Dessein, Bart

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography

142 China Review International: Vol. 22, No. 2, 2015© 2017 by University of Hawai‘i Pressthe dao with one’s nature (xing) and heart-and-mind (xin) and, equally, humans’ collective ability through xin to influence tian. In modern Confucianism, there is effectively no separation between the inner and the outer; there is a perpetual kineticism of mutual influence between these elements. Accordingly, these holistic concepts — coupled with their implications for moral philosophy — give modern Confucianism a sophistication beyond par. This is not extant in Xunzi’s philoso-phy. Tang clearly wishes to give Xunzi a greater position in the classical canon. This work goes some way to achieving this goal in the sense of presenting a  contrasting voice in the early historical continuum of Confucianism.Christine A. HaleChristine A. Hale, PhD, resident of Sydney, is an independent scholar in the fields of Confucian-Deweyan philosophy of education, Neo-Confucianism, and the Yijing.Claudia Wenzel and Sun Hua, editors. Buddhist Stone Sutras in China. Sichuan Province, volume 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag; Hangzhou: China Academy of Art Press, 2016. xi, 486 pp. Hardcover €159.00,  isbn 978-3-447-10588-0.With this volume of the series published under the chief editorship of Lothar Ledderose, we return to the “Grove of the Reclining Buddha” (Wofoyuan) situated in Ziyang City, Anyue County in the eastern part of Sichuan Province, to which the first volume of the series on Sichuan was also dedicated. (My review of this first volume was published in 2013 in China Review International 20, nos. 3&4.) Whereas the first volume on Sichuan presented and interpreted the northern side of the “Grove of the Reclining Buddha,” the present volume turns our attention to a cluster of caves (caves 46, 51, and 58, in section C) on the southern side. As in all other volumes of this fully bilingual series, a topographical introduction to the caves under discussion is followed by a detailed discussion of the different engraved texts (pp. 2–173); a technical description of the caves (pp. 184–191 for cave 46, pp. 393–394 for cave 51, and pp. 429–430 for cave 58) giving details on measurements, types of walls, location of inscriptions on the walls, etc.; photo-graphs of all inscriptions (pp. 194–339 for cave 46, and pp. 396–417 for cave 51); and a full transcription of the texts, where possible with a comparison with the Taishō edition of the Buddhist canon (pp. 342–389 for cave 46, and pp. 420–427 for cave 51). This is followed by a discussion of the caves in the existent academic (CS6) (UHP) (7×10”) Minion  J-3107 CRI, 22:2  CRI_22-2_02_Reviews pp. 142–145 (p. 142)PMU: (IDP) 26/4/2017 4 May 2017 8:58 AMReviews 143literature (pp. 434–440), a table of selected variant characters used in the engraved texts (pp. 441–471), and a bibliography (pp. 472–486).The layout of the three caves, with sculptures between caves 46 and 51 and between caves 51 and 58, hints that the three caves were designed as a tripartite group. The central figure of the cluster of relief sculptures between caves 46 and 51 most likely is the Medicine Buddha Bhais.ajyaguru, probably carved in the eighth century. The central figure carved between caves 51 and 58 is the bodhi-sattva Ks. itigarbha, a figure who was popular in the tenth century. These two figures that are some of the finest relief sculptures in the whole Grove area com-plement each other. The central figure of a third relief cluster is Sāhasrabhūjasāhas-ranetrāvalokiteśvara (Thousand Armed Thousand Eyed Perceiver of the World’s Sounds), who stands in the upper half of the western end wall of the passageway that connects the caves (p. 33). A fourth cluster of relief sculptures is centered on a dhāran. ī pillar with a banner and two colophons adjacent to it (p. 32). One is dated to 959, and the other one to 961. Martin Bemmann (p. 61) suggests that the banner itself may date from the early or middle Tang dynasty and that it may be a Life Prolonging Banner, which would link it to the presence of