Tibetan Sacred Art: The Heritage of Tantra by Detlef Ingo LaufReview by: B. N. GoswamyJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 98, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1978), p. 332Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/598762 .

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 98.3 (1978) Journal of the American Oriental Society 98.3 (1978)

Tibetan Sacred Art: The Heritage of Tantra. By DETLEF INGO LAUF. Berkeley and London: SHAMBHALA. 1976. Pp. 228. Price $37.50.

The contemplation of Tibetan art can be something of sweet torture for the uninitiated-those without proper access to the inner mysteries of the doctrine. For the dazzling beauty of the art is matched only by the bewildering complexity of the ideas it embodies. It is an art "so obscurely encoded" that access to it often seems barred to the outsider: all he can hope then to do is to begin by understanding its context. Detlef Ingo Lauf's present work, first published in German in 1972 and now available in English translation, aims precisely at providing and making intelligible this context, and in this it achieves very marked success.

Beginning with explaining the origins of Lamaism and its nature, especially in the matter alike of its points of contact and points of departure from Indian Buddhism, Dr. Lauf takes us slowly into the Buddhist Tantric world of potent mystical formulas and magical diagrams, a world in which mantra and mandala came to acquire such power. He traces the history of the India connec- tion, the coming and going of learned masters, the rise of clearly defined orders within Tibetan Buddhism, the emergence of elaborate symbols, and the unending proliferation of deities that came to people the world of Tibetan thought and art. While staying close to icono- graphy and describing the many manifestations of Buddhist deities, he constantly draws the reader's at- tention to the highly refined meditative aspect of the faith, stating again and again that these deities "must not be equated with real or presumed gods," for "they are merely momentary creations of the yogi during his attentive concentration, projections of the void before his inward eye." In what is one of the best chapters in the book, Dr. Lauf interprets the nature and the sig- nificance of the mandala, with its layered meanings of the experience of the void, the vibrations of the germinal syllables, and the slow but sure emergence of visual manifestations of a thousand hues. Here one gets a glimmering of a mysterious world that is at once so indefinable and so precise.

There is a highly useful section on "the noble art of writing," and notes on the great masters and saints of Tibet. But what rivets the reader more than anything else to this superbly produced book is the range of art objects around which Dr. Lauf weaves his contextual account and his argument. Here, in carefully chosen gilded bronzes and thangkas and painted walls, one sees Bodhisattvas shedding quiet grace, the male and the female principles in unio mystica, awesome dakinis,

Tibetan Sacred Art: The Heritage of Tantra. By DETLEF INGO LAUF. Berkeley and London: SHAMBHALA. 1976. Pp. 228. Price $37.50.

The contemplation of Tibetan art can be something of sweet torture for the uninitiated-those without proper access to the inner mysteries of the doctrine. For the dazzling beauty of the art is matched only by the bewildering complexity of the ideas it embodies. It is an art "so obscurely encoded" that access to it often seems barred to the outsider: all he can hope then to do is to begin by understanding its context. Detlef Ingo Lauf's present work, first published in German in 1972 and now available in English translation, aims precisely at providing and making intelligible this context, and in this it achieves very marked success.

Beginning with explaining the origins of Lamaism and its nature, especially in the matter alike of its points of contact and points of departure from Indian Buddhism, Dr. Lauf takes us slowly into the Buddhist Tantric world of potent mystical formulas and magical diagrams, a world in which mantra and mandala came to acquire such power. He traces the history of the India connec- tion, the coming and going of learned masters, the rise of clearly defined orders within Tibetan Buddhism, the emergence of elaborate symbols, and the unending proliferation of deities that came to people the world of Tibetan thought and art. While staying close to icono- graphy and describing the many manifestations of Buddhist deities, he constantly draws the reader's at- tention to the highly refined meditative aspect of the faith, stating again and again that these deities "must not be equated with real or presumed gods," for "they are merely momentary creations of the yogi during his attentive concentration, projections of the void before his inward eye." In what is one of the best chapters in the book, Dr. Lauf interprets the nature and the sig- nificance of the mandala, with its layered meanings of the experience of the void, the vibrations of the germinal syllables, and the slow but sure emergence of visual manifestations of a thousand hues. Here one gets a glimmering of a mysterious world that is at once so indefinable and so precise.

