World Conqueror and World Renouncer

7/28/2019 World Conqueror and World Renouncer

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TA BL E O F C O N T E N T S

I . A RT I C L E S

1. The Mongol Khans and Chinese Buddhism and Taoism,bySechin Jagchid

2. From Madhyamika to Yogacara, an Analysis of MMK,XX IV. 18 an d MV, 1.1-2, by Gadjin m. Nagao

3 . Dynamic Liberat ion in Yogacara Buddhism, by AlanSponberg

4 . Yogacara and the Buddhis t Logicians ,by A lex Wayman

II . S H O RT PA P E R S

1. Sambodhi in ASoka's 8th Rock Edict,by A . L. Basham2 . Can Medi ta t ional Pract ice be Measured? A Report on a

Quant i ta t ive Survey, by Jacques Maquet3 . Nirvana and Metaphysical Exper ience,by Ismael Q uiles

I I I . B O O K R E V IE W S A N D N O T I C E S

Reviews:

1 . Wor ld Conquero r and Wor ld Renounce r, by S.J. Tambiah

2 . Compara t ive Eth ics in Hindu and Buddhis t Trad i t ions ,byRoderick Hindery.

3 . Mahayana Buddhis t Medi ta t ion : Theory and Prac t ice ,byMinoru Kiyota, assisted by Elvin W. Jones

4. C h a n d i B o r o b u d u r : A M o n u m e n t o f M a n k i n d , by Dr.Soekmono

Obituary:

1. Paul Demieville, by A lexander W. Macdonald

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III. BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES

S. J . Tam biah , World Conqueror and World Renounce*; A Study of Buddhism andPolity in Thailand against a Historical Background. Cambridge Studies in SocialAn thro po log y, Vol. 15 (C am brid ge : T h e Universi ty Press , 1976).

Som e decad es ago . Hocart a nd Paul Mus dre w at ten t ion to the role of

roya l power in Theravada Buddhism. The la t te r ' sBarabudur, concerned wi thmu ch e lse bes ides Therava da B udd hism , was a ver itab le m on um en t , inspi ring awe because of the dazzling talents of i ts author, but apparently l i t t lev is ited and cer ta in ly never ransacked by con tem por ary researche rs . Mo rerecent ly, Heinz Bechert ' s master ly three-volume survey,Buddhismus, Staat undGeselhchaft in den Ldndern des Theravada-Buddhismus (Wiesbaden: Ot to Har-rassowitz , 1967-1973) , combined extraordinar i ly wide reading with greatclari ty of exp osi t ion . Ho wev er, the inf luence exercised by Mus an d Bec herthas been limited by the absence of Knglish translations of their massive con

tr ibut io ns. Since the last war, in the Bu rm ese co rne r of the Th er av ad a f ie ld ,the labou rs of G or do n Luce, the thou ghtfu l work of K. Sarkisyanz, the conscientious volumes of M. E. Spiro and the l ively analyses of E. M. Mendelsonhave opened up new perspect ives . Meanwhile , the thrust given by Louis I )u-mont, notably in his Homo hierarchic us , towards the integrat ion of Indologyin Social Anthropology has had a seminal effect both on field research andon theoret ical w ri t ings. But ther e is . to my m ind , no thin g qui te l ike ' Iam bia h 'sla tes t volume.

Ta m bia h has had lon g an d var ied expe rien ce as a fie ld anthro polo gis t

both in Sri La nka an d in T ha ila nd . H e is alre ad y well kno wn for his workon Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand,published bv the Cambri dg e U niversity Press in 1970. His latest work is aim ed at a wid er au die nc e.It is co nc ern ed not only with twe nt ie th-c entury Th ai la nd and the resul ts ofthe aut ho r 's own field-work; it also seeks to co nt rib ute to theo retical studieson the re la t ions be tween Church and S ta te th roughout Ind ian and SouthEast Asian history. In a w ord , it is co nc ern ed with the practical an d theo retica lfun ction ing of Bu dd hi sm an d H in du ism , an d it is w rit ten in English. It is a