the figure of Bhais.aj- yaguru mentioned above. The oldest colophon on the precinct is found in cave 46. It was engraved in 723 during the Kaiyuan era (713–741) of the Tang dynasty. The youngest colophon found on the site is probably dated to 1228 (p. 41). Activity on the site must therefore have been going on at least into the early Song dynasty. This is consonant with the likely dating of the relief figures of Bhais.ajyaguru and Ks. itigarbha. The relief cluster centered on Ks. itigarbha also comprises a shrine for sūtras that embody the Buddha’s teaching. This is the only sūtra shrine chiseled into a Buddhist cave known in China. It may have been intended to contain all texts that were to be engraved in the cave walls in the course of time (pp. 29–32).The importance of the caves in section C is revealed by the fact that they face the reclining Buddha, and by their magnitude: they are the largest three of all caves on the precinct, measuring as high as 360 cm and able to contain up to 60,000 characters (p. 21). In practice, however, only cave 46 contains 10 texts that fill the cave walls, while cave 51 only contains a single text (the Mahāparinirvān. asūtra; Fo shuo dabanniepan jing; T.374), and cave 58 is devoid of any engraved text. Facing the statue of the reclining Buddha, the parts of the Mahāparinirvān. asūtra (Fo shuo dabanniepan jing; T.374) in caves 46 and 51 mirror the message of the central statue of the complex. A most surprising text on the walls of cave 46 is the Zhongjing mulu (Catalogue of all canonical scriptures; T.2148), done by the monk Jingtai in 665. Jingtai had direct ties with the Tang imperial family, and it was upon an imperial request in 663 that he compiled his catalogue (pp. 79–80). His cata-logue, the first two scrolls of which list the texts that were present in the Great Jing’ai Monastery in Luoyang, his home institution (pp. 46–47), reveals his reluc-tant attitude toward accepting native Chinese compositions (pp. 85–88). In his contribution to this volume, Stefano Zacchetti suggests that this list has a symbolic (CS6) (UHP) (7×10”) Minion  J-3107 CRI, 22:2  CRI_22-2_02_Reviews pp. 143–145 (p. 143)PMU: (IDP) 26/4/2017 4 May 2017 8:58 AM144 China Review International: Vol. 22, No. 2, 2015meaning, in the sense that the titles represent the complete texts and that hence, the list as a whole represents the totality of the teaching of the Buddha (p. 96). This suggestion is sustained by the position of cave 46 in the entire complex (p. 93), and is corroborated by a passage in the Sutra Spoken by the Buddha on the Perfection of Wisdom in the Sutras (Fo shuo xiuduoluo boreboluomi jing; T.2819) that is engraved in direct proximity of this engraved catalogue: “Wherever there exists the title of this sūtra, there also is the Buddha.”Other texts reveal a more symbolic approach: there is an invocation of Mahāprajñāpāramitā in seven large characters (p. 47), and the Sutra of Liberation and Breaking the Attributes of the Mind through the Wisdom Stored in the Ocean of Buddha-nature (Foxinghai zang zhihui jietuo po xinxiang jing; T.2885). The latter, an apocryphal text that was likely composed during the second half of the seventh century (p. 101), but that is said to have been spoken by the Buddha shortly before he entered Nirvān. a, can be seen, as suggested by Frederick Shih-Chung Chen (p. 106), as a condensed paraphrase of the entire Mahāparinirvān. asūtra. Claudia Wenzel suggests it is a “summary that could replace the entire latter part of the Nirvana Sutra, once the monks had realized that this long text might not be completed at the Grove” (p. 48), a remark that also points to the practical attitude of the monks when engraving the cave walls. A “summarized” presentation of the doctrine is also present in two short engraved dhāran. ī spells. These, more pre-cisely, are the Sutra of the Glorious Buddha Crown Dharani (Foding zunsheng tuoluoni zhou; T.967) and the Spell Spoken by Buddha Amitābha (Amituo fo shuo zhou; T.369). Of the Sutra of the Glorious Buddha Crown Dharani (discussed by Manuel Sassmann and Tsai Suey-Ling, pp. 114–122), two different versions