Tibetan Renaissance: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture by Ronald M.DavidsonReview by: D. Seyfort RueggBulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 70, No. 3(2007), pp. 624-627Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40378948 .

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Because of the fragmentary nature of the materials, it is not entirely clear just what might be the significance of this epithet when attached to a king; and the question arises whether the concept of Bodhisattva-king was perhaps being applied in this text to this Kusana monarch. Salomon notes (p. 261) that, in a recently discovered stone inscription from Endere in the Kroraina (Shan-shan) kingdom of Central Asia and datable to the third century, the Gandharl form of this epithet has been applied to a ruler, just as it was also in the Niya document 390 published long ago by Boyer, Rapson and Senart. With regard to Huviska, the palm leaf fragments of the "Early commentary" discussed by Braarvig and Sander on p. 249 are dated to his reign or to that of his predecessor Kaniska.

This publication thus either contributes significantly to our existing understanding of already identified issues or it opens up important new vistas in the history of Buddhism.

D. Seyfort Ruegg

CENTRAL ASIA

RONALD M. DAVIDSON: Tibetan Renaissance: Tantric Buddhism in the Rebirth of Tibetan Culture. xiv, 596 pp. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. £21. ISBN 0 231 13471 1.

This volume is in some respects a continuation of the same author's Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (New York, 2002). The shift of scene from India to Tibet, together with the greater abundance of chronicles and historical (or semi-historical) material in Tibet compared with India have naturally caused a modification in presentation and treatment of the subject. The reader might ask of just what the renaissance mentioned in the title was. On p. ix Davidson explains briefly: "This book seeks to recognize [...] the rebirth and reformation of Tibetan culture, approximately a century after the catastrophic collapse and fragmentation of the Tibetan empire in the mid ninth century. Somewhat overlooked in both traditional and modern accounts of the phenomenon is the simple fact that Tibetans employed the vocabulary, texts and rituals of [...] Indian tantric Buddhism to accomplish much of this feat". The renaissance referred to here accordingly corresponds approximately to the Tibetan idea of the later diffusion, or propagation, of the Buddhist dharma in Tibet, i.e. the (earlier) phyi dar. According to the author, this phase in the history of Tibetan Buddhism was steeped throughout in "Tantrism". In terms of the author's thesis what took place starting in the tenth-eleventh century may not then have been a "renaissance" in the strictest sense, for in the earlier diffusion of the dharma in Tibet - the sna dar time when by royal decision the propagation of "Tantrism" was restricted - Tibetan Buddhism was apparently not yet so deeply imbued with Vajrayana. The book sets out to substantiate its author's thesis, including his claim (p. 9) that "much of the tantric literature - including some of the earliest materials - has been overlooked, and we may wonder whether some scholars have been excessively dismissive of the Tibetan and Mongolian religious landscape".

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The book comprises an introduction, nine chapters, and a conclusion and epilogue, accompanied by illustrations and maps and followed by appendixes, end notes, an extensive bibliography, and indexes. The nine chapters are entitled: 1) Early medieval India and the esoteric rhapsody; 2) The demise of dynasty and a poorly lit path; 3) Renaissance and reformation: the eastern Vinaya monks; 4) Translators as the new aristocracy; 5) Drokmi [i.e. 'Brog mi]: the doyen of Central Tibetan translators; 6) Treasure texts, the imperial legacy, and the Great Perfection; 7) The late eleventh century: from esoteric lineages to clan temples; 8) The early twelfth century: a confident Tibetan Buddhism; and 9) The late twelfth and early thirteenth century: ethical crises, international prestige, and institutional maturation. Appendix 1 concerns eastern Vinaya temples, cave temples, and residences in the mid-eleventh century; Appendix 2 discusses the "Root Text" of the *Mdrgaphala teaching of the Sa skya pa tradition; and Appendix 3 is a concordance of early commentaries on this fundamental "Root Text" of the lam 'bras.

