Das Upasampadavastu: Vorschriften fur die buddhistische Monchsordination im Vinaya der Sarvastivada-Tradition: Sanskrit-Version und chinesische Version.

• Author: v. Hinuber, O.
• Position: Book review

Das Upasampadavastu: Vorschriften fur die buddhistische Monchsordination im Vinaya der Sarvastivada-Tradition: Sanskrit-Version und chinesische Version. By JIN-IL CHUNG. Sanskrit-Worterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden, Beiheft 11. Gottingen: VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT, 2004. Pp. 124.

Die Pravarana in den kanonischen Vinaya-Texten der Mulasarvastivadin und der Sarvastivadin. By JIN-IL CHUNG. Sanskrit-Worterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden, Beiheft 7. Gottingen: VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT, 1998. Pp. 368.

This recently published volume on the upasampada, the ordination ceremony, opens a series of studies on the karmavacana collections, collections of formal legal acts of the Buddhist Samgha used by different Buddhist schools. This series will present the results of a research project financed by the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft." This, at least, is stated in the introduction ("Geleitwort") by the series editor. More to the point is the foreword by the author, who, more correctly, defines his work differently: "Berucksichtigung des gesamten Kontexts" (taking into consideration the context in a comprehensive way) besides the karmavacanas proper. Indeed, this is an edition of a whole vastu, a chapter from the Vinaya, which comprises also karmavacanas, reconstructed from the Sanskrit fragments preserved in Chinese Turkestan (Turfan and Pelliot collections). The reconstituted Sanskrit text is accompanied by a parallel translation from the Chinese (the Chinese text is conveniently given in an appendix). This German translation is done in a surprisingly bizarre way: "Der Buddha, der Poqiepo, verweilte bei der Stadt Wangshe. Zu jener Zeit war es den Biqius noch nicht angeordnet, einen Heshang bzw. Esheli zu bestimmen." The clumsy German apart, why not "der Erhabene ... bei Rajagrha ... den Monchen ...," etc.? Translations are, after all, meant to make texts accessible, not to obscure them. (1) An index of words provides a useful guide to the edition of the Sarvastivada version of the Sanskrit text, which emerges from numerous fragments thanks to the efforts of the author.

Earlier, in his doctoral dissertation, the author had already dealt with different material also concerning one of the vinayavastus containing the karmavacanas covering the pravarana ceremony conducted by Buddhist monks at the end of the rainy season to ensure their ritual purity, before they disperse to take up the ambulatory life style again. Therefore, it might be appropriate to add a few remarks on the earlier of the two books, and that all the more so, as these important investigations in the pravarana do not seem to have found many reviewers. (2)

The re-edition of the Mulasarvastivada Pravaranavastu, badly needed after Nalinaksha Dutt's failed attempt, is based on four folios of the Gilgit manuscripts and is accompanied by the corresponding Tibetan and Chinese texts. All three versions, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, are also translated into German. Fragments of the pravarana from different sources and an index of words round off the main body of the book (pp. 147-342). All this is preceded by a long and comprehensive discussion of the numerous problems posed not only by the text tradition but, first of all, by our difficulties in understanding the terminology used in the Vinayas of different schools. This introductory part starts from general terms such as karman and jnapti used in the Vinaya. Right from the beginning, the author shows a decided predilection for polemics, which are, in spite of his excellent command of German, often formulated in a somewhat cryptic language and, consequently, difficult to understand even for a native speaker--such as, e.g., the critical remarks on E. Lamotte in [section]3 of the long n. 30 (p. 24), who says exactly the same thing in French as the author does in German. Still "consequently, E. Lamotte's explanation is wrong" (why?). In the same way, it is hard to comprehend why the author considers H. Hartel's perfectly correct translation of japtidvitiyakarman "zu dem als zweites der Antrag tritt" (p. 31), as wrong.

As a matter of course, a long paragraph is devoted to the term pravarana itself and to the rules guiding the performance of the pravarana ceremony (pp. 52-87), where probably all material relevant to the topic has been collected. Of course, the concept pravaranasamgraha is also dealt with. Here, the author has happily overlooked an article by the present reviewer, (3) which, however, is regrettable only because another opportunity for polemics was sadly...