There is a highly useful section on "the noble art of writing," and notes on the great masters and saints of Tibet. But what rivets the reader more than anything else to this superbly produced book is the range of art objects around which Dr. Lauf weaves his contextual account and his argument. Here, in carefully chosen gilded bronzes and thangkas and painted walls, one sees Bodhisattvas shedding quiet grace, the male and the female principles in unio mystica, awesome dakinis,

stern guardians, enlightened masters. What form, one asks oneself, could be more enlightened that that of the 16th century Maijusri from Southern Tibet, more capable of redeeming the world through compassion than the White Tara, or more effective as a guardian than the wrathful Dharmapala Vajrapani from the 18th century?

If there is one thing that is noticeably missing in the book, then, it is a close examination of the mind of the Tibetan artist. While it is not the history of this art, but its meaning and significance, that are the principal foci of the work, Dr. Lauf makes intriguing references to the mental preparation of the artist himself. According to him he must "be initiated into this normally arcane knowledge" of the doctrine before attempting to give it pictorial form: he must understand the meaning of the various "crystallization points," and thus have them as his "basic knowledge." It is possible that Dr. Lauf has had access, through the many living Tibetan scholars in Ladakh and Bhutan and Sikkim, to whom he acknow- ledges his debt in the preface, also to some of theliving artists who are still working in the tradition. If this is so, the reader would have appreciated his sharing with him the insights that he gained into their minds. For it is not unoften that even an art so esoteric and complex as Tibetan begins to become much more real when seen and understood through the eye of him who makes it.

B. N. GOSWAMY UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

The Wisdom of the Forest. By GEOFFREY PARRINDER- Pp. 94. A New Directions Book. New York. 1976. $6.50.

Prof. Parrinder has translated selected passages from the Upanisads with a certain amount of editing and abridgement. The translation is pleasantly readable, but is quite clearly aimed at the general public of our bewildered age, and not for scholars, for whom it has nothing to offer. The translations are conventional, and the impression left is as gankara would have desired, of the unity of the Upanisads. But it is quite clear that Prof. Parrinder has given no original thought to the problems of the meaning, background and development of these works in their own time. He does not leave the impression of being able to treat his material at first hand-the equation of Uddalaka Aruni of Bau with VajaSravas Gautama of Kath. U. does not inspire con- fidence in his further guidance. The book will be pleasing and helpful to undisciplined thinkers.

R. MORTON SMITH UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

stern guardians, enlightened masters. What form, one asks oneself, could be more enlightened that that of the 16th century Maijusri from Southern Tibet, more capable of redeeming the world through compassion than the White Tara, or more effective as a guardian than the wrathful Dharmapala Vajrapani from the 18th century?

If there is one thing that is noticeably missing in the book, then, it is a close examination of the mind of the Tibetan artist. While it is not the history of this art, but its meaning and significance, that are the principal foci of the work, Dr. Lauf makes intriguing references to the mental preparation of the artist himself. According to him he must "be initiated into this normally arcane knowledge" of the doctrine before attempting to give it pictorial form: he must understand the meaning of the various "crystallization points," and thus have them as his "basic knowledge." It is possible that Dr. Lauf has had access, through the many living Tibetan scholars in Ladakh and Bhutan and Sikkim, to whom he acknow- ledges his debt in the preface, also to some of theliving artists who are still working in the tradition. If this is so, the reader would have appreciated his sharing with him the insights that he gained into their minds. For it is not unoften that even an art so esoteric and complex as Tibetan begins to become much more real when seen and understood through the eye of him who makes it.

B. N. GOSWAMY UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

The Wisdom of the Forest. By GEOFFREY PARRINDER- Pp. 94. A New Directions Book. New York. 1976. $6.50.

Prof. Parrinder has translated selected passages from the Upanisads with a certain amount of editing and abridgement. The translation is pleasantly readable, but is quite clearly aimed at the general public of our bewildered age, and not for scholars, for whom it has nothing to offer. The translations are conventional, and the impression left is as gankara would have desired, of the unity of the Upanisads. But it is quite clear that Prof. Parrinder has given no original thought to the problems of the meaning, background and development of these works in their own time. He does not leave the impression of being able to treat his material at first hand-the equation of Uddalaka Aruni of Bau with VajaSravas Gautama of Kath. U. does not inspire con- fidence in his further guidance. The book will be pleasing and helpful to undisciplined thinkers.

R. MORTON SMITH UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

332 332

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