Contributions on Tibetan Language, History and Culture:
Contributions on Tibetan and Buddhist Religion and Philosophy
Reviewed by Mark Tat
The Journal of the American Oriental Society
Vol.117 No.3 (July-Sep 1997)
pp.576-577
COPYRIGHT 1997 American Oriental Society
This reprint of the proceedings of the third meeting of the Csoma de
Koros Symposium, held at Velm, Austria, in September of 1981,
consists of forty-eight papers by invited participants, including
five by Tibetans. The diversity of the subjects addressed gives
proof of the "worldwide expanding development of a more and more
differentiated Tibetology" - especially, as the editors also point
out in their preface, the study of philosophical developments within
the monastic traditions of Tibet. (The table of contents' entry
indicating that volume two has its own preface is an error.)
These two volumes also establish the status of English as the lingua
franca of Tibetology - part of the legacy of Csoma himself. Though
it is the native language of only a minority of contributors,
thirty-seven of the articles are in English. An additional nine are
in German, and two are in French.
Articles devoted specifically to "Tibetan Religion and Philosophy"
draw entirely from monastic scholasticism. Other, rich sources of
Tibetan religio-philosophic thought and practice are not as well
represented. This collection of papers is remarkable in at least one
respect: in only three contributions do we see retrogression to the
old use of Tibetan as a "crib" for the original (lost) Sanskrit (as
T. V. Wylie put it, with reference to the work of E. Conze and L.
Hutritz). But that is also part of the legacy of Csoma, who
"discovered" the Tibetan canon of translations from Indic languages.
The Buddhological "crib" articles are S. Dietz and C. Lindtner on
the identity of Nagarjuna, and O. H. Pind on emptiness in
Madhyamaka. Dietz makes the unconvincing argument that the famous
letter Suhrllekha was not composed by Nagarjuna, on the grounds that
certain doctrines are absent from it. Lindtner also attempts to
classify the works of Nagarjuna as authentic or inauthentic on
grounds of doctrinal consistency (as though "intellectual
development" did not occur in the ancient world). Some familiarity
with Tibetan doxography would deepen the understanding, or at least
broaden the horizons, of both efforts, as is demonstrated by other
articles on the Madhyamaka.
These others consist of M. Kalff on the transcendence of existence
and nonexistence in Nagarjuna's Ratnavali, according to the
commentary by Rgyal-tshab-rje; K. Mimaki on classifications of
Madhyamaka schools in grub-mtha' (Skt. siddhanta) literature; D.
Seyfort Ruegg on whether the Madhyamaka propounds a thesis; M. Sato
on the works of the Sa-skya-pa scholar Red-mda'-ba; H. Tauscher on
text-critical problems in the Tibetan translation on the
Madhyamaka-avatara; T. Tillemans on "the 'neither one nor many'
argument for sunyata," incorporating verses of the
Madhyamaka-alamkara by Santaraksita; and P.M. Williams on reflexive
consciousness (rang rig, Skt. svasamvedana) according to
Candrakirti, as argued among Tibetan philosophers. These are
important, and most of them represent portions of works then in
progress, and since published.
Other important articles in the volume on Religion and Philosophy
are M. Broido and N. Katz on hermeneutics and the "vehicles"; L.
Schmithausen on Tibetan interpretations of the "path of vision"
(Skt. darsanamarga) section of the Abhidharmasamuccaya; and E.
Steinkellner on the meaning of the epithet for the Buddha, "person
of authority" (tshad-ma-skyes-bu), in works of formal epistemology
(Skt. pramana); L. S. Kawamura on interpretations of the
Aksayamatisutra; and S. G. Karmay on an early Bon response to the
introduction to Buddhism to Tibet.
Finally, there are J. Takasaki on the Mahayana Nirvanasutra; E. de
Rossi-Filibeck on the lineage of "cutting off" meditation (gcod),
and Achok Rimpoche on love and compassion.
Volume one incorporates articles on Tibetan Language, History, and
Culture. On Language, we have R. E. Emmerick on the Tibetan
translation of the medical work Siddhasara by Ravigupta (and also E.
Finckh comparing Tibetan with Western humoral theory); G. Kara on
Eastern Tibetan dialects as recorded by nineteenth-century
explorers; N. Narkyid on the origin of Tibetan script; T. J. Norbu
and A. Rona-Tas on a literary record of colloquial Amdo dialect; B.
Shefts and K. Chang on tense and aspect in spoken (Central) Tibetan;
and W. Yao on tone and the word mig in spoken (Central) Tibetan. R.
A. Miller demolishes the theories of Z. Yamaguchi on the historicity
of Thon-mi Sambhota, founder of the linguistic science ("grammar")
of Tibetan. H. Stang has also contributed an article on the origin
of the emperor's name Cinggis, in which a Tibetan origin is cited as
one possibility.
Among the articles on History and Culture, C. I. Beckwith argues
that a revolt (or more appropriately, a coup) by Tibetan ministers
against their emperor in A.D. 755 facilitated the subsequent
establishment of Buddhism. Also, G. E. Clarke on Tibetan
historiography in relation to Yol-mo, Nepal; E. Csetri on Csoma's
Oriental studies in Transylvania; H. Eimer on the rediscovered text
(gter ma) Bka'-chems-ka-khol-ma; M. Helffer on musical instruments
used in tantric ceremonies; J. Karsten on secular festivals on New
Year; P. Klafkowski on the neglect of the indigenous Himalayan
people known as Rong or Lepcha; F. K. Li on Sino-Tibetan relations
at around A.D. 763; J. L. Panglung and H. Uebach on Tibetan
religious culture in Ladakh; E. Sperling on Sino-Tibetan relations
during the Ming; J. Szerb on Tibetan-Uigur relations at around A.D.
822; and G. Uray on the influence of Nestorianism and Manicheanism
on Tibet in the eighth through tenth centuries.
MARK TATZ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY