Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00108597
S. Gunasingam
Since the time South Asia, together with other Asian and African countries, became an integral part of the British Empire, the significance of manuscripts, published works and other artefacts, relating to those regions has stimulated continued appreciation in the United Kingdom, albeit with varying degrees of interest. It is interesting to note that the factors which have contributed in one way or another to the collecting of South Asian I material for British institutions vary in their nature, and thus illuminate the attitudes of different periods. During the entire nineteenth century, the collectors were primarily administrators; for most of the first half of the twentieth century, it was the interest and the needs of British universities that led to the accumulation of substantial holdings in many academic or specialist libraries.
{"title":"Catalogue of Tamil manuscripts in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine","authors":"S. Gunasingam","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108597","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108597","url":null,"abstract":"Since the time South Asia, together with other Asian and African countries, became an integral part of the British Empire, the significance of manuscripts, published works and other artefacts, relating to those regions has stimulated continued appreciation in the United Kingdom, albeit with varying degrees of interest. It is interesting to note that the factors which have contributed in one way or another to the collecting of South Asian I material for British institutions vary in their nature, and thus illuminate the attitudes of different periods. During the entire nineteenth century, the collectors were primarily administrators; for most of the first half of the twentieth century, it was the interest and the needs of British universities that led to the accumulation of substantial holdings in many academic or specialist libraries.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"359 - 369"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108597","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57100692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00108627
D. Wiseman
{"title":"Literary and miscellaneous texts in the Ashmolean Museum. By O. R. Gurney. (Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts, Vol. XI.) pp. 84 + errata slip. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1989.","authors":"D. Wiseman","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108627","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108627","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"158 1","pages":"377 - 378"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108627","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57101140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00108883
T. Falk
{"title":"Scenic splendours: India through the printed image. by Pheroza Godrej and Pauline Rohatgi. pp. 167, 32 col., 82 bl. and wh. illus. London, The British Library; Bangalore etc., Arnold Publishers, 1989. £25.00.","authors":"T. Falk","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108883","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"413 - 413"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108883","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57104190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00109001
Robert H. Taylor
Moreover, either in principle or in practice, houses or clans in eastern Indonesia may sometimes be involved in symmetrical marital exchanges. In consequence, I find figures 1 and 5b a gross over-simplification, in places technically incorrect, and probably very misleading. Finally, there is the assertion of methodological integrity. This "is an essay about 'Us ' meeting 'Them'" (p. 26), in which the author is mercifully happy to seek accuracy, while abhorring objectivity. Given such lofty claims, the vagueness of some of the statements and the mis-use of the comparative method is surprising. The book opens, for example, with a description of birth ritual which, while incorporating the device of direct selective quotation from fieldnotes which one supposes is deemed to confer privileged authority then proceeds to generalise and interpolate commentary. What are we to make of this? Are the generalisations derived from the extracts presented? Are there other notes on the same subject of which this is a distillation, or have secondary sources been employed? Is there garbling going-on? I am not sure. I mention these things only because the author herself has made a virtue of a particular kind of integrity: the claim to inside knowledge. Surprising also, in view of this, is the selfconscious stylishness of the text. We must "not import alien ideas" (p. 238) says Professor Errington, while all the while "snorkeling" texts (p. 12) and making much of elaborate ethnocentric culinary metaphors involving souffle pans and cookie trays. If even this author errs, perhaps there is no alternative. Behind all the pretension we have here in literary terms an undeniably well-written book by an author with a lively imagination, who is clearly nobody's fool and much taken to meditating with effect on the seminal ideas of others. There are important insights, and no doubt her confident models of "centrist" and "Eastern Indonesian" societies will get some mileage. But as ethnography it is fatally partial and inconsistent in terms set by the author herself. At the general level, at which it purports to have some relevance, it repeats a number of anthropological commonplaces while actually telling us little that is new.
