The Philosophy of Nāgārjuna as Contained in the Ratnāvalī, Part I (Containing Text andIntroduction Only) by Heramba Chatterjee SastriReview by: Leon HurvitzJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 101, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1981), p. 391Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602618 .

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Reviews of Books 391

Huang's editors have not helped matters. The text contains too many awkward and unclear usages and employs such wooden affectations as "inviting the throne to feasts" (p. 74) and "the throne burst into wrath" (p. 101).

If Autocracy at Work displays less conceptual sophistica- tion and clarity than might be desired, it is, nevertheless, the most comprehensive study of the Yung-cheng reign which has appeared to date. With the extensive Yung-cheng archives in Taiwan now more fully accessible, we can expect other scholars to dig more deeply into this fascinating period.

KENT C. SMITH

CONNECTICUT COLLEGE

The Philosophy of Nagarjuna as contained in the Ratndvalr, Part I (Containing text and introduction only). By HERAMBA CHATTERJEE SASTRI. Pp. 1 + 103. Calcutta: SARASWAT LIBRARY. 1977. Rs. 30.00.

The RatndvalT ('string of gems'), ascribed to Ndgdrjuna, the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahdydna Buddhism, is an admonition in verse, addressed to a SAtavdhana king, to rule justly in the spirit of the Buddha. Of the Sanskrit original very little survives, the rest being accessible only in transla- tion, whether into Chinese or into Tibetan. The aim of the work under review is to reproduce in Sanskrit what survives, occupying 18 pages, while everything that precedes, as the title itself indicates, leads up to that.

In his note, the editor says that his original intention was to edit not only the surviving Sanskrit text and the necessary introduction but his own Sanskrit commentary and English translation as well. He regrets having been unable to do more than the first two, the text, in fact, being merely a copy of that edited in 1934 and 1936 by Mr. Giuseppe Tucci in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society; the last two are promised for a not too distant date. In the space of 79 pages, the author then tries to trace the development from the origin of Buddhism ('decidedly a modification of Brahmanism') to the composi- tion of the RatndvalT. From the Buddha, the author jumps rather quickly to Ndgrjuna, whose life and work he sum- marizes in 15 pages, which include a useful bibliography of secondary works in English, French and German.

The next 35 pages are supposedly devoted to the Madhya- maka doctrine. It is a mixture of history, real or supposed, of doctrinal arguments and of quotations in untranslated Sanskrit, characterized by no apparent sense of unity but equipped, again, with an extensive bibliography. There follows a 6-page discussion of the two truths (paramdrtha and samvrti), succeeded in turn by a description of the Buddhist epistle as a genre, in which latter the 'letter to a friend' (suhrllekha), likewise ascribed to Nagarjuna and addressed to a king, as well as the RatndvalY, is described at some length.

This is followed by a statement, 9 pages in length, of the

content of the Sanskrit portions here being reproduced. The

topics, roughly speaking, are faith, pure conduct, the absence

of a self, dependent origination, the Middle Path, the transiency of everything worldly, the need to abstain totally from intoxicating drink, the cultivation of good qualities (such as charity, moral conduct, forbearance and wisdom), good government (which means government in the interests of his subjects, the appointment of wise ministers), etc.

Since the text is confined to what survives in Sanskrit, and

that has already been published with an English translation, since also the editor does no more with the Chinese and Tibetan evidence than merely mention it (the two languages are obviously beyond him), one wonders why he took the trouble. Still, the many Sanskrit quotations and the extensive bibliography, primary as well as secondary, make the work

under review truly useful. The editor's English, however, is something else, its most interesting feature being the consis- tent rendition of sunvatd ('emptiness') with 'voidity.'

LEON HURVITZ

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations. By CONRAD SCHIROKAUER. Pp. xxi + 662 + maps + chrono- logical charts. New York: HARCOURT BRACE JOVANOVICH.

INC. 1978. paper $12.95.

This is a thoughtfully conceived and impressively produced introductory text for undergraduate survey courses. It covers the history of China and Japan from prehistoric times to the beginning of the post-Mao era in China and the mid-1970s in Japan, with almost two-thirds devoted to the pre-modern period in both countries. Roughly equal attention is given to political, economic, social, and cultural history. More empha- sis is given to art than is usual in general survey texts: there are approximately 120 black and white photographs of great works of art from the two traditions-bronzes, ceramics, sculpture, painting and architecture. Although the photo- graphs are small, their quality is high. Chinese and Japanese titles for each chapter, in various appropriate calligraphic styles, from the vigorous brush of Professor Leon L. Y. Chang, add further to the book's attractiveness. Additional pedagogical features include time-charts at the beginning of each chapter, which give the dates of the major events covered in the chapter, and a large number of excellent maps. There is also a very helpful Guide to Further Reading.

It is obvious that a great deal of care has gone into the preparation of this work. Its suitability as a text will however depend upon each individual teacher's aims. Professor Schirokauer summarizes his conception of a text in his

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