Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Landern des Theravada-Buddhismus, Band II: Birma, Kambodscha, Laos, Thailand; Neuausgabe mit Supplement sowie Personen- und Sachregister.

• Author: Hinuber, O.V.
• Position: Brief Reviews of Books

Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft in den Landern des Theravada-Buddhismus, Band II: Birma, Kambodscha, Laos, Thailand; Neuausgabe mit Supplement sowie Personen- und Sachregister. By HEINZ BECHERT. Veroffentlichungen des Seminars fur Indologie und Buddhismuskunde der Universitat Gottingen, vol. 8. Gottingen: SEMINAR FUR INDOLOGIE UND BUDDHISMUSKUNDE, 2000. Pp. xliv + 461.

The three-volume opus magnum of Heinz Bechert originally appeared between 1966 and 1973, and even after more than three decades still stands as an unrivalled mine of detailed information on the subject, not superseded by any other work written subsequently. Consequently, a reprint of the second volume, which follows that of volume 1 in 1988 (cf. JAOS 111 [1991]: 214; JESHO 35 [1992]: 208), is highly welcome.

While the reprint of the first volume was enlarged by a much needed--because badly missed--index and provided with a new however brief, introduction, the changes in the second volume also include an index and, moreover, a longer introduction (pp. xiii-xxvii), together with some reprinted articles added at the end. The chapter on Vietnam ("Exkurs uber Vietnam," pp. 303-72 of the 1967 original) and the accompanying map have been dropped, because they owed their very existence to circumstances at the time the book was written, and gave much needed, but little heeded, historical background information during the period of the Vietnam war. There is, however, a very short remark on Theravada-Buddhism in Vietnam in the new introduction (pp. xxv-xxvii).

The following five articles, all by H. Bechert and all published previously, are found in the supplement (unfortunately, the original page numbers have been erased):

1. pp. 310-42: "Neue buddhistische Orthodoxie: Bemerkungen zur Gliederung und zur Reform des Sangha in Birma," Numen 36 (1988): 24-56.

2. pp. 343-64: "Zur Geschichte des Theravada-Buddhismus in Osbengalen" in Beitrage zur Indienforschung Ernst Waldschmidt zum 80. Geburtstag gewidmet (Berlin, 1977), 45-66.

3. pp. 365-81: "Buddhimus im heutigen Java und Bali," Internationales Asienforum 19 (1988): 17-33.

4. pp. 383-412: "Observations on the Reform of Buddhism in Nepal" (together with J.-U. Hartmann), Journal of the Nepal Research Centre 8 (1988): 1-30.

5. pp. 413-28: "Zur Buddhismus-Interpretation Max Webers," in Max Weber e l'India: Atti del Convegno Internazionale su "La tesi Weberiana della razionalizzazione in rapporto all' Induismo e Buddhismo (Turin, 1986), 23-36.

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