{"title":"Rebellion and repression in the Philippines. By Richard J. Kessler. pp. xii, 227. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1989. US $30.00, £22.50.","authors":"Robert H. Taylor","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00109001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00109001","url":null,"abstract":"Moreover, either in principle or in practice, houses or clans in eastern Indonesia may sometimes be involved in symmetrical marital exchanges. In consequence, I find figures 1 and 5b a gross over-simplification, in places technically incorrect, and probably very misleading. Finally, there is the assertion of methodological integrity. This \"is an essay about 'Us ' meeting 'Them'\" (p. 26), in which the author is mercifully happy to seek accuracy, while abhorring objectivity. Given such lofty claims, the vagueness of some of the statements and the mis-use of the comparative method is surprising. The book opens, for example, with a description of birth ritual which, while incorporating the device of direct selective quotation from fieldnotes which one supposes is deemed to confer privileged authority then proceeds to generalise and interpolate commentary. What are we to make of this? Are the generalisations derived from the extracts presented? Are there other notes on the same subject of which this is a distillation, or have secondary sources been employed? Is there garbling going-on? I am not sure. I mention these things only because the author herself has made a virtue of a particular kind of integrity: the claim to inside knowledge. Surprising also, in view of this, is the selfconscious stylishness of the text. We must \"not import alien ideas\" (p. 238) says Professor Errington, while all the while \"snorkeling\" texts (p. 12) and making much of elaborate ethnocentric culinary metaphors involving souffle pans and cookie trays. If even this author errs, perhaps there is no alternative. Behind all the pretension we have here in literary terms an undeniably well-written book by an author with a lively imagination, who is clearly nobody's fool and much taken to meditating with effect on the seminal ideas of others. There are important insights, and no doubt her confident models of \"centrist\" and \"Eastern Indonesian\" societies will get some mileage. But as ethnography it is fatally partial and inconsistent in terms set by the author herself. At the general level, at which it purports to have some relevance, it repeats a number of anthropological commonplaces while actually telling us little that is new.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"425 - 426"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00109001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57104417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00109086
H. Baker
too, such as the Half-acre garden (Ban mu yuan) once occupied by Linqing of the Imperial Household Bond-servant division of the Bordered Yellow Banner, and Prince Gong's mansion. Shenyang is not on the normal tourist routes in China and deserves to be better known as the palace and its contents are invaluable resources; though this text (which was [presumably] translated from an authorised Chinese source) is characteristically bare of notes and bristling with assumptions, the volume as a whole is a good introduction.
{"title":"The Oxford-Duden pictorial Chinese & English dictionary. Simplified character edition, pp. 853, 384 illus. Hong Kong etc., Oxford University Press, 1989. £25.00.","authors":"H. Baker","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00109086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00109086","url":null,"abstract":"too, such as the Half-acre garden (Ban mu yuan) once occupied by Linqing of the Imperial Household Bond-servant division of the Bordered Yellow Banner, and Prince Gong's mansion. Shenyang is not on the normal tourist routes in China and deserves to be better known as the palace and its contents are invaluable resources; though this text (which was [presumably] translated from an authorised Chinese source) is characteristically bare of notes and bristling with assumptions, the volume as a whole is a good introduction.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"432 - 433"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00109086","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57104825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00108688
Alexander Knysh
indicate that the text, or its constituent parts, had attained some sort of sacred status early in its (or their) history, but that in itself tells us nothing about the time or circumstances of composition and compilation. Nevertheless, Brockett's stress on the fact that the Qur'an is not only "scripture" but also (orally delivered) liturgical text is important. In sum, therefore, this is a valuable collection which deepens our understanding of tafsir and reflects the extent to which academic study of that discipline flourishes. The volume has been admirably edited and is well produced.
{"title":"Das Sendschreiben al-Qušayrīs Über das Sufitum. Introduction, translation and commentary by Richard Gramlich. (Freiburger Islamstudien, Band XII.) pp. xix, 659. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, 1989. DM 240.","authors":"Alexander Knysh","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108688","url":null,"abstract":"indicate that the text, or its constituent parts, had attained some sort of sacred status early in its (or their) history, but that in itself tells us nothing about the time or circumstances of composition and compilation. Nevertheless, Brockett's stress on the fact that the Qur'an is not only \"scripture\" but also (orally delivered) liturgical text is important. In sum, therefore, this is a valuable collection which deepens our understanding of tafsir and reflects the extent to which academic study of that discipline flourishes. The volume has been admirably edited and is well produced.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"386 - 388"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108688","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57102419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00108767
M. Yapp
was held within the 'ulama' as a whole, and by individual 'ulama' at different times and in varying circumstances. She is by no means inclined to overestimate the role played by the religious classes: indeed, her general message is that for the most part the mujtahids she discusses were leading from behind: they were obliged to support the constitution because that was where the sympathies of their followers generally lay. This was clearly an essential consideration in a religious system in which the influence and prestige of a mujtahid depended on his possession of disciples, not on a formally defined position in a hierarchy. Shaykh Fazlallah Nurl receives more sympathetic treatment from Dr Martin than he did from the constitutionalists, who had him hanged in 1909. She credits him with seeing the inevitably secularising and westernising consequences of the acceptance of constitutional government, and the erosion of the position of the 'ulama' that this would bring about, much more clear-sightedly than any of his peers. She contends that his opponents among the 'ulama' never really succeeded in answering (in Islamic terms and according to Shn theological-legal presuppositions) the arguments that he put forward and that the developments of the Pahlavi era eventually proved that he was right. Those who are expert in the period will be able to evaluate Dr Martin's case more adequately than I can: for myself I find her arguments and the evidence she produces generally convincing. If I were looking for holes to pick, I might query the absence from the bibliography of some items which readers would be likely to find worth consulting, such as Moojan Momen's Introduction to Shti Islam, A. K. S. Lambton's articles on the tobacco regie and her brief study of the revolution in the volume on Middle Eastern revolutions edited by P. J. Vatikiotis, and Shuster's celebrated book The Strangling of Persia. Nor am I happy about the appropriateness of the use in a Persian context of such terms as "fief" and "feudalism". But these are comparatively minor points. The story Vanessa Martin tells can hardly fail to set off all kinds of resonances in the reader's mind especially comparisons and contrasts with the events of 1979 and after in Iran. The author rightly resists any temptation to stray into such pastures. The real value of her book is that, in the words of Yann Richard of CNRS quoted on the jacket, it will "become the standard work on the Iranian constitutional revolution", and not just for want of anything better. It marks a rather impressive scholarly debut,
在“乌拉玛”内部作为一个整体，在不同的时间和不同的情况下由个别的“乌拉玛”持有。她绝不倾向于高估宗教阶层所扮演的角色:事实上，她的总体信息是，她所讨论的圣战者在很大程度上是幕后领导:他们有义务支持宪法，因为这是他们的追随者普遍同情的地方。在一个宗教体系中，这显然是一个必要的考虑因素，在这个体系中，圣战者的影响和威望取决于他对信徒的拥有，而不是他在等级制度中正式确定的地位。比起1909年被绞死的立宪主义者，谢赫·法兹拉·努尔得到了马丁医生更多的同情。她认为他比他的同行更清楚地看到了接受宪法政府不可避免的世俗化和西方化的后果，以及由此带来的“乌拉玛”地位的侵蚀。她认为，他在“乌拉玛”中的对手从来没有真正成功地回答过他提出的论点(用伊斯兰的术语和根据伊斯兰教的神学-法律预设)，巴列维时代的发展最终证明了他是正确的。那些在这一时期的专家将能够比我更充分地评价马丁博士的案例:就我自己而言，我发现她的论点和她提出的证据总体上令人信服。如果我在寻找漏洞，我可能会质疑书目中缺少一些读者可能会觉得值得参考的项目，比如Moojan Momen的《什叶派伊斯兰教导论》，A. K. S. Lambton关于烟草制度的文章，以及她在P. J. Vatikiotis编辑的中东革命卷中对革命的简要研究，以及舒斯特的名著《掐死波斯》。我也不满意在波斯语语境中使用“封地”和“封建主义”这样的术语是否恰当。但这些都是相对次要的问题。凡妮莎·马丁讲述的故事几乎会在读者心中引发各种共鸣，尤其是与1979年及之后发生在伊朗的事件进行比较和对比。作者正确地抵制了任何误入此类领域的诱惑。她的书的真正价值在于，用CNRS的Yann Richard在封面上引用的话来说，它将“成为关于伊朗宪政革命的标准著作”，而不仅仅是因为缺乏更好的东西。这是一本令人印象深刻的学术处女作，
{"title":"Iran: the crisis of democracy, 1941–1953 . By Fakhreddin Azimi. pp. xi, 433. London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 1989. £29.50.","authors":"M. Yapp","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108767","url":null,"abstract":"was held within the 'ulama' as a whole, and by individual 'ulama' at different times and in varying circumstances. She is by no means inclined to overestimate the role played by the religious classes: indeed, her general message is that for the most part the mujtahids she discusses were leading from behind: they were obliged to support the constitution because that was where the sympathies of their followers generally lay. This was clearly an essential consideration in a religious system in which the influence and prestige of a mujtahid depended on his possession of