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Kapstein On App and Lopez
Kapstein On App and Lopez
Kapstein On App and Lopez
The Cult of Emptiness: The Western Discovery of Buddhist Thought and the Invention
of Oriental Philosophy. By URS APP. Kyoto: University Media, 2012. Pp. 295.
From Stone to Flesh: A Short History of the Buddha. By DONALD S. LOPEZ JR. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2013. Pp. ix289.
Urs App and Donald Lopez are among the outstanding interpreters in recent years
of the early modern Western encounter with Asian thought and religion, above all with
Buddhism.1 The two books reviewed here extend their individual trajectories, but at
the same time complement one another, for Apps subject is the role of Buddhist
thought in the European construction of Oriental Philosophy, while Lopezs is the
Wests discovery (or, as Lopez might have it, invention) of the idea of the Buddha
himself. The two works, however, despite a number of overlaps between them, resist
direct comparison. App offers us a tightly woven study in the history of ideas, while
Lopez guides us through a more impressionistic and personal florilegium of documents bearing on his topic.
Apps title echoes that of Roger-Pol Droits Le culte de n
eant.2 But whereas Droit
began his account with the state-of-play during the eighteenth century, and then was
1
See, above all, Urs App, The Birth of Orientalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2010), Richard Wagner and Buddhism (Kyoto: UniversityMedia, 2011), Schopenhauers
Kompass (Kyoto: UniversityMedia, 2011), and the authors English translation, Schopenhauers
Compass (Kyoto: UniversityMedia, 2014); Donald S. Lopez Jr., ed., Curators of the Buddha
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), Prisoners of Shangri-la: Tibetan Buddhism and
the West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the
Perplexed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); and Eugene Burnouf, Introduction to
the History of Indian Buddhism, trans. Donald S. Lopez Jr. and Katia Buffetrille (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
2
Roger-Pol Droit, Le culte du n
eant: Les philosophes et le Bouddha (Paris: Seuil, 1997), and
The Cult of Nothingness: The Philosophers and the Buddha, trans. David Streight and Pamela
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Book Reviews
primarily concerned with developments during the nineteenth, this is long after the
1702 publication of the second edition of Pierre Bayles Dictionnaire historique et critique, with which App ends his tale. The point of departure for App is the Jesuit mission in sixteenth-century Japan, whose characterizations of Buddhist and other East
Asian religious traditions, he argues compellingly, cast a long shadow over the European engagement with Asian thought during the centuries that followed. This story
has been largely overlooked within both Buddhist Studies and European intellectual
history; Droits otherwise excellent bibliography of early modern European contributions to our knowledge of Buddhism, for instance, neglects this material completely.3
App interprets many of the sources he examines in the light of what he terms the
Arlecchino effect (11), referring to the Italian buffoon character who inspires hilarity
by mistakenly taking all that he encounters to be part of his own extended family. The
running gag begins, in this case, near the start of the story, when the famous missionary
Francis Xavier (150652) decides that the Japanese word for God, conforming to his
Christian conception of the Supreme Being, is Dainichi, in fact the Japanese name
for the cosmic Buddha Vairocana. Preaching the message, Dainichi wo ogami are!
(Pray to Vairocana!), he is understood by the Japanese, with their approval, to be a
Western (i.e., Indian) votary of Shingon Buddhism (14).
Within a few years, however, the Jesuits begin to comprehend the joke for which
they themselves are responsible. They decide to eliminate all use of possibly troublesome native terms from their tracts (Dainichi, for instance, is replaced by Dios [17,
47]), so that their Japanese writings are increasingly composed in a sort of creole, in
which Japanese verbs and connectives are used to link Portuguese and Latin nouns. At
the same time, they begin to conduct far-reaching research into the religions of Japan
and its neighbors, research that would inform both their creation of Japanese catechisms critical of Buddhism and Latin works destined for European readers. In the
process, some of the missionaries gain deep familiarity with the Japanese language
and sometimes classical Chinese as well (a notable and influential example is Joao
Rodrigues [15611633], chap. 8), and they benefit additionally from the collaboration
of several learned Japanese converts, for instance, the educated Tendai monk Paulo
Chozen (d. 1557; 3435), or the father-son team of doctors, Paulo and Vicente T
oin
(5359).
To understand the flow of ideas, however, it is essential to decipher the often
obscure correspondences among Japanese sources, concepts, and terms, and the European, mostly Latin, writings in which these are represented. For this, App finds his
rosetta stone (1820) in a number of interrelated documents of the late sixteenth
century (chaps. 57). Among them, there is the Latin Catechismus christianae fidei by
the Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, published in Lisbon in 1586. To work out just how
its discussions of Buddhism are related to Japanese materials, App turns to an intriguing discovery of the early twentieth century, the Evora screen (1820, 6067, 7379,
etc.), a Japanese folding screen that had been brought to Portugal toward the end of the
sixteenth century and was found to be stuffed with Japanese writings as filler. Some of
Vohnson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). References herein will be to
the English edition.
