the buddhist viu: religious transformation, politics, and culture – by john c. holt

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Semantic Fields in Chinese and Greek” by L. Raphals; and“How to Steer through Life” by M.-c. Poo. Part two includes“Living off the Books: Fifty Ways to Dodge Ming in EarlyMedieval China” by R. Campany; “Simple Twists of Fate: TheDaoist Body and Its Ming” by S. Bokenkamp; and “MultipleVistas of Ming and Changing Visions of Life in the Works ofTao Qian” by Z.-q. Cai. Part three features “Turning LethalSlander into Generative Instruction” by P. Sieber; and “Fateand Transcendence in the Rhetoric of Myth and Ritual” byS. Sangren. Part four concludes with W. L. Chong on “Hubrisin Chinese Thought: A Theme in Post-Mao Cultural Criti-cism”; D. Knight on “Gendered Fate”; and Lupke on “Divi/Nation: Modern Literary Representations on the ChineseImagined Community.”

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

MENCIUS AND MASCULINITIES: DYNAMICS OFPOWER, MORALITY, AND MATERNAL THINKING.By Joanne D. Birdwhistell. Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 2007. Pp. 158. $55.00, ISBN 978-0-7914-7029-9.

With expert care, Birdwhistell argues that “female gen-dered behavior . . . had a central role in Mencian thinking,”although “it would be a mistake to assume that womenthemselves were viewed as a subject of extended concern orin a fully favorable way.” A close reading of the Mencius(Mengzi) “serves both to enable one to recognize that theorigins of morality . . . are widely regarded as female relatedand then to forget that one has ever recognized this associ-ation. One needs to forget because of the danger to societyof women’s perceived uncontrollability,” for example, asexemplified by the “flood-like ch’i/qi” that Mencius proudlyclaimed to accumulate through moral cultivation. Mencius’“appropriation and transformation” of maternal virtues“served to reassure men that if they behaved in this way,they were not really like a woman.” Birdwhistell’s argu-ments are nuanced and persuasive. Yet, they are also quiteapplicable to the final text of the Daode jing—that is, thereceived text and Mawangdui manuscripts—although not tothe earlier bamboo texts found at Guodian in the 1990s orto the cognate Neiye, which shares (and elucidates) Mencius’exhortations to cultivate qi to restore the originally puremind/heart (xin). These facts, overlooked in Birdwhistell’sstudy, might help us understand the motivations of bothtexts’ editors, if not that of the nominal “author”: the“transcoding” of “maternal thought” may have been not somuch a characteristic of Mencius’s own thought as an effortby redactors, like those who “maternalized” the Daode jing,presumably at the Jixia academy in Qi around the time ofMencius’ death. Future attention to such connections mayenhance our appreciation of Birdwhistell’s noteworthy con-tribution to our understanding of Mencius.

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

BuddhismTHE BUDDHIST VI U: RELIGIOUS TRANSFOR-MATION, POLITICS, AND CULTURE. By John C. Holt.New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Pp. 448.$69.50, ISBN: 978-0-231-50814-8.

In this fascinating work, Holt explores the Sinhala Bud-dhist transformation of the Hindu deity Vi u, with particu-lar attention paid to the political implications of thisappropriation, including the counterreactions by Buddhistreformers, such as Ven. Soma, who viewed it as a threat toBuddhist identity. He begins with a survey of the Hinduappropriation of Buddha as an avatar of Vi u, and thenturns to the Buddhist transformation of Vi u, whichoccurred during the twelfth through sixteenth century. Holtdiscusses the indigenous Sinhala deity, Upalvan, which waslater identified with Vi u. He then turns to the worship ofVi u in the contemporary Sinhala cultural context. Vi uis understood to have received a “warrant” from the Buddha,charging him with the task of embodying and defending themoral order. The concluding chapters provide richly detailedaccounts of this worship, and also discuss the ways in whichthe fractured political and religious landscape of present daySri Lanka has problematized the Buddhist cult of Vi u. Thiswork makes a serious contribution to the study of SouthAsian religions, and is a must-read for scholars and graduatestudents.

David B. GraySanta Clara University

EXPLAINING PICTURES: BUDDHIST PROPA-GANDA AND ETOKI STORYTELLING IN JAPAN. ByIkumi Kaminishi. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,2006. Pp. x + 246; plates, map. Cloth, $52.00, ISBN 978-0-8248-2697-0.

Explaining Pictures explores the relationship betweenpainted images and Buddhist proselytizing in Japan over tencenturies. The author’s thesis, that preaching with pictureswas central to the spread of Japanese Buddhism, is sup-ported by extensive research. Etoki, literally “picture deci-pherment,” refers to the images, the practice of elucidation,and the person who elucidates. Etoki paintings depict Bud-dhist doctrines, the life of the Buddha, hagiographies, originstories of temples, and legends. They are still used today insome Japanese temples. In the Edo period, etoki mostlyoccurred at temples and were attended by members of thecourt. Kaminishi relates diary entries that describe engagingetoki performances; the preachers were popular among theelite, and some visited the palace. With the decline of royalsupport, however, Buddhist institutions were forced to findpatrons among commoners, and itinerant monks carriedetoki scrolls and gave roadside sermons wherever an audi-ence was found. The spread of Pure Land Buddhism in thethirteenth century is unthinkable, Kaminishi argues, with-out etoki. The book describes two Pure Land etoki in detail,the Taima Mandala and its relationship to meditation

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practices, and the Kumano Mandala and its depiction ofvarious hells. The book is full of great details: for example,monks wrapped cloth around the pointers so they would notdamage the scrolls. One only wishes that the book’s manyillustrations were larger.

Marwood Larson-HarrisRoanoke College

THE EMERGENCE OF BUDDHISM. By Jacob N.Kinnard. Edited by Bella Vivante. Greenwood Guides toHistoric Events of the Ancient World. Westport, CT:Greenwood Press, 2006. pp. 208; illustrations. $45.00,ISBN 0-313-32838-2.

Kinnard’s text is an excellent resource for the nonspe-cialist, setting the stage for Siddhartha Gautama’s awaken-ing with an informative sketch of the Brahmanicalworldview, and the Upanishadic doctrines that the Buddhawould later adopt. Events surrounding the Buddha’s enlight-enment and fundamental teachings are concisely treated,and social and political conditions contributing to the estab-lishment and expansion of Buddhism in the centuries beforethe turn of the Common Era are explored. Kinnard includesa stimulating discussion of the Buddha’s accessibility afterhis demise in the form of relics, pilgrimage sites, and imag-ery, drawing attention to the effects of iconography on thepractitioner in a time when the religion’s founder is nolonger physically present. He offers a succinct account of theearly Mahayana, highlighting the debates within the Bud-dhist community, the “new” bodhisattva ideal, and keyMahayana doctrines. Kinnard concludes by presenting a lim-ited, but provocative, explanation for the decline of Bud-dhism in India. He also addresses Buddhism’s success inother regions, and particularly emphasizes its introductionto, and growing popularity in, the West. This text is suitablefor an undergraduate course on Buddhism, providing bio-graphical sketches of noteworthy figures, excerpts from a

variety of primary sources, a timeline of significant events,glossary of terms for easy reference, and an annotated bib-liography to aid the researcher.

Vishma KunuOrlando, FL

::::LAYAVIJÑ::::NA: ON THE ORIGIN AND THEEARLY DEVELOPMENT OF A CENTRAL CON-CEPT OF YOG::::C::::RA PHILOSOPHY. By LambertSchmithausen. Studia Philologica Buddhica MonographSeries, IVa. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Stud-ies, 2007. Pp. xiv + 705 (2 vols. Part I: Text, pp. xiv + 241;Part II: Notes, Bibliography and Indexes, pp. 242-705). 2,800yen, ISBN 978-4-906267-56-9.

This reprint of Schmithausen’s monograph, originallypublished in the same series in 1987, contains a short list ofaddenda and corrigenda along with a brief preface, but isotherwise unchanged. Schmithausen focuses on locating theearliest extant formulation of the concept of 5laya-vijñ5na, or“store-consciousness,” a subliminal form of consciousnessposited by the Yog5c5ra school of Mah5y5na philosophy toaccount for a number of problems raised by the Buddhistdoctrine of an5tman (“absence of self”), e.g., the problem ofhow to account for the continuity of personal identity, or ofhow to explain the emergence from advanced states of med-itation considered to involve the cessation of all consciousmental states. Schmithausen’s hypothesis is that the earliestformulation of the concept occurs to address this last prob-lem. The study is a veritable mine of information on the earlyhistory of Yog5c5ra thought, and has had a significant impacton the field. It is, however, only accessible to specialists: theendnotes, for example, comprise more pages than the textitself, and are filled with references to passages in Sanskrit,Tibetan, and Chinese.

Mario D’AmatoRollins College