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.

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 story: it is, he admits, less likely that Pomnang, the only Korean known to our meagre historical sources who fits the qualifications for his "forger", could actually have been the culprit, than that "someone like Pomnang" (p. 175) perpetrated the deed. Only occasionally does BuswelPs erudition slip below the very high level his argument demands: on p. 146 the "anonymous dharma master" who uses very similar language to the author of his text and "who would have been a nearcontemporary", is in fact the mid-sixth century poet-monk Wang-ming: cf. Taisho, vol. 50, p. 482a (Hsu Kao-seng chuan, 8), which represents the earliest available version of a work republished in many later sources. But for the most part The Formation of Ch'an Ideology in China and Korea fully merits the epithets "magisterial", "brilliant" and the like awarded to it by Buswell's peers on the jacket. No one writing on the emergence of Ch'an in future will be able to ignore this book; Robert Buswell, whose earlier work on Chinul already broke fresh ground in presenting Korean Buddhism to the English reader, has now set himself the very highest standards to maintain, and we look forward with yet greater interest to his further explorations of Korean Buddhist sources.