of the translation, most likely erroneously attributed to Buddhapālita, are engraved.The message of the dhāran. ī, about which a 776 imperial decree ordered that all monks and nuns in the empire had to be proficient in reciting it, is that the Buddha says he wants to rescue all living beings and lengthen the life of those who uphold it. The dhāran. ī thus prevents untimely death and unfortunate rebirth. Reciting the Spell Spoken by Buddha Amitābha (discussed by Tsai Suey-Ling and Claudia Wenzel, pp. 169–173) has the power to remove the sins of the deceased, so that they can enter Amitābha’s Pure Land. It serves as a complement to the Amitābha Sūtra Spoken by the Buddha (Fo shuo Amituo jing; T.366) (discussed by Claudia Wenzel, pp. 151–165) that was translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva (344–413). This sūtra was very important in Pure Land Buddhism. The version that is engraved in cave 46 leaves out the passage that states that Amitābha’s name has to be invocated. Apparently, being mindful of his name in a state of meditation suffices to be reborn in the Pure Land. A last text that is engraved in cave 46 is the Diamond Perfection of Wisdom Sutra ( Jingang borepoluomi jing; T.235) (discussed by Ryan Richard Overbey, pp. 125–141). The engraved text is the only known complete exemplar of this apocryphal text that was most likely compiled in the late fifth or early sixth century. Overbey sees in its presence in the cave “an early (CS6) (UHP) (7×10”) Minion  J-3107 CRI, 22:2  CRI_22-2_02_Reviews pp. 144–145 (p. 144)PMU: (IDP) 26/4/2017 4 May 2017 8:58 AMReviews 145instance of Chan ideas and values” (p. 127). It is also not unlikely that this text, which ends with the Buddha announcing his impending death, was carved because of the critique phrased in it of monks who engage in economic activities, and the Buddha’s prophecy of the decline of the Buddhist community after his death.The colophons to these texts in the caves list more than a dozen individuals. These individuals come from various social backgrounds. We find the names of monks, donors, and workers on the engravings. In contradistinction to the  grottoes of Longmen, for example, the building of these caves does not seem to have had imperial support (p. 22). This may also account for the architectural peculiarities of the caves discussed here: the layout and design obviously had its roots in local building traditions (pp. 22–23).As in the other volumes in this magnificent series, the combination of archeo-logical, art historical, and philological work provides us with a new and renewed look at the social and political embedding of the creation of Buddhist caves; enhances our knowledge of text history (e.g., the Perfection of Wisdom in the Sutras, the Sutra Spoken by the Buddha on Amitābha, and the Sutra of Liberation and Breaking the Attributes of the Mind through the Wisdom Stored in the Ocean of Buddha-nature); and adjusts our view of actual Buddhist practices of monks and lay believers. With this volume the magnitude of the “Grove of the Reclining Buddha” is further evoked, and our knowledge of the importance of complexes such as this one, and the function of texts in Buddhist practice, is more refined.Bart DesseinBart Dessein is a professor of Chinese studies at Ghent University, Belgium, specializ-ing in early Chinese Buddhism.(CS6) (UHP) (7×10”) Minion  J-3107 CRI, 22:2  CRI_22-2_02_Reviews pp. 145–145 (p. 145)PMU: (IDP) 26/4/2017 4 May 2017 8:58 AM

Claudia Wenzel and Sun Hua, editors : Buddhist Stone Sutras in China. Sichuan Province, volume 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag; Hangzhou: China Academy of Art Press, 2016. xi, 486 pp. Hardcover Euro 159.00, ISBN 978-3-447-10588-0.

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Claudia Wenzel and Sun Hua, editors : Buddhist Stone Sutras in China. Sichuan Province, volume 3. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag; Hangzhou: China Academy of Art Press, 2016. xi, 486 pp. Hardcover Euro 159.00, ISBN 978-3-447-10588-0.

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Ghent University Academic Bibliography