A Translation of Ancient Buddhist TextsPrajñāpāramitā: Die Vollkommenheit der Erkenntnis. Nach Indischen, Tibetischen undChinesischen Quellen by Max WalleserReview by: Walter Eugene ClarkThe American Journal of Theology, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1915), pp. 475-476Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3155588 .

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A TRANSLATION OF ANCIENT BUDDHIST TEXTS

A TRANSLATION OF ANCIENT BUDDHIST TEXTS'

The translation comprises chaps. i, 2, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, and

27 of the Atgasahasrika PrajfiApSramit& and the Vajracchedika Praj-

fliparamita. This partial translation of one of the oldest and most important

texts of Mahyaina Buddhism is a valuable addition to our knowledge of the development of Buddhist dogma and of the metaphysics which took the place of the practical ethics preached by Buddha himself. The trained Hindu mind is philosophical and demands a rational basis of belief. Buddha refused to give any such rational basis of belief, refused to decide metaphysical questions, and turned his thought resolutely from outward desires and craving to a limitation of such desires.

The many references to the "emptiness" of the objective world in a text as early as the first century B.C. or the first century A.D. form a link in the chain of reasons for regarding the Vedanta of Gaudapida and of gafikara as a later development based on a reaction against the grow- ing negativism of Buddhist thought. With the publication of each new work on Mahayana Buddhism, Deussen's interpretation of the Upanis- hads and his theories concerning the development of philosophical thought in India become more and more untenable. From the Abhid- hamma texts through the Milindapafiha and the early Mahayana

I Prajiidpdramitd: Die Vollkommenheit der Erkenntnis. Nach Indischen, Tibeti- schen und Chinesischen Quellen. Translated by Max Walleser. G6ttingen: Vanden- hoeck u. Ruprecht, 1913. 164 pages. M. 6.60.

475

them as works of reference, a purpose for which they are admirably suited.

This mere sketch of the content of these volumes gives no adequate idea of their real worth. Their value is very great, quite apart from any question one may raise at certain points regarding the validity of the author's anthropological theories. Indeed, he is much more anxious to inform his readers than to indoctrinate them anthropologically. While most of the data are taken at second hand, they are collected with great diligence and communicated to the reader in very attractive and informing fashion. The work is of particular interest at present to students of early Christianity because of the light it sheds upon primitive beliefs in dying and rising divinities.

SHIRLEY JACKSON CASE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

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476 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY

texts to Agvaghoga, Naigrjuna, Vasubandhu, and Asafiga the develop- ment can now be traced in an orderly, natural, logical way, and approxi- mately dated. Until the later Upanishads, such as the gvetdgvatara, can be given a definite date instead of merely being assigned to a relative position in the group of the Upanishads, we must accept Walleser's con- clusion (in his Der diltere Vedanta) that Gaudapdda (fifth century, A.D) gave the first definite Brahman statement of an absolute monism.

The aim of the Prajfiipdramitd group of texts is to give a description of the insight and illumination of Buddha, to show how meaningless are our concepts of Being and Non-being, to prove that the objective world has no absolute truth, that its truth is entirely relative, and that from the absolute point of view it is an empty appearance. The word "empti- ness" (ganyat&), does not denote, as has so frequently been asserted, an absolute annihilation, but means that from the point of view of a higher synthesis the world of matter has no meaning. The very word

maya, which is later used by the Vedanta, is of frequent occurrence: cf. p. 42, "Wie meinst du, Subhfiti, ist ein anderes der Trug [mayd], ein anderes die Erscheinung [rapa]? . . . . Erscheinung eben ist Trug, Trug eben ist Erscheinung. .... Die fiinf Haftungsgruppen [upadana- skandha] sind naimlich wie ein Zaubermensch zu erfassen." This point of view is not developed in a systematic way. The texts are a jumble of dialogue and of dialectic, resembling rather the earlier Pli Suttas than the later philosophical works. Each concept is analyzed and the contradiction implied by it is shown. Any concept implies limitation. Each concept must have an antithesis; so all concepts are denied and Buddha or the Prajfiipdramitd is said to be neither Being nor Non-being, but to transcend the antithesis implied by all particular conceptions.

The important introduction gives bibliographical material concern- ing the Prajfiaparamitd texts, discusses the elements of negativism in Buddha's own teaching, and traces their development in the later philosophical history of Buddhism.

WALTER EUGENE CLARK UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

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