"Chan Ideology" R. Buswell

The Formation of Chan Ideology in China and Korea by Robert Buswell.

Alas I am finally learning that I have to skim read occasionally and can no longer read everything in all the books I read and so am not sure how in-depth I'll be able to get in this review. But the impression of the book was mostly interesting. It looked at the Vajrasamadhi Sutra and it's commentary by a Korean (Silla) monk during the Tang. It was interesting as I know very little about the history of Korea. Buswell was trying to show the importance of East Asian thought on Buddhism in particular Chan. His conclusions seemed a bit questionable. His conclusion that the sutra was written originally in Korea seemed to be reaching to me, his evidence was far from convincing, rather small and tended to be a bit convoluted. However, this impression may be partly my fault as I did read it so quickly.

Chapter 2 looked at the Hagiography of the Korean scholar who made the commentary. This was very interesting. He included a translation of the hagiography of the monk, both the Korean and the Chinese version. The Korean version was a very interesting tale about how the sutra was found after being lost, given to a monk by a dragon king after he was shipwrecked who specifically requested the additional commentary. The text was given with Japanese illustrations of the story which were most interesting. The most astonishing thing about this was the idea that the Dragon Kings of the sea were originally a Korean concept. They hardly appeared at all in Chinese literature before the Tang. This is something I had not been aware of before, and found fascinating and would love to learn more about.

Chapters 3 and 4looked at the doctrine of the sutra and it's commentary and, how it was trying to show Chan ideas before the official Chan schools had developed. The commentary seemed to miss these early Chan ideas, which made me question the origin of the Sutra as Korean, if it was meant to be an early Chan text, should not the commentator have known it? I suppose it might not be implied that it was Chan, just that similar ideas were popular around the same time.

Part 2 of the book is a translation of the Sutra itself. Which due to time constraints I actually read very little of. According to the terrible person who wrote huge notes, IN INK in the library book it was a rather poor translation. However I find myself distrustful of such an inconsiderate person, especially as the original Chinese was not included so I'm wondering, how they were able to be so critical. But I will ask my professor his opinion in class tomorrow.

"Political Propaganda..." A. Forte

Political Propaganda and ideology in China at the end of the Seventh Century by A. Forte
This is an older book written in 76 and now hideously out of print, so I'm very glad to have found a copy at the SOAS library as otherwise I would never have been able to read it. (My professor has a signed copy as it was written by the Dr. who supervised his PhD.) But the book focuses on how religion was used by Empress Wu to legitimise her becoming Emperor. Something I've been considering writing my dissertation on. So I found it very useful and interesting.

The book begins by looking at the Confucian historical sources about the events. According to which Empress Wu declared that an apocryaphal sutra be distributed among the monasteries declaring her as the Buddha Maitreya. The book goes on to disprove this and show what is more likely to have happened by closely examining the evidence, in particular a copy of the document that was found at Dunhuang. Forte carefully presents the evidence and arguments of scholars who weren't aware of the Dunhuang document, and then how the document was able to challenge the previous beliefs. He was able to show that what in fact was distributed was a commentary on the Tayun Ching which was not an apocryphal sutra.

He looked in great detail at the 9 monks who did the translation, showing that these were orthodox Buddhist monks who fully supported Wu. They all received great benefit from their contributions to the commentary. They portrayed Wu as the ruler of all, giving her the right to Kingship which would normally have been denied to a woman. It was interesting to see how they talked about having the body of a woman but not really being a woman. Wu was also portrayed as a Buddhivisita but not as the Buddha Maitreaya. The millennial cult of Matrieya was something that the monks were against, but seemed to be speaking against a popular idea of the time. I think there is a definite interesting connection between Wu Zeitian and the apocalyptic cults. I think it's very telling that two of her children were named Li Hong, and Taiping. I'm not sure how much work has been done on this issue yet, not much had been done when this book was published 30 years ago.

This was followed by a translation of the sutra's commentary. The appendices included brief descriptions/rough translations of the sutras discussed in the book. It was a very good book, well planned, exceptionally well thought out and a great source for nearly all the essays I plan to write this year!