself cannot, one has a right to expect that he will consult someone who can. The Paragon Book Company has done none of these things. On the contrary, it has re- produced without change or comment a book that has no relevance for our times and that, if read by the unadvised, can lead to enormous misunder- standing. The price that it asks is, in the context, exorbitant. One would like to hope that the practice may not become habitual.

LEON HURVITZ

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Karuiapu,44arika. Edited with introduction and notes by ISSHI YAMADA. Vol. 1, pp. 287; Vol. 2, pp. 420 + 22. London: SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, 1968. 6 pounds 6 shillings.

The text in question is a Mahdydna scripture obviously of importance outside India as well, to judge from the fact that, apart from its appearance in the Bka' 'gyur, it was translated into Chinese four times, four translations of which only two survive. To oversimplify, it is a narrative, but perhaps not in the usual sense of the term. It con sists of the following elements: (1) Description by kkyamuni of buddhaksetras other than his own. (2) Tales of how the Buddhas in those several lands became what they are and came to occupy their respective lands. (3) Predictions (vyakaranya) of the future attainment of buddha- hood on the part of certain beings presently in 8dkyamuni's retinue. (4) Vows (praaidhana) on the part of these and other beings to devote themselves fully to the salvation of all animate beings in the universe. (5) Incantations (dharani).

The first volume is introductory. After a Pref- ace, in which the editor tells of how the K. marks the transition of kkyamuni to the status of an object of worship, on the model of Amita and Maitreya, he proceeds to list the Sanskrit MSS on which his own edition (romanized typewritten) is based, six MSS in all, of which only one is still in India, another in France, and two each in

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.25 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:17:40 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions