BOOK REVIEW

sDe dge Tibetan Tri@aka: bsTan @wr, dBu ma, Volumes l-l 7, preserved at the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo. Tokyo, 1977-1979.

For so many works of Indian literature that are no longer extant in the original Sanskrit the Tibetan translations which began to be produced in the eighth century are now our main sources. And even for texts still available in the original they very often prove to be important for both textual history and interpretation. These Tibetan translations thus contain material essential for the study of Indian literature and SPtras in general and of philosophy and religion, Brahmanical and Jaina as well as Buddhist, in particular; their great importance for this purpose was first recognized by modem scholars more than a century ago, and over the past three generations especially Indological scholarship from France to Japan has come to appreciate how indispensable they are.

The Tibetan translations are, as is well known, to be found in the Collection of Scriptural Teachings (bKa’-‘gyur [rocog]) and the parallel Collection of Sktras (bsTan-‘gyur [rocog] ). The Sktra corpus of the bsTan- ‘gyur is now available in editions from Peking, sNar-thari, sDe-dge, and Cone. For the philologist and historian of Indian thought, each of these four editions has its value; and it would be hazardous and practically impossible to generalize about the superiority of one over the others since they vary in accuracy from section to section - indeed from passage to passage - and also to a small degree as to their respective contents. Still the sDe-dge edition - which is more recent by some decades than the oldest available printed canon, viz. the Ch’ing dynasty edition from Peking (bKa’-‘gyur 1684f., and bsTan-‘gyur 1724) - has often been regarded in Tibet and elsewhere as especially carefully edited and reliable.

The reputation for accuracy of the sDedge edition of the bKa’-‘gyur no doubt rests at least in part on the fact that it was published, in the 173Os, under the supervision of Chos-kyi-‘byuri-gnas alias Karma-bsTan-pa’i-t%n-byed gTsug-lag-chos-kyi-snan-ba (1699/l 700-l 774) known as the Si-tu Panchen

JoumaZofIndianPhiZosophy 9(1981)101-103.0022-1791/81/0091-0101 $00.30. Copyright 0 1981 by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.

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of dPal-spuns monastery. The sDe-dge bsTan-‘gyur in its turn was published shortly afterwards, in the 174Os, under the supervision of 2u then Tshul- khrims-rinchen (1697- 1774), known as the Great Editor. Both these collections were prepared and their printing blocks carved under the patronage of the royal house of sDe-dge; and the blocks were kept at the great sDe-dge printing house in Khams province of Eastern Tibet. The contents of this edition are well-known from A complete catalogue of the Tibetan Buddhist canons (Bk@ @yur and B&an &yur) edited by H. Ui, M. Suzuki, Y. Kanakura and T. Tada (Sendai, 1934; reprinted Tokyo, 1970).

It is then most fortunate for Indological and Tibetological scholarship that the Tibetan Text Research Association at Tokyo University has undertaken the present facsimile reprint of the sDe-dge bsTan-‘gyur kept at the Faculty of Letters of that university. The reprint is being published by the World Sacred Texts Publication Society (Sekai Seiten Kanko Kyokai, 1-39-l 7 Kami-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo). The facsimile printing is very clear and legible except in those places where the original xylograph was itself indistinct; in such cases the editors have evidently, and very rightly, taken the decision not to retouch or ‘correct’ the plates. The editors note that when a folio of the Tokyo copy was found to be unusable the corresponding folio of the sDe-dge edition kept at Koyasan University was used. A special feature of this publication are the detailed analytical tables of contents and the valuable bibligraphic notes by Professor Ejima Yasunori. The latter cover (1) editions of the original Sanskrit text, (2) references to modem editions of the Tibetan translation, (3) references to the Chinese translations in the Taisho ShinshO Daizo-6, (4) references to related works such as commentaries in the Tibetan and Chinese canonical collections, and (5) lists of modern translations and selected textual studies. These annotations considerably enhance the usefulness of the present publication.

So far, the seventeen volumes of the Madhyamaka (dBu-ma) section (volumes tsa [xvi] - gi [xxxiii] ) of the bsTan-‘gyur have been published. In this reprint each volume corresponds to one volume of the original blockprint, and it is therefore somewhat easier to handle than the reprint of the Peking edition of the bKa’-‘gyur and bsTan-‘gyur published by D. T. Suzuki and the Tibetan Tripitaka Research Institute (Tokyo and Kyoto, 1955-1958), which has rendered such valuable service to readers over the past twenty years. Also, since this reprint has the same oblong format as the

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original xylograph, its print is slightly larger and easier to read than that of the reprint of the Peking edition.

This publication has been prepared by the Tibetan Text Research Association under the supervision of Professors J. Takasaki, Z. Yamaguchi and Y. Ejima in cooperation with Profession K. Hayashlma of the Department of Indian Philosophy and Indian Literature of Tokyo University. Indologists and Tibetologists will be very grateful to these editors and to the publishers; for by making easily available the Tibetan translations of the works of the Madhyamaka school as found in the sDe-dge edition which is regularly required for study and reference, and also for the verification of the readings of the Peking edition, this reprint will prove to be an invaluable aid to further research in Indian thought and civilization of the classical and early mediaeval periods and in one of the main sources of Tibetan thought.’

D. SEYFORT RUEGG

NOTE

’ On the sDedge edition of the Tibetan canon see especially F. Weller, Zum Kanjur und Tanjur von Derge, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 34 (193$ col. 201-M; and J. Kolma& The iconography of the Derge Kanjur and Tanjur, Satapitaka Series, New Delhi, 1978, Introduction, p. 15 ff.