The Book of Zambasta a Khotanese Poem on Buddhism (Review by Wayman)

8/12/2019 The Book of Zambasta a Khotanese Poem on Buddhism (Review by Wayman)

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The Book of Zambasta: A Khotanese Poem on Buddhism. by R. E. EmmerickReview by: Alex WaymanThe Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Nov., 1969), pp. 151-152Published by: Association for Asian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2942534.

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BOOK REVIEWS 151estimatesorChina n theI960's,project nto that isjointedandthe onceptsf a closelyadministeredWestern-typeationstate forwhich uchaggregates ouldbe meaningful.ForChina, achtime nation-wideggregateis used, t needs o be askedhowfar t is, nfact,meaningful.n somesectors nationalaggregatemaybe significant.n others-andthe eviewerould rgue hat ationalncomein the1960'ss among hem-it smisleadingin that t givesrise to assumptionsbout nintegratedationalconomyhat oesnot xistexceptncertainectors.Someyears goa defectorromhePeople'sRepublic ttended conferencen contempo-raryChina.Askedhisopinion fthediscus-sion,he replied hat twas like a blindmanfeelingn elephant. owever hiswasmeant,itcouldbe taken s a compliment,incewiththedeveloped ense of touch of the blind,much couldbe knownof the animalbeingexamined: ertainlyhe fact that t was anelephant. he techniquesor themostpartused nthevolume nder eviewwould hartthe hangesnweightndvolume fthe rea-ture, utfail o revealf twasan elephantra rhinoceros.

AUDREY DONNITHORNETheAustralian ationalUniversityThe Bookof Zambasta:A Khotanese oemon Buddhism. DITED AND TRANSLATED BYR. E. EMMERICK. London: OxfordUni-versityress, 968, XXii,455pp. Appen-dixes, 20.75.The Book of Zambasta named after heofficialsambasta ho ponsoredhework) sthe ongestingle oem o surviven the astIranian anguage alledKhotanese. f course,Dr. Emmericks indebtedo previousaborson this ext,speciallyyE. Leumann ndH.W. Bailey,whichhe dulyacknowledges.tthe ame ime, isedition ndtranslationon-stitutes significantersonalccomplishmentona treacherousork.His admirable ontrolover heKhotaneseanguage s shown yhissimultaneous Saka GrammaticalStudies(I968) which ppeareds VolumeXX inthesame ondonOriental eriesn which he res-entwork sVolumeXXI.Dr. Emmerick as avoided no pains to

collect veryxtant olio o that istext, hichis printed acing heEnglish,will be as com-plete s possible. venso, there re frequentgaps,often educing heEnglish ersion o astring f phraseswith nterveningots;andonly about half of the ongest hapter No.XXIV) is extant.His critical pparatus sprincipallyevoted o the folionumbersIn-troduction,p. xi-xix)and variant ragments(Appendix I, pp. 424-436) and so signalingthe folio numbers n themarginsof the pub-lished text.His metrical nformations on theseparate page xxi as well as in Appendix 2(pp. 437-453) devotedto theMailjusrinairdt-mydvatdrasfitra.n each of the twenty-fourchapters,he numbers both the Khotaneseverses nd their nglishrenditions,o studentsof the Khotanese anguageshould find thistobe an ideal reader.The fragmentary atureof the text accen-tuates the translation ifficulty. ut the factthat it is a Buddhisttext seems almost inci-dental to the treatment,ince there are onlymeager notes to the translation, amely thosecontainedin the valuable introductory ara-graph to each chapter,he Arapacana Syllabaryof Appendix 3 (pp. 454-455), and some rarefootnotes. here is no index at all, which ifconstructed,would have facilitated onsulta-tion of the translation f the Buddhistwork.Still,Dr. Emmerick has succeeded n render-ing a sufficientmountof thetextwitha highlevelof translation o enable the reader to geta fair deaofthecontents fthework.Although Dr. Emmerick'sforceof scholar-shipwas directedmoreto the text han to thetranslation,he workshould interest uddhistspecialists. t sheds much light on the char-acterof KhotaneseBuddhism. t is significantthat this work is devoted to the mythological,devotional, nd miraculous ide of MahayanaBuddhism,withwholesaledrawing on previ-ous sources, speciallyfromboth the Ratnak-iita and the Avatamsaka type of scriptures.There is scarce evidence of philosophical ub-tlety; ather he work s aimed at popularizingBuddhism. The cult of the Future BuddhaMaitreya ChapterXXIII, pp. 01-341) is pres-ent as pure devotionand, incidentally, on-tains a charmingdescription f the jewels ofthe Universal Emperor (pp. 3II-33). Thepopular emphasisdoes notprevent heappear-