3
Droit, Cult of Nothingness, 191258.
History of Religions
461
these documents, it emerges, may be identified as lecture notes recording the lessons
on Japanese religion delivered by the Catholic convert Vicente T
oin, notes that in
some instances correspond closely enough to the contents of Valignanos catechism to
enable App to identify precisely the Japanese Buddhist ideas in question, and sometimes their textual sources as well. A luminous first principle named in the Latin text
Ixin turns out to be the One Mind (Jap. Isshin) encountered in many East Asian Buddhist traditions, but, in view of the details of its description here, almost certainly to be
identified with the teachings elaborated by the Chinese Chan master Zongmi (780
841) in his Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity and subsequently developed in the
lineage of his disciple Huangbo. Elsewhere, we find Jesuit discussions of the teaching
of this mystery to aspirants through problems posed by their superiors (48), certainly
the earliest Western references to ko
an practice in the Rinzai Zen sect.
The One Mind, identified with emptiness, Buddha-nature, and the final destiny of
all who attain enlightenment, was understood by the Jesuits to represent an essentially
amoral inner teaching of Buddhism, contrasted with the vulgar teaching that exerted
moral control through its promises and threats of rebirth in heaven or hell. What is crucial here is that the Jesuit discovery of the One Mind as first principle required that
they assimilate it, together with other Buddhist ideas, to the scholastic philosophy in
which they themselves had been educated. One Mind became the insentient prime
matter of the early Greek cosmologists, while the vulgar teachings notion of rebirth
was of course linked to Pythagoras. The Arlecchino effect reasserted itself in full
force, and throughout the seventeenth century European speculations became increasingly extravagant. Thanks to Rodriguess discoveries concerning the original religions of Asia, it became clear to many that Noahs evil son Ham, who was thought to
be none other than Zoroaster (1013), was responsible for the whole mass of Asian
idolatry, together with its roots in the infernal conception of empty prime matter.
Ham/Zoroaster, heir to the perverse doctrines stemming from Adams son Cain, was
the direct source of the poison that later came to be promulgated throughout Asia by
the Buddha. One of the most eccentric geniuses of the time, Athanasius Kircher
(160180), even extended this reasoning to the Americas, so that Christianity faced
not numerous paganisms, but in fact and in essence just one throughout the entire
world (11921). Thanks to the interventions, which soon followed, of the great French
explorer of the Mughal empire, Francois Bernier (162588), it was possible to assimilate all of this to the teaching of the Upaniads and Indo-Persian Sufism as well (chaps.
1213). The Oriental Philosophy (singular) that would exercise a continuing fascination through to the nineteenth century and beyond was thus born.
The story told here is wonderfully engaging, enlivened by Apps dogged antiquarian researches, which take him to his authors original manuscripts and annotated copies in order to uncover the precise genealogies of the ideas in play. The Cult of Emptiness is a model of scholarly detective work. That some of the thinkers App discusses
were so bold as they were in their condemnation of the Buddhas lies, given their
own capacity for breathtakingly audacious confabulations, may seem almost laughable to us today, but we must recall, too, that this was but one facet of the voluntarism
with which early modern Europe asserted its authority over the entire planet.
Just as App echoes Roger-Pol Droits title, so Lopez mirrors in some respects his
point of departure, namely, the initial European response to the Buddha as an idol
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Book Reviews
(cf. Droits The Cult of Nothingness [2003], chap. 1, The Faceless Idol). True to a
device that he has effectively deployed in earlier work, Lopez organizes each of his
key chapters around a theme encapsulated in a single term: The Idol, The Myth,
The Man, The Text. Of course, the history is by no means so neat as Lopezs linear progression might suggest; idol and myth came into European consciousness
almost together, and occasionally glimpses of the man as well.4 Although strict historical progression, though by no means ignored, is not really Lopezs principle of organization, his approach permits him the liberty to weave and sometimes digress in relation to his chosen themes, so as to introduce general background or anecdotes of
interest, and to keep the readers pleasure always in the foreground. The first chapter,
for instance, on The Idol, offers Lopez the occasion for forays into the history of
idolatry and iconoclasm in Western religions (2634), the art historical thesis that
Buddhism was initially aniconic (3738), and the rituals used by contemporary Buddhists for the consecration of their sacred images (4345). Likewise, chapter 2, The
Myth, introduces the figure of the Buddhas apostate cousin Devadatta, his impalement in hell, and the probability that early Catholic missionaries in Southeast Asia,
with their tortured savior hanging from their necks, were presumed by local Buddhists
to be his devotees (8187).
Despite the many excellences of Lopezs workthe considerable learning it represents, its elegant structure and entertaining styleall of which merit much praise, I
nevertheless found its overall thrust to be in some respects tendentious. Although
Lopez cites and discusses an impressive number of the relevant early modern texts,
From Stone to Flesh should by no means be taken as comprehensive in its coverage.
The early seventeenth-century Portuguese Jesuits in Tibet, for instance, are altogether
missing. Although they add further confusions to those already documented by Lopez
in this period, they also betray an unusual sympathy for the Tibetan Buddhists they
sought to understand, and one of their number, Estevao Cacela, even began to appreciakyamuni was indeed a man, not merely a mythological being. While Lopez
ate that S
affirms that his book ends where other histories of the European encounter with Buddhism generally begin (4), many aspects of the story have been long available in
scholarship on the writings of European travelers and missionaries.5 Lopezs book has
the merit of providing a generous collection of pertinent passages culled from the
works concerned, presenting them with his own commentaries. It offers a rich selection, but it does so, well, selectively.
In effect, Lopez omits elements of the larger background that put the story he tells
into a somewhat different light. Beginning with the chaos of late medieval and early
4
History of Religions
463
6
Tansen Sen, Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations,
6001400 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003), offers a valuable contribution to our
understanding of Buddhist international networks during the period concerned.
464
Book Reviews
7
8
Tolstoy Was Impressed, New York Times Book Review, April 2, 1978, 4.
Droit, Cult of Nothingness, 14.
History of Religions
465
whether those of the Pure Land sects of Japan, or of the Newar Tantric lineages of
Nepal, or of the Theravada monastic centers of Thailand. No doubt, there are nevertheless many contemporary readers whose pre-understandings of Buddhism correspond
with those of Lopezs weparticularly if they have been influenced by the Mind
and Life Institutebut in many cases, I suspect, he is preaching to the converted (who
will be pleased by his tale nonetheless).
Both of the books reviewed here are almost free from error, though a few minor corrections may nevertheless be proposed. In The Cult of Emptiness, the bibliography
lists Sydney Pollock (251) where Sheldon is the correct given name. (Perhaps this
is an example of the Arlecchino effect, considering that the director of They Shoot
Horses, Dont They? may have been what App had in mind.) A number of works
cited in the book are not entered into the bibliography: Shabistari 1880, which is given
under Mahmud (248); and Mahfuz-ul-Haq 1990, which is not given at all (no doubt
the intended reference is: M. Mahfuz-ul-Haq, trans. Majma-ul-Barain or the Mingling of the Two Oceans by Prince Muammad Dara Shik
uh [Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1929; repr. 1990]). And chapter 16 begins incomprehensibly: Battles
between exclusivists who believed that the Judeo-Christian tradition has a monopoly
of truth and exclusivists who rejected this notion dot Church history from the early
centuries and pertained to evaluations both of religions and philosophies (209).
In From Stone to Flesh, I note the following points: The most famous Buddha
image in Tibet . . . was said to have been carved when the Buddha, or Buddha-to-be,
was twelve years of age (40). Tibetan sources, by contrast, state that it was a portrait
statue of the Buddha, divinely manufactured after his enlightenment, but proportioned
according to his size at twelve years as known through the testimony of his aunt
Prajapati. The famous monastery of Vikramasla was razed so effectively that its precise location has yet to be determined (57). In fact, it has been known for several
decades that the ruins of a major Buddhist vih
ara found in Antichak, Bhagalpur district, Bihar, are those of Vikramasla, and the Bihar state government as well as the
Archaeological Survey of India are currently investing considerably in its revival as a
pilgrimage and tourist destination. (The archeological work that established the identity of the site is treated in B. S. Verma, Antichak Excavations2 (19711981), Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India 102 [Archaeological Survey of India,
2011]).
While Lopez has made use of some of the surviving Tibetan texts authored by the
Italian Jesuit Ippolito Desideri (10516) and conserved in the Jesuit Archive (ARSI)
in Rome, he nowhere mentions the thorough studies of these writings, including facsimiles of the original manuscripts, by Giuseppe Toscano.9 In citing one of Desideris
quotations from the Tibetan master Tsongkhapa (116 n. 54), Lopez refers to page 7
recto in the manuscript Goa 74 (ARSI), but in Toscanos edition (vol. 3, p. 72 for the
Tibetan and pp. 16869 for Toscanos Italian translation), the passage clearly appears
on page 11 recto.
Giuseppe Toscano, S.X., Opere Tibetane di Ippolito Desideri, 4 vols. (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 198189).
Book Reviews
466
Such small points aside, From Stone to Flesh is in all events a delight to read, and I
can recommend no better place to begin to explore the Wests struggle to come to
terms with the Buddha. Apps The Cult of Emptiness will claim a more specialized
readership. For all who have a serious interest in the intellectual history of the Western
engagement with Asian religions, however, it should be considered an essential text.
MATTHEW T. KAPSTEIN
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
and University of Chicago