disciples, not on a formally defined position in a hierarchy. Shaykh Fazlallah Nurl receives more sympathetic treatment from Dr Martin than he did from the constitutionalists, who had him hanged in 1909. She credits him with seeing the inevitably secularising and westernising consequences of the acceptance of constitutional government, and the erosion of the position of the 'ulama' that this would bring about, much more clear-sightedly than any of his peers. She contends that his opponents among the 'ulama' never really succeeded in answering (in Islamic terms and according to Shn theological-legal presuppositions) the arguments that he put forward and that the developments of the Pahlavi era eventually proved that he was right. Those who are expert in the period will be able to evaluate Dr Martin's case more adequately than I can: for myself I find her arguments and the evidence she produces generally convincing. If I were looking for holes to pick, I might query the absence from the bibliography of some items which readers would be likely to find worth consulting, such as Moojan Momen's Introduction to Shti Islam, A. K. S. Lambton's articles on the tobacco regie and her brief study of the revolution in the volume on Middle Eastern revolutions edited by P. J. Vatikiotis, and Shuster's celebrated book The Strangling of Persia. Nor am I happy about the appropriateness of the use in a Persian context of such terms as \"fief\" and \"feudalism\". But these are comparatively minor points. The story Vanessa Martin tells can hardly fail to set off all kinds of resonances in the reader's mind especially comparisons and contrasts with the events of 1979 and after in Iran. The author rightly resists any temptation to stray into such pastures. The real value of her book is that, in the words of Yann Richard of CNRS quoted on the jacket, it will \"become the standard work on the Iranian constitutional revolution\", and not just for want of anything better. It marks a rather impressive scholarly debut,","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"396 - 397"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108767","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57103051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00108779
Narguess Farzad
Chashmhdyash, Her Eyes, is B. Alavi's first and only novel in Persian and, incidentally, the last of his works published in Iran before he left for exile. Although Her Eyes received much praise from the critics, it attracted strong condemnation too. The strongest attack came from some of the author's comrades in the Tudeh Party, and also from critics in the Soviet Union who found Alavi's sympathetic treatment of Farangis, the wealthy and spoiled heroine of the novel contrary to his professed progressive ideals and social convictions. All the same Her Eyes remains an important work of Persian fiction, and is one of Alavi's better known works. Thus, although Her Eyes has been translated into German and Polish, its translation into English was long overdue. Alavi's style is straightforward, simple and economical compared with the works of some of his famous contemporaries such as Hedayat, and Jamalzadeh; it should therefore pose fewer difficulties for the non-native translator. John O'Kane's rendering is correct and credit is due to him for achieving a consistently high level of basic accuracy. However, this exactitude is generally not accompanied by the imagination and inventiveness which might have produced a narrative that combines faithfulness to the original with a natural flow of English idiom. Retention of Persian word order for instance, can produce a stilted and artificial effect. In spite of this, the translation is successful in capturing the generally romantic, often psychoanalytical, and always melodramatic tone of the book. It is to be hoped that this translation of Her Eyes will encourage more English translations of Alavi's more impressive works, namely his collections of artistically worked-out short stories where his portrayal of character is far more convincing and powerful.
{"title":"Her eyes. By Bozorg Alavi, translated by John O'Kane. (Bibliotheca Persica, Modern Persian Literature Series, No. 9.) pp. vi, 215. Lanham, Maryland etc., University Press of America, 1989. US $28.50.","authors":"Narguess Farzad","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108779","url":null,"abstract":"Chashmhdyash, Her Eyes, is B. Alavi's first and only novel in Persian and, incidentally, the last of his works published in Iran before he left for exile. Although Her Eyes received much praise from the critics, it attracted strong condemnation too. The strongest attack came from some of the author's comrades in the Tudeh Party, and also from critics in the Soviet Union who found Alavi's sympathetic treatment of Farangis, the wealthy and spoiled heroine of the novel contrary to his professed progressive ideals and social convictions. All the same Her Eyes remains an important work of Persian fiction, and is one of Alavi's better known works. Thus, although Her Eyes has been translated into German and Polish, its translation into English was long overdue. Alavi's style is straightforward, simple and economical compared with the works of some of his famous contemporaries such as Hedayat, and Jamalzadeh; it should therefore pose fewer difficulties for the non-native