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152 JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIESance of some ntriguingoctrinaloints,uchas themannerf subdividingachof the ixperfections pdran2itz) by the other perfec-tions pp. I55, I57) of theBodhisattva. sup-pose that monks n the Khotanregion wouldstill study more abstruse tresatises n theauthoritative anskrit anguage, just as cen-turies atertheMongolian amas would studythe sacred scripturesn the Tibetan languagerather han in theirown Mongolian languageeven when works were translated herein, sthe late Dilowa Gegen Hutukhtu once toldme.The Sanskrit ackground f thework s notlost to Dr. Emmerick,who again and againrenders he Khotanese by equivalent Sanskrittermsrather han by English expressions. oin Chapter X, p. 15: "He realizes the Suira-rgamasamcdhdna and the vairopama-experi-ence, the ten upayas, the fourvaisadradyas,heeighteen dvenikadharmas.This is the un-shared j[iana. So many are its dnus'amsas."Such Sanskrit terms are usefulfor Buddhistspecialists, et n theiruntranslated orm heygive the impression hat the translator everintended his work to be read by personslimited o theEnglish anguage In somecases,thissticking o the Sanskrit ermreducestheclarity nd even cogencyof a sentence, s inhis use of theterm amjiin as though hiswereuntranslatablewhereas, as theFrenchBudd-hologists ong ago recognized, t means an'idea' or a 'notion'), thus nChapter V, p. 8i:"Therefore s there no manifestationf formthere: because one has had no meditation nform. The vijildna has meditatedwithoutsamjini. It has not even the samriadof form."Here the Khotanese (p. 8o) vifidnikasteasamini should mean "One has meditatedwithperceptionvijiidna) (but) not with an idea(samnjfd)."And so also: "One has not eventhe dea of form."There are some other spots which are de-batable,butthere s no doubting he fine evelof attainment. he whole workappears to bea kind of tour de force by a young scholarwhosepromise s being proven,who should berecognizedas a solid specialist n Khotanesestudies. f in hishaste to establish hispointhefailed to equip his book with a full table ofcontents nd an index and thereby educedtheusefulness,ne should stillgivehimcredit

for the good accomplishmentnd look for-ward to otherworks yhimthat re suretocome. ALEX WAYMANColumbiaUniversitySurvey f the Sino-Soviet ispute.BY JOHNGITTINGS.New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 968, XiX, IO pp.Appendixes,n-dex.$I I.75.The study nder eviews designed,s theauthor uggests,o throwight n theoriginsand developmentf the Chinese-Sovietis-puteby"extracting,efiningnd interpreting"the rticlesnd statementsxchangedetweenChina ndthe ovietUnionbetween963andI967. The polemics n I963 ceased to becouched n "esotericanguage" nd both idesbeganto indulge n an open dialogue bouttheir ifferences.he authorhas compiledcareful nduseful ollectionf annotatedndshortenedersions f the documents,rovid-ingan indispensableeferenceook for hosewho re oncerned ith he ubject.It maybe arguedthatdocumentsf thisnature re inadequate oran understandingofthe dispute etween hina and theSovietUnion, ndparticularlyo for hisvolume e-cause after 963 the statementsere often"distortednd partial" n the open debate.The materials ppearingn thisvolume remuchmore nstructivendrevealinghan nemighthave thought, ecause he anguage svivid and extreme bout whatwe alreadyknow,makingtmore nteresting,ut muchsofternd lessclear bout ssues hat re stillobscureo us. For themostpart, he extractsreveal he sharply ivergentiewsof ChinaandtheSovietUniononpracticallyveryma-jor ssue,ncludingheVietnamWar andtheCultural evolution.ach accuses heotherfmaking a lie,""a distortion,"r "an error."On the ther and, oth ides end o besilenton the 956-I957period,speciallyn thena-ture f their ooperationr discord verblocpolicy. he truecircumstancesf Chou En-lai'strip oWarsaw arlyn I957,for xample,remainveryunclear. dgar Snow,forone,suggestsn The Other ide oftheRiver hatMoscow hared ts eadership ithChina inbloc affairsbecause Khrushchev neededChina'sbackingo consolidateispower osi-

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The Book of Zambasta a Khotanese Poem on Buddhism (Review by Wayman)

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