Review

Author(s): Kenneth Ch'en

Review by: Kenneth Ch'en
Source: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 8, No. 3/4 (Oct., 1958 - Jan., 1959), pp. 165-169
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1397450
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 Book Reviews
Books reviewed here are limited to those in the field of Oriental and comparative
philosophy. Authors and publishers are encouraged to send review copies of
appropriate books to the Editor.

TIBETAN YOGA AND SECRET DOCTRINES. Edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz.

2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1958. Pp. xlii + 389. 42s.
THE SECRET ORAL TEACHING IN TIBETAN BUDDHIST SECTS. By Alex-
andra David-Neel and Lama Yongdon. Calcutta: Mahabodhi Society of India, n.d.
Pp. 128.
BUDDHIST HIMALAYA. By David Snellgrove. New York: Philosophical Library,
1957. Pp. xii + 324. $10.00.

The volume edited by Evans-Wentz, the first edition of which ap-

peared in 1935, consists of seven articles, prefaced by a Yogic Commentary con-
tributed by a Chinese, Chen-chi Chang, who is well acquainted with Tibetan lan-
guage and literature, and a general introduction by the editor. Taken as a whole,
the book is intended to introduce to the West the essence of yoga exercises as under-
stood and practiced in Tibet. In this task the editor was assisted by his guru, Lama
Kazi Dawa-Samdup, under whom he studied for three years (1919-1922). It was
the learned lama who translated the seven texts that form the body of this book
and who imparted to the editor the corpus of secret orally transmitted traditions
and teachings related to the texts. This is important, for in Tibet the oral traditions
and teachings are considered to be much more signficant than the printed text.
The seven articles deal with the following subjects: 1. The Precepts of the Gurus;
2. The Yoga of the Great Symbol; 3. The Yoga of the Six Doctrines; 4. The Yoga
of Consciousness-transference; 5. The Yoga of Subduing the Lower Self; 6. The Yoga
of the Long HOM; 7. The Yoga of Voidness.
At the beginning of each translation, the editor has added a few pages of introduc-
tion, in which he presents the pertinent data concerning the text itself and the
Tibetan compiler or translator and a synopsis of the text. He has also appended
copious annotations throughout to elucidate obscure points.
To this reviewer, the most important and interesting chapters are the third, deal-
ing with the doctrine of psychic heat, and the fourth, concerning the transferring
of consciousness. According to Tibetan secret lore, the yogin by intense yoga
exercises extracts some sort of heat or vitality from the inexhaustible reservoir in
Nature and stores it in the human body, and, when need arises, circulates this heat
internally throughout the nervous system. Both the editor and Madame David-Neel
testified that they had witnessed instances of yogins exuding heat on cold nights
until the wet sheets wrapped around them became dry. In this treatise on psychic
heat, there is a detailed exposition of the exercises required to attain this goal,
meditations, postures, breathings, physical exercises, concentration of thought, etc.
This is probably one of the fullest descriptions of this strange and extraordinary

165

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 166 BOOK REVIEWS

doctrine and practice. As the editor notes in his preface to the second edition, if
this practice became world-wide, there would be no need for central heating systems!
The fourth chapter deals with one of the most jealously guarded yogic practices
of Tibet, that of transference of consciousness temporarily from a living person to
a dead corpse or to an animal, or the transference at the moment of death of the
yogin to another matrix of his own choice.
In the explanatory introduction and annotations there are a number of misstate-
ments of which the following will serve as samples. It is incorrect to define the
angimin, non-returner, as one who has taken the third step and attained arhatship,
as the editor does on page 94. The Chinese priest Hwashang, or Mahdyina, was
not defeated by Padmasambhava, as stated on page 295, but by Kamalabila.
This book, together with two earlier volumes translated and edited by the same
individuals, The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa, forms
a trilogy that offers a mine of useful information on Buddhism in Tibet. With the
destruction of the monasteries and the defrocking of monks now taking place in
that land, we are on the threshold of momentous changes within Lamaism, and as
a result the information in these books takes on added significance since they
portray the religion as practiced by the Tibetans before the changes.
While Evans-Wentz never set foot in Tibet, Madame Alexandra David-Neel did,
and, since she spent a good portion of her life in that forbidden land observing and
studying the Tibetans and their religion, whatever she wrote concerning Tibetan
Buddhism, which she investigated as a living faith, is of interest and value to the
student of Buddhism. After all, not many Westerners have had the opportunities that
she had of living in a Tibetan hermitage or of having a lama as her adopted son
who rendered her faithful service for 40 years. In her book she has summarized
what she considers to be the basic teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist sects, which
consist primarily of an exposition of the tenets as found in the Praijt and Mad-
hyamika Sitras. This is to be expected, since the Mddhyamika is the dominant school
of Buddhist thought followed by the Tibetans.
Among the topics discussed in this small book are: the nature of the individual
and of the phenomenal world, prajini or transcendental insight, pratftya-samutplda
or dependent origination (which is now interpreted in the cosmic sense, in that it
embraces not only sentient beings but everything in the universe), ilayavijrana or
storehouse consciousness, enlightenment, and J~nyata or the doctrine of the void.
Here and there the author appears to be rather careless with her chronology. On
page 42, Kamalasila is said to be a philosopher of the sixth century, whereas he lived
during the eighth. King Srong-bstan-Gam-po is put in the eighth century (p. 125),
although on the very next page his marriage is dated 641. Incidentally, Princess
Wen-ch'eng, who was married to the king, was not the daughter of Emperor T'ai-
tsung of China, but was merely a member of the imperial family.
In discussing the origins of Tantric Buddhism on page 84, the author is apparent-
ly unaware of recent studies dealing with that problem. Very misleading is the
statement on page 90 that the enlightened man dies shortly after attaining arhat-
ship. Just who is the enlightened man? Members of the Sangha, like Sariputta,
Moggallana, Kassapa, etc., lived for many more years after having become arhats.
What the Pali texts such as the Milinda Pafha say is that if a layman should attain

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 BOOK REVIEWS 167

the fruits of arhatship (and there were some 20 such instances mentioned in
Anguttara 3.451) then he would die, unless he took steps immediately to join the
monastic order. In the Dhammapada verse cited on page 93, "He who has shaken
off the two chains, that of good and that of evil, he is a Brahman," the word "brah-
man" does not signify one who has acquired knowledge of the Absolute Being
(Brahma in the neuter), but is merely one who practices the brahmacarya or the
religious life.
Of more than passing interest to the reviewer was the emphasis placed by the
secret teachings on sudden illumination (pp. 88, 90). In the historic debate be-
tween the Indian Kamalasila and the Chinese Ch'an monk Mahaydna, held in Lhasa
in 794, the latter, who was adjudged the loser, was represented by the Tibetans as
the leader of the Ston-mun-pa (Tun-men-p'ai, school of sudden enlightenment),
while his opponent represented the Rtsen-min-pa (Chien-men-p'ai, school of gradual
enlightenment). Yet, now the Tibetans have come around to the same viewpoint
held by the defeated Mahdyvna. History has thus vindicated the position taken by
the Chinese monk.
In the case of David Snellgrove, he, too, did not visit Tibet proper, but he did
travel to Spiti, once a part of Western Tibet, and Nepal, and, as a result of these
travels, together with his own researches, the author, who is lecturer in Tibetan in
the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, has written
a lengthy and informative book which he describes as "the first attempt to relate
Tibetan religion to its origin in any comprehensive manner" (p.x). These travels
over the Himalaya regions took place in 1953-1954. In this book such topics as
the following are treated: Buddhism in Nepal, Tantric Buddhism, introduction and
spread of the religion in Tibet, the Tibetan kings who assisted in the propagation,
Tibetan and Indian religious masters, and religious ceremonies.
The book has several points in its favor. A good deal of light has been thrown
on Tibetan history and religion through the researches and writings of such scholars
as Tucci, Bacot, Roerich, Obermiller, Petech, Richardson, Bell, and others, and the
time is ready for one to weave all those scattered materials concerning the origins
of Tibetan Buddhism into a comprehensive book. Snellgrove has attempted to
perform this task, and he has done so very well, so that we may say that this book
contains a fairly objective summary of what we now know about the early history
of Tibetan Buddhism. In the second place, the book contains numerous passages
translated directly from the Tibetan; these include, for example, an invocation (pp.
239-242), the order of ceremony in a monastery (pp. 248-258), a prayer (p. 261),
a portion from a Tantric text (pp. 69-73), and excerpts from historical annals (pp.
127-128, 145-147). Furthermore, the chapter on Buddhism in Nepal is valuable,
because information on the state of Buddhism in that tiny isolated kingdom is hard
to obtain. Finally, there are the seventy or more illustrations that decorate the book,
depicting Buddhist landmarks, temples, deities, monks and scholars, and Himalayan
landscapes, all of which cater to our visual sense.
As Snellgrove is primarily interested in origins, he naturally devotes a good deal
of attention to that region of India, Kashmir, where Tibetan Buddhism first derived
its inspiration and its literary language. The early pioneers, religious masters, kings
of Western Tibet, and the archeological remains connected with events and per-