translator. John O'Kane's rendering is correct and credit is due to him for achieving a consistently high level of basic accuracy. However, this exactitude is generally not accompanied by the imagination and inventiveness which might have produced a narrative that combines faithfulness to the original with a natural flow of English idiom. Retention of Persian word order for instance, can produce a stilted and artificial effect. In spite of this, the translation is successful in capturing the generally romantic, often psychoanalytical, and always melodramatic tone of the book. It is to be hoped that this translation of Her Eyes will encourage more English translations of Alavi's more impressive works, namely his collections of artistically worked-out short stories where his portrayal of character is far more convincing and powerful.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"398 - 398"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108779","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57103460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00109049
T. Barret
This volume sets out to substantiate the surprising claim that a Buddhist scripture in Chinese showing close affinities with Ch'an thought was actually composed in Korea in the seventh century A.D. Part One, Chapter One, assesses the status of the Chin-kang san-mei ching as an East Asian composition; Chapter Two examines the dating of its earliest commentary by the great Korean exegete Wonhyo (617-686) and assigns it (on the basis of the very inadequate materials available) to the end of his life. Chapter Three remarks on the general philosophical allegiances of the text with that current in Buddhist philosophy tending to stress the immanent, innate origins of enlightenment. Chapter Four moves on to comment on elements in it, apparently not detected by Wonhyo, which demonstrate that the author was deeply familiar with different tendencies in mid-seventh century Chinese Ch'an Buddhism. The conclusion is reached that the text surfaced in Korea as the product of a Korean monk who had studied Ch'an in China but, finding no interest in its doctrines on returning to his homeland, resorted to forgery to promote his ideas. Part Two provides a full translation of the work in question. Questions, of course, can be raised about some of Buswell's arguments. Can we be sure that Wonhyo, late on in his career especially, knew nothing of Ch'an ? Could it not be that he was disposed, at times at any rate, to apply exegetical schemata somewhat arbitrarily, even when he was aware that they did violence to the meaning of the texts he was supposed to be explicating? This would at least seem to be within the bounds of possibility (cf. my remarks in JRAS, 1982, p. 39), though a possibility which would obviously require considerable study of Wonhyo's works to confirm or deny. Alternatively, if early Ch'an was completely unknown in Korea, why would a Korean author make such a point of reconciling different strands in Ch'an thought for a totally ignorant and unappreciative audience unless, of course, the text was composed in China, prior to his return home? One wishes, too, that Buswell could have pursued somewhat further what may well be the earliest reference to his text, in Taisho Canon text no. 1668, termed by him Sok Mahayon-ron, on the assumption (supported by early Japanese testimony) that this work (Chinese Shih Mo-ho-yen lun) was "forged" in Korea also, in the mid-eighth century. Allegations, however, that a manuscript of no. 1668 preserved in Japan dates to the reign of the Chinese Empress Wu (r. 690-705)-cf. Mizuno Kogen, ed., Shin Butten kaidai jiten (Tokyo, 1966), p. 158 cast some doubt on this, though it is hard to tell how much these allegations are worth without checking the document in question. Given, however, the evidence currently available, Buswell's reconstruction of events represents the most plausible scenario imaginable, and he is commendably scrupulous in distinguishing the different levels of likelihood characterizing different segments of his s
{"title":"The formation of Ch'an ideology in China and Korea: the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra, a Buddhist Apocryphon . By Robert E. Buswell Jr, (Princeton Library of Asian Translations.) pp. xviii, 315, 8 pl. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1989. US $39.50.","authors":"T. Barret","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00109049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00109049","url":null,"abstract":"This volume sets out to substantiate the surprising claim that a Buddhist scripture in Chinese showing close affinities with Ch'an thought was actually composed in Korea in the seventh century A.D. Part One, Chapter One, assesses the status of the Chin-kang san-mei ching as an East Asian composition; Chapter Two examines the dating of its earliest commentary by the great Korean exegete Wonhyo (617-686) and assigns it (on the basis of the very inadequate materials available) to the end of his life. Chapter Three remarks on the general philosophical allegiances of the text with that current in Buddhist philosophy tending to stress the immanent, innate origins of enlightenment. Chapter Four moves on to comment on elements in it, apparently not detected by Wonhyo, which demonstrate that the author was deeply familiar with different