With regard to the author's thesis it is worth considering two points. On p. 59 Davidson writes: "Of the many forms of Buddhism, only the tantras represented the fundamental identity of the religious and political spheres [...]". Now the Tibetan pairing, in a kind of concordat, of a princely donor (yon bdag, the honorific of sbyin bdag = ddnapati) and a religious preceptor- donee (mchod gnas or yon gnas = daksiniyaldakkhineyya) - a religio-political form that Tibet shared with Mongolia and in part with other Inner Asian lands - provides an interesting test for evaluating the predominance of "Tantric" influence in Tibet. This dyarchic yon mchod (or mchod yon) system appears to have at least indirect Indian antecedents, not always Vajrayanist, and these antecedents seem to go back a long way in the history of Buddhist thought (cf., e.g., ddnapati and daksindldakkhind). In Tibet too this system did not automatically carry with it "Tantric" overtones, for a preceptor and guru is not necessarily and always a specifically Vajrayanist master. Yet, in the manner of its implementation in the thirteenth century between the Sino-Mongol emperor Qubilai and his Tibetan preceptor-donee 'Gro mgon 'Phags pa (1235- 80) - the nephew of the illustrious Sa skya pandita - a Vajrayanist dimension was indeed clearly present, the yon mchod relationship having in this case been established, according to several sources, in the context of the conferment on the emperor of Vajrayanist consecrations (dban = abhiseka), with 'Phags pa acting as officiant. The importance of "Tantric" Buddhism for this relationship is thus confirmed, even if the relationship/?^ se has not always been exclusively Vajrayanist. (By the way, the role of Qubilai's consort, the qatun Cabi, appears from the sources not to have been without significance in bringing about a relation between her husband and his preceptor bla ma; but her role was very probably played out within a Vajrayanist frame.) This case thus supports the analysis adopted by Davidson, while perhaps requiring a nuance in its statement in so far as the relationship was not necessarily and always of a Vajrayanist character. If not a precedent, it provided an important exemplar for the relation between a princely donor and a preceptor-donee in Tibet; for it represented an elaboration of the old relationship holding in India between a royal lay donor and a religious. (In n. 4 on p. 377, Davidson asserts that the relation had no Indian "precedent".) Curiously, Davidson accords little detailed attention to the important yon mchod relation between princely donor and preceptor-donee even though he lays much emphasis on social institutions and the socio-religious and socio-political. (The Chinese terms guoshi and dishi are, however, mentioned on pp. 324, 334 and 376 n. 3; but they are not included in the index.) The essays relating to this theme in The Relationship

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between Religion and State (chos srid zuri 'brel) in traditional Tibet edited by C. Cuppers (Lumbini, 2004) no doubt arrived too late to be used by Davidson.

The second point is the following. Davidson continues his sentence cited above by writing (p. 59): "[O]nly the tantras afforded Tibetans carte blanche to indulge their fascination with rituals. Only the tantric system validated the indigenous gods as important in their own rights, and the mandalas of the tantras proved expansive enough to integrate every little sprite and local demon somewhere in the spiritual landscape". This issue of the integration of indigenous gods, godlings, celestials, etc., is indeed of very considerable practical and theoretical interest for the history of Buddhism. The integration has very often been achieved in the frame of the laukika : lokottara opposition current in Buddhism from an early period, and it is by no means confined to "Tantrism" exclusively. In Buddhist canonical scriptures certain Indian divinities (Brahma, Sakra, etc.) play a prominent part. And in the Mahayana this integration is for example attested in the Kdrandavyuhasutra, not normally classified as a Tantra (even if it does comprise proto-Vajrayanist features). It is true that, on pp. 171 and 206 of his Indian Esoteric Buddhism cited above, Davidson has rejected the idea of any pan-Indian religious substratum; but his rejection needs to be more cogently substantiated than he has done, as was observed by D. G. White in his review article of Davidson's earlier book (in the electronic JIATS 1 (2005)).

The typographical composition of the book is careful, but a few misprints have crept in; thus, in the context of "mad" Yogins on p. 11, *smyong ba has to be corrected to smyon pa. On p. 31, etc., for Tib. gsan snags the normal Skt. equivalent is simply mantra (rather than "guhyamantra"). On p. 238 (cf. p. 421 n. 108), the rDzogs chen teacher gNubs Sans rgyas ye ses is placed in the late ninth or early tenth century, a dating that may very well be correct. But no attention is given to the fact that a work ascribed to him, the bSam gtan mig sgron, contains passages that reflect later (eleventh-twelfth c?) concerns, so that this text as we have it cannot necessarily be placed at the time here indicated.