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 168 BOOK REVIEWS

sonalities of this early period are all brought together here. Precisely because of this
interest and emphasis, the author does not treat events which transpired after Bud-
dhism had become firmly established in Tibet; therefore, there is no discussion of
the rise of the various schools of Tibetan Buddhism or of the reform movement of
Tsong-kha-pa at the end of the fourteenth century. Again, because he was not able
to get into Tibet proper, the rituals and ceremonies that he describes in chapter 6
were not those of Tibetan monasteries within the country but those he witnessed at
a temple in Nepal. It is wise to keep this geographical limitation in mind when
reading the discussion about the nature of Tibetan Buddhism.
The reviewer confesses to some disappointment in the treatment of Tantric Bud-
dhism, for there is no discussion of the origin of Tantrism in India. Furthermore,
Tantric literature is inadequately stressed. The reviewer would also like to register
a mild dissent with the statement on page 56 that the conception of a Buddha as a
purely human teacher is a modern Western creation, and that it is an accommoda-
tion to present-day rationalist thinking. While it is true that there are some passages
in the Pali canon that support the view of the Buddha as a transcendent being,
there are many others that present to the reader the picture of an intensely strong
human personality, delineated much more clearly than were such Indian sages as
Yajfiavalkya or gariakara, and endowed with clear individual traits. To his disciples
Ananda, Sariputta, and Kassapa, he appeared as a human teacher, not as a transcendent
being. If later Buddhists endowed him with transcendence, it was due to changes
that evolved within the religion itself as it developed in India and the border regions
in later centuries. For instance, there are in the Samyuttanikaya two suttas, the "Ma-
hisaccakasutta" and "Ariyapariyesanasutta" which treat of the enlightenment and the
decision to go and preach the newly discovered dhamma. In these suttas, the elaborate
legends and miracles found so abundantly in later biographies as the Lalitavistara
and Mahavastu are conspicuous by their absence; they contained a sober, matter-
of-fact recital of events as they happened to a human being seeking after under-
standing and truth, not to a transcendent cosmic entity already in possession of en-
lightenment, but who descended to earth among human beings merely as a con-
cession to human practices and frailties. Likewise, in the nikayas, the favorite formula
to describe the Buddha reads as follows: "He is the Lord, the arahat, the all en-
lightened, endowed with knowledge and conduct, the Happy One, knower of the
world, supreme charioteer of men to be tamed, teacher of gods and men, Buddha,
the Lord." Again the picture is that of a human teacher. He might be endowed
with the marks of the superman (mahapurusa) but he was born on earth and in-
timately bound up in human relations. It was only with the passage of some time
that the docetic conception began to assert itself within Buddhism, which was to
culminate in the Mahayana theory of a transcendental Buddha who never appeared in
a corporeal form on earth. Yet, even after this doceticism arose, the Theravadins
still clung to their concept of a human teacher. Witness the questions put by the
Theravadin advocate to his opponent in the Katha?vatthu: "Was he not born in
Lumbini? Did he not receive perfect enlightenment under the Bodhi tree? Was
not the wheel of Dhamma set rolling by him at Banaras? . . . Did he not complete
existence at Kusinara?" (S. Z. Aung and Mrs. C. A. F. Rhys Davids, Points of Con-
troversy, p. 323 ).

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 BOOK REVIEWS 169

About forty years ago, J. Przyluski published a revealing article entitled "Le
Parinirvina et les Funerailles du Buddha," in Journal Asiatique, 1918 and 1919,
where he discussed in great detail the parinirvdna of the Buddha. In one portion
of that article (JA 1919.1.365-430) he delved into the problem of the funeral
garments, and he showed clearly that in the earlier traditions, the Buddha was
described as being clothed in the garments of a monk, but he ended up in the later
records draped with those of a universal monarch. From this he concluded that
the primitive image of the Buddha held by the early community of Buddhists was
that of a monk humbly dressed in the accepted garments of that group, and not
that of a universal monarch or transcendental Buddha. -KENNETH CH'EN, Uni-
versity of California, Los Angeles.

MAGIC AND RELIGION: THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL NATURE, ORIGIN, AND

FUNCTION. By George B. Vetter. New York: Philosophical Library, 1958. Pp. 555.
$6.00.
This type of book was popular half a century and more ago, but, in
view of today's better knowledge of religion, such things as this have become less
common. It attempts to "debunk" religion. As compared with earlier works of the
sort, there is more erudition but no greater insight than was then common. Vetter
has read modern psychologies of religion (except for the most penetrating one of
all, J. B. Pratt's Religious Consciousness). But he concludes that "it is absolutely
impossible for anyone to be impartial about anything" (p. 11).
This book is certainly not impartial. It is chatty and popular, listing the various
definitions of religion (except Pratt's) and finding them confusing and contradic-
tory. Sex is rejected as the prime factor in religion. Mind is not different from
matter but merely a functioning of the organism. Free will is overthrown by as-
serting that a seemingly free choice is merely a response to the cues called out in
us by the choice situation itself (p. 136), i.e., Vetter applies the dogma that every-
thing has a cause to prove that freedom is not possible. Magic is declared to be ob-
jectively no different from religion (p. 168).
Most surprising of all, Vetter can find no place for genuine altruism in religion.
He says that man has always used God for man's own purposes and that any at-
tempt to separate human religion from human gain and make it solely the service
of God and his purposes is to make religion a rare and purely modern phenomenon
(pp. 170-171). Vetter seems never to have realized that, for the historic Jesus,
religion was no "practical, here-and-now function" and that it drove him to reject
popularity and all material success, and led him to a final ignominious death. A
similar denial of all selfishness has been the ideal, not merely of all true Christians,
but of the Buddha and of the real saints in all great religions. Anyone who does
not understand this patent fact has no right to discuss advanced religions, since
he has never embraced one nor can he understand them.-HOMER H. Duss, Oxford
University.

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