tendencies in mid-seventh century Chinese Ch'an Buddhism. The conclusion is reached that the text surfaced in Korea as the product of a Korean monk who had studied Ch'an in China but, finding no interest in its doctrines on returning to his homeland, resorted to forgery to promote his ideas. Part Two provides a full translation of the work in question. Questions, of course, can be raised about some of Buswell's arguments. Can we be sure that Wonhyo, late on in his career especially, knew nothing of Ch'an ? Could it not be that he was disposed, at times at any rate, to apply exegetical schemata somewhat arbitrarily, even when he was aware that they did violence to the meaning of the texts he was supposed to be explicating? This would at least seem to be within the bounds of possibility (cf. my remarks in JRAS, 1982, p. 39), though a possibility which would obviously require considerable study of Wonhyo's works to confirm or deny. Alternatively, if early Ch'an was completely unknown in Korea, why would a Korean author make such a point of reconciling different strands in Ch'an thought for a totally ignorant and unappreciative audience unless, of course, the text was composed in China, prior to his return home? One wishes, too, that Buswell could have pursued somewhat further what may well be the earliest reference to his text, in Taisho Canon text no. 1668, termed by him Sok Mahayon-ron, on the assumption (supported by early Japanese testimony) that this work (Chinese Shih Mo-ho-yen lun) was \"forged\" in Korea also, in the mid-eighth century. Allegations, however, that a manuscript of no. 1668 preserved in Japan dates to the reign of the Chinese Empress Wu (r. 690-705)-cf. Mizuno Kogen, ed., Shin Butten kaidai jiten (Tokyo, 1966), p. 158 cast some doubt on this, though it is hard to tell how much these allegations are worth without checking the document in question. Given, however, the evidence currently available, Buswell's reconstruction of events represents the most plausible scenario imaginable, and he is commendably scrupulous in distinguishing the different levels of likelihood characterizing different segments of his s","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"429 - 429"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00109049","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57104440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1990-04-01DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00108561
Elton L. Daniel
In the year 352/963, according to independent evidence and the author's own testimony, the Samanid ruler Manṣūr b. Nūḥ sent an order via his major-domo and closest confidant, al-Fā'iq al-Khāṣṣa, to his minister Abū 'Alī Bal'amī, commissioning the latter to prepare a translation into court Persian of the famous historical annals written in Arabic by Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī. Bal'amī completed this task, producing a book whose popularity in many ways eclipsed that of the original text throughout the Persian-speaking world and beyond (being translated into various Turkish dialects and even, ironically enough, back into Arabic). Unfortunately, exploitation of this source by modern scholars has been hindered both by its identification as a “translation” of Ṭabarī's work and by the lack of a suitable edition of the Persian text. This article attempts to explore these problems and the extent to which they have been rectified by recent studies and editions of this important work.
在352/963年，根据独立的证据和作者自己的证词，萨曼统治者Manṣūr b. Nūḥ通过他的主要domo和最亲密的知己al- fha 'iq al-Khāṣṣa向他的大臣abu ' al' Bal' amir发出命令，委托后者准备将Muḥammad b. jarjarr al . -Ṭabarī用阿拉伯语写成的著名历史编年史翻译成宫廷波斯语。巴尔安姆完成了这项任务，出版了一本在波斯语世界和其他地区(被翻译成各种土耳其方言，甚至具有讽刺意味的是，被翻译回阿拉伯语)在许多方面都超过了原著的书。不幸的是，现代学者对这一来源的利用受到了阻碍，因为它被认定为Ṭabarī工作的“翻译”，并且缺乏波斯语文本的合适版本。本文试图探讨这些问题，以及这些问题在多大程度上已被这项重要工作的最新研究和版本所纠正。
{"title":"Manuscripts and editions of Bal‘amī's Tarjamah-i Tārīkh-i Ṭabarī","authors":"Elton L. Daniel","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108561","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108561","url":null,"abstract":"In the year 352/963, according to independent evidence and the author's own testimony, the Samanid ruler Manṣūr b. Nūḥ sent an order via his major-domo and closest confidant, al-Fā'iq al-Khāṣṣa, to his minister Abū 'Alī Bal'amī, commissioning the latter to prepare a translation into court Persian of the famous historical annals written in Arabic by Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī. Bal'amī completed this task, producing a book whose popularity in many ways eclipsed that of the original text throughout the Persian-speaking world and beyond (being translated into various Turkish dialects and even, ironically enough, back into Arabic). Unfortunately, exploitation of this source by modern scholars has been hindered both by its identification as a “translation” of Ṭabarī's work and by the lack of a suitable edition of the Persian text. This article attempts to explore these problems and the extent to which they have been rectified by recent studies and editions of this important work.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"282 - 321"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108561","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57101033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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