While one of the usual transliterations of Tibetan (often referred to as the Wylie system, even though in essence it was in fact employed by scholars even earlier) has been used by Davidson in his notes, the main text of the book provides still one more phonetic transcription for Tibetan which not every reader will find easily readable. The author has not been very well served by his publisher: despite the technical means nowadays available, the notes have been put not where they belong, at the foot of the page, but as end notes at the back of the volume, so that the reader is continually obliged to leaf back and forth through the book in order to locate Davidson's valuable and informative annotation. The indexes do not nearly cover all the important key terms and concepts found in the book.

In this volume Davidson has produced a noteworthy study of an important theme. When invoking the fundamental significance for Tibet of "Tantrism" - i.e. of the Vajrayana or Mantranaya - one is referring to concepts and practices that are definable in the frame of Buddhism, unlike what is the case for shamanism which is a notoriously fluid, and malleable, concept. Davidson's view of the central importance of Tantrism in Tibetan culture in the period with which his book deals is surely not unjustified, even if sometimes his exuberant narrative is perhaps a little overemphatic and in need of nuancing and historical contextualization. It has to be kept in mind that in various orders (chos lugs) of Tibetan Buddhism in all periods of its history the "exoteric" component - i.e. the Paramitayana - has also occupied a

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fundamental and central place, even if it is the case that most Tibetans have been Vajrayanists to one degree or another.

D. Seyfort Ruegg

EAST ASIA

W. SOUTH COBLINI A Handbook of 'Phags-pa Chinese. xv, 307 pp. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007. $38. ISBN 978 0 8248 3000 7.

The 'Phags-pa alphabet was created in the thirteenth century by the Tibetan monk 'Phags-pa Lama at the behest of the Mongol emperor Qubilai. It was intended as a unifying script for his would-be universal empire. Not surprisingly in view of its creator, it was based on the Tibetan alphabet. In his introduction (pp. xiii-xv), Professor Coblin correctly notes that this was the first direct application of alphabetic writing to any form of the Chinese language. He goes on to argue that such an alphabetic script, in contrast to the traditional logographic script that has been used from the earliest time to the present, should provide a more secure basis on which to attempt to recover earlier stages in Chinese pronunciation of their language than the traditional means such as rhyme tables, fanqie spellings, etc. Hence, by implication, the desirability of this Handbook, which presents and studies the 'Phags-pa alphabet as a way of writing Chinese. Since Coblin himself, following his teacher Fang-kuei Li to whose memory the book is dedicated, has devoted a considerable amount of effort in the past to proposing "reconstructions" (his quotes) of earlier stages in the history of the Chinese language, I find his attempt to draw a sharp distinction between alphabetic (good) and logographic (bad) puzzling and, frankly, unacceptable. The logographic Chinese script has in fact served the Chinese well over the centuries. There are those, especially foreigners, who think that modern-day Chinese should abandon it in favour of an orthography based on the Roman alphabet. I don't think this is going to happen. The traditional script is no doubt troublesome to youngsters who have to learn it as part of their elementary education but there are also advantages in unifying the nation and emphasizing its continuity with its past. I find it especially strange that a native speaker of English, with its notoriously non- phonemic system of spelling, should argue the inherent superiority from a historical point of view of alphabets over other forms of writing. There is no royal road to recovering and understanding how our ancestors communicated with one another. What one has to do, as with all historical problems, is to form hypotheses and test them as best one can against the available evidence. This applies also to the history of the Chinese language and writing, as well as that of English or any other language. For the scientific principle for which I am arguing, see Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London, 1957). Over the past two or three centuries the science of comparative linguistics has emerged as one of the fruitful ways for humans to study their past. It began with the discovery in the eighteenth century of the relationship between Sanskrit, the classical language of India, and Greek and Latin, the classical languages of Europe. As progress was made during the nineteenth century in the reconstruction of Indo-European, it was natural that attempts should be

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