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very ambitious book; and it is, unfortunately, a very badly written one. Itsturgid prose is thick with pre tentiou s jar go n; the re is much repetition ; andthe au tho r has a passion for pa renthesis which this read er found irritating.Once one has u nd ersto od what is, so to speak, in brackets, the effort is notalways rewarding. Let me say at once that I found the second part of thebook (p p. 200-530), devoted to ethnogra phic descriptions and much less theoretical than the first part, much the more interesting. There Tambiah tellsus much abo ut what he discovered in the field: the information is often newor difficult of access, and the knowledge that is transmitted is situated againstthe 19th- and 20th-century historical background. In these pages the authoris concerned with "the provisions of the Sangha Acts of 1941 and 1963; thestudy of present-day monastical institutions; the plotting of the careers ofmonks, the routes they took and the patronage system they relied on; theappreciation of the doctrinal interpretations and activism currently in vogueamong the educated monks; the probing of the links between the ecclesiastical and political hierarchies, between prominent monks and ruling politicians; the discerning of the present role of kingship vis-a-vis Buddhism onthe one side and ruling Elites on the other" (p. 4). He shows us that "theexisting ecclesiastical hierarchy, the recent Sangha Acts, and the educationalaspirations of the present-day monks" must "be referred back to developments in King Chulalongkorn's reign, especially culminating with the SanghaAct of 1902; similarly, todays issues, idiom and language of reformism andscripturalism take their major precedents from the era of Mongkut, firstwhen he was monk and later king (1851-1868), not to mention the sectariansplit and the policy towards educated monks who disrobed to take up valuedlay positions. Moreover these developments were inflected by the nineteenthcentury political history of Thailandwhen it collided with the West andlaunched upon modernisation"(ibid.). All this is put across relatively clearlyand this reader sympathises with the author's view that to practice good anthropology in a literate society one must have a solid knowledge of history.Buddhism is treated throughout as a serious social force, and its historicaland contemporary impact are examined in terms that are more pertinentthan the ill-informed, if clearly expressed, theses of Max Weber. Tradition,mythology and popular cults are not dismissed as minor and relatively unimportant facets of a great philosophical enquiry; and the artificial barriersset up between rival disciplines in Western academic circles are consistentlyignored.

All this is well and good; but the first part of Tambiah's book is much lesssatisfying. One gets the impression that an appendix to the ethnographic textswelled to ungovernable proportions in the course of the author's ruminations, and that he decided that the only thing to do with it was not to keepit in a drawer but to publish it as an introduction to the results of his field-work. The first hundred pages or so deal with the passage of the idea ofrajadharma to that of dharmardja. The brahmanical theory of society and kingship is contrasted with the early Buddhist conception of "World Process,"Dharma and Kingship; and Asoka's reign is envisaged by Tambiah as "amodel both generating and legitimating political action" (p. 54). This model,

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he argues, served to shape society not so much in Indiawhere the Mauryanempire soon broke apartas in South East Asian countries, where transplanted Indian ideas shaped kingship and polity. In Thailand and in otherEastern Theravada lands, the moral progress schematised in the originalAsokan model slipped into the formulation of a paradoxical identity: theworld conqueror, the cakkavatti, became equated with the world renouncer,th e bodhisattva (p. 96). Around this new equation converged the original polarised themes from both Hinduism and Buddhism. There is nothing particularly new about these ideas; and they have been expressed more clearlyand discussed m ore succinctly elsewhere. My qu arre l with this aspect of Tambiah's work lies in his off-hand and unscholarly use of secondary sources. Forinstance, despite the space accorded to Asoka, no mention is made of Przy-luski's basic work on theASokAvad&na (incidentally, it is perhaps pertinent toremember that Asoka was anupdsaka but never a monk); several pages aredevoted to the Buddhist Councils but there is no mention of the work ofAndre Bareau; Heine-Geldern is referred to for his 1942 American articlebut there is no mention of his fundamental "Weltbild und Bauform inSiidostasien"; the Traibhumikathd (p. 96) is a text and not a man (it has beentranslated by Coedes and Charles Archaimbault in the Publications of theEcole franchise d'Extreme-Orient); and so on. While it is true that Tambiah'slatest book draws attention indirectly to the absence of any attemp t at a comparable analysis in the vast field of Mahayanist studies, one may questionwhether it was advisable to separate, in such a wide-ranging study, the Theravada material from other Buddhist documents. To recall the conflicts between Church and State in China might have been more apposite than theauthor's excursus into Medieval Europe (pp. 360-364). It would have beenjustifiable, to illuminate the discussion, to remind readers of Paul Demieville'sadmirable pages on Buddhism and War{Choix d'Uudes bouddhiques [Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1973 ], pp . 261-299). Again, note might have been m ade, at leasten passant so much else that is not directly relevantis mentionedof thetheory and practice of thelugs gflislqoyar yosun among Tibetans and Mongols(see, most recently, K. Sagaster, "Das System der Beiden Ordnungen,"DieWeisse Geschichte [Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976], pp. 9-49).

I understand that a French translation of Tambiah's work is in preparation. Let us hope that the occasion will be seized to reduce the English to amore palatable form, to correct the numerous misprints, to tighten up theanalysis, and to bring the bibliography up to date an d into closer relationshipto the text. If the Barabudur of Paul Mus figures in the Bibliography of theEnglish edition, there is no indication anywhere in the text that Tambiah hasread it. I have seldom been so exasperated by a book that interested me somuch.

Alexander W. Macdonald

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World Conqueror and World Renouncer

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