Kalupahana describes his 1992 work as an expansion and completion of earlier ideas in his successful 1976 work, Buddhist Philosophy, and the more recent volumes, Nagarjuna and Principles of Buddhist Psychology. The present work is divided into two main sections: 'Part One: Early Buddhism' and Part Two: Continuities and Discontinuities'. That Kalupahana has an authentic point of departure within Sri Lankan tradition for providing a picture of Buddhism from one sort of insider's perspective is a great merit of the book. In this way it is distinguished from so much of the scholarship, especially of Westerners on Buddhism, which is either so text-specific as to be fragmentary and lacking in holistic vision or so contrived from an idiosyncratic weaving of several ideas from different Buddhist cultures as not to be about anything. Scholarly quibbles aside for the moment, the vitality of the Sri Lankan tradition of Buddhist exegesis is definitely represented in this work. 'The middle way' in Buddhism is a systematically ambiguous term and, as such, is subject to numerous construals. It may be styled, ethically, as a middle between the extremes of princely pleasures of Sakyamuni's palace life (hedonism) and the self-mortification of Jainas and others (asceticism); metaphysically (pace Kalupahana), as a middle between the eternalist soul theory of afterlife (Hindu atmavada) and a materialist view denying karma and rebirth (Carvaka). In Part One, Kalupahana ends Ch. I therein driving one interpretation of the middle way as, epistemologically, between the search for ultimate objectivity in knowledge claims (objectivism) and the belief that there can be no such objectivity (scepticism) (2I). In Ch. II as Kalupahana pulls selected Mahayana bits towards early Buddhism he also stretches bits of early Buddhism to reach Mahayana. While not calling Buddha a hodhisattva, he does say, in giving a diachronic account of Buddha's demise, that the Buddha's strenuous life as a constant guide to thousands of people on matters moral and spiritual gradually began to take a toll on his health (rather than emphasizing synchronically the causal role of bad pork or mushroom according to text and tradition) (29). In Ch. III we find Buddha's middle way view explained, again epistemologically, with reference to a pragmatic criterion of truth which avoids the extremes of both the correspondence and the coherence theories of truth (52). In Ch. IV on experience and theory one finds a holding fast to the principle of dependent arising as superior to substantialist views of nature and of the supposed eternal self in that this Buddhist principle avoids mystery and explains phenomena as arising and passing away in a 'verifiable manner'. (Over the years, Kalupahana has neither sufficiently worked out in detail his view that Buddhism is a form of empiricism, nor deigned to take his critics seriously.) By contrast to Buddhist perception of things as they have come to be (yathbhuta), those who hanker after mystery are obscurantists courting anxiety and frustration (59). In Ch. V on language and communication, holding neither to an ontological one-one correspondence between concept and object nor to a theory that experience is incommunicable through language, the Buddha's view of communication as 'skill in means' emerges as an alternative to the absolutism and nihilism of the other theories respectively (66-7). In Ch. VI on the human personality there is exploration of the theme of 'the selfless self' in Buddhism as this idea relates to the concept of person, world, and others, including a consideration of socio-political, moral and epistemological concerns (77). Ch. VII on 'the object' argues that the non-substantiality doctrine applied both to experiencing subject and object perceived neither denies individuality nor urges abandonment of all views about the nature of the object (84)- Objects already known and objects of knowledge viewed as a generic category are distinguished and the distinction forms the structure of the chapter. Ch. VIII on the problem of suffering argues that Buddha views only dispositional phenomena as unsatisfactory, not all phenomena or things generally (89). On Kalupahana's interpretation, the realization of impermanence and non-substantiality just is the attainment of freedom and happiness (89). As he earlier puts it, the elimination of lust, hatred, and confusion is the Buddha's distinctive achievement (i.e. the knowledge of the destruction of defilements) which is constitutive of his enlightenment (26). In Ch. IX on freedom and happiness he holds that nirvana is the appeasement of all dispositions (90-1). Ch. X explains that in early Buddhism there is no sharp distinction between the moral life and the good life. The position is neither absolutist nor relativist but pragmatic -- the rightness or wrongness of an action or rule consists in 'what it does to the person or the group of people in the particular context or situation' (102). Here the eight-fold path is discussed in detail. In Ch. XI on popular religious thought Kalupahana discusses Redfield's distinction between the elite 'Great Tradition' and the village 'Little Tradition', but in the course of discussing the central Buddhist ritual of taking refuge in Buddha, Doctrine, and Order, he comes to reject Redfield's distinction. If contemporary Buddhist villagers have lost touch with academic understanding, that is because of colonization and Western education in Buddhist lands (i i8). In Part One Kalupahana is clearly on home ground. In Part Two on continuities and discontinuities with early Buddhist tradition (Chs. XXI-XXIII) Kalupahana develops his own view of 'common ground' between Theravada and Mahayana. The way in which he does so is to find in Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, and Dignaga selected emphases (as was found in Moggaliputta-tissa) which elaborate the early Buddhist message. It is in Part II that Kalupahana is likely to sustain the greatest degree of criticism from Mahayana text specialists, some of whom may find Kalupahana's conclusions unacceptable. It is worth noticing, however, that his expressed intention is the mature one of seeking common ground between the Theravada tradition in which he was reared and the Mahayana (239)- The author's own self-understanding seems however not that he is constructing Buddhism for the reader, but objectively uncovering it in the earliest stratum and finding similarities in later strata. Whether such a stance can be maintained in the present-day philosophical world is an interesting issue for debate. The work concludes with an epilogue on philosophy and history, an appendix on the Lankavatara, a bibliography, and an index. There are a few embarrassing misprints, as when sabhava should be svabhava (I33) and Kathavatthn should be Kathavatthu (I26), to mention but two. Overall, one finds that 'one major text and three prominent philosophers generally identified with Mahayana are representative of the non-substantialist and non-absolutist teachings of the Buddhist himself' (xiii). This is a controversial claim in a controversial work, and it will be difficult for specialist readers not to have strong views about it, pro or contra. On balance, what can be reasonably said? Perhaps this: that Kalupahana is a pioneering theoretician and harmonizer in the mould of Buddhaghosa, whom he often chastises; but also that there is no good reason to believe that one has the very words of the Buddha in pristine exactitude -- in the Pali Canon or indeed elsewhere -- just as one does not have the very words of Jesus (which in relative chronology would have been more likely). Although it would be fair to say that Kalupahana could have written a better book than this one proffered as the 'consolidation of thirty years of research and reflection' (ix), there are many in the field who are not producing books this good. Kalupahana's History is his best book since the I 9 76 Buddhist Philosophy. Kalupahana's 1992 Work reveals a deep philosophical commitment to Buddhism, and a 'belief "in"' (to borrow H. H. Price's term) the Buddha. The former emerges throughout the work in the use of strategies of argument designed to elucidate 'the middle way' as a invulnerable way free of various difficulties which obtain to alternative 'extreme' views. The latter, the faith of a Buddhist theoretician, may be glimpsed here and there, but most notably when fending off a possible ethical criticism of Buddha with the flourish: 'The legend about Siddhartha's leaving home while his wife and new-born baby were asleep, while highlighting the emotional stress in his renunciation, also symbolizes Yasodhara's acceptance of her husband's decision. Any other interpretation of his renunciation would do violence to the character of a person who propounded an extremely enlightened form of love and compassion for oneself as well as others' (24).