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250 BUddhiSt StUdieS review

gnal Donors of Longmen fully ngags scolasp on goos, pong nsgsno bo soy of Longmn, an c complxy of Bus oon, bsappca n s conx s consuc by an abl soan as s .

Jon KscnckUnsy of Bsol

Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice, ian has (honolulu, hi: Unsyof Hawai’i Press, 2005), 352pp, $62/£39.95, ISBN 0824827651

Among the earliest sustained studies of Cambodia was Adhémard Leclère’s 1899 LeBuddhisme au Cambodge. ts makabl bu poblmac olum soo alon fo o

on un yas n s amp o po an o of soy an pacc of Busm n Camboa, aguably sngl mos mpoan aspc of Camboan nyitself. Ian Harris was not the rst to notice this gaping hole in Khmer and Buddhist stud-ies, but he has proved the only scholar willing and able to take on the challenge of lling. On ons o as fac mo aunng ask: Lclè, o pon eld, drawing what conclusions he could from tentative translations of sparse primarysouc maal a agans, an n conbung o an lmnay knolg of boBusm an Km nacula; o has, o s ou o compl, cp, analysan synsz as ang of pmay an sconay souc maal pouc on subjc n nnng cnuy. t sulng olum, Cambodian Buddhism: History and

Practice, s slf nong lss an a makabl fa.has’s ok s gnunly compns. i maks nllgn us of a mn-bog-glng amoun an ang of maal: ancn Km pgapy an a; classcal Buslau; socal, polcal, anopologcal an lay sus of Camboa an ssuounng gon; jounalsm, NGO pos an ao logs; psonal ns actors in the eld – and I am surely forgetting something. A rst stumbling block for manyns n subjc s languag of sac publcaon. Muc of maal s nFnc; n som cass, a paculaly soc o u fom of acamc Fnc. A fun-amnal accomplsmn of Cambodian Buddhism as bn o mak maal accs-sbl o a boa aunc. Y has’s ok n s ga as no bn on of smpltranslation (if translation is ever simple); nor has it been one of simplication. His successas bn, a, n composng a abl, con y complx naa ou of a o-gnous aay of soucs.

in Pfac, has naly clams ognaly fo only scon alf of book,in its explorations of politicized Buddhism in the modern period. I beg to dier with himon s pon, n so fa as ok of complaon as as accompls as only poss-bl oug complmnay ognaly of a subl unsanng of Bus paccn al socal pos, an subsqun nsg no assocaons bn so-cal an mon paccs. ts s u n pa o has’s gounng n classcal Bussus, c s sanngly a n Km sus oay: confon has’s

Forsten, 1995); and Hou Xudong’s侯旭東 suy of aly mal Cns Bus pgapy,Wu liu shiji beifang minzhong fojiao xinyang 五六世紀北方民眾佛教信仰 (Bjng: Zongguo S-huikexue Chubanshe, 1998).

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boa knolg of Bus xual an ual aons, spaa Camboan -nc as bgun o mak b sns. Bu s s also u o has’s polcal acuy, fo oug-pookng xploaons of polcz Busm n mon po asfom a mak scolaly onaon oa polcal aspcs of Bus pacc snc

y ncpon of Camboan soy, an us fom y opnng of book. Annoucoy mak on an ongong an foma ba n Km sus s ncan s ga. has pons up polaz npaons of nau of ancn Km-languag pgapy, an n, a of ancn Km socy as a ol. in ys of som, pgapy monsas ssnally lgous caac of culu; o-s s n smony o a pofounly maals socy. has’s onaon oas political aspects of religious history and practice eectively reconciles these two poles. So appal s : Cambodian Buddhism ll s as a fnc fo spcalss n Kman, mo boaly, Souas Asan sus, as ll as Buologss aa o opractice-specic interests.

t Pfac pos a concs y ccal accoun of xan sconay souc ma-al on Camboan Busm; n absnc of any annoa bblogapy on subjc,this is in and of itself a precious document. We also nd here a useful chapter-by-chaptersummary of the book. The rst two chapters cover the ancient and middle periods, upo an of Fnc colonal psnc n gon. if Camboan soy s noscly nspaabl fom Busm a all ms, na fuson of o s suc a soy of Busm n Camboa foun amouns o a abl soy of Camboatout court , be it with an emphasis on the specically Buddhist evidence. Harris’s measuredanalyss of ancn souc maal an scolaly ok on las o claspsnaon a o a of yps of Bus pacc knon n p-Angkoan

an Angkoan pos, along pobabl ogns, assocaons an mplcaons n Km lgo-polcal conx o m. Of pacula mpo s s ang of alyBus nc an y o complx bu ll ocumn quas-anc ajc-oy of Camboan Busm n mon po. Kn anon s pa o scaanassocaons mnon n ancn nscpons, o ma appan oug s angsto suggest, for example, a possible inuence of the Yogācāra school of thought; similarly,aly fnc o Vimuttimagga is seen to suggest, but, importantly, not conrm, linkswith the Abhayagirivihāra of medieval Sri Lanka.

A la lack of clay n scon cap, on ml po (foun o m-nineteenth century), reects the quantity and quality of source material available for this

m. ts s paculaly cas fo aly ml po, c sa an appanlyrapid and extensive spread of Theravāda; accordingly, the chapter increases in clarity ins closng pags ca o la ml po. in s cap has ls laglyon anslaons of oyal concls. Compos fo mos pa n la nnn oaly n cnus, s ocumns ospcly la socal lgn. Assuc, y consu naluabl bu lss an sagfoa souc maal fo s-ocal consucon. wl has s panfully aa of moologcal ssus aan, s man a callng. A numb of pnn yposs a fomula ouganalyss of symbolc mpo of lgn. ts s ncssay n okng on mlpo, aloug has paps a ms gos oo fa n ang s conclusons as f y

were based on fact. Although good use is made of (my own) work on the Theravādin reap-popaon of ancn lgo-polcal ss an consucs, s gabl a has’sngung spculaons on connuy n Bus pacc fom ancn o mon ms,rst suggested in Chapter 1, are not borne out with middle period evidence. This would

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qu ognal compaa gonal socal an Buologcal ok, as ll as fu- xploaon of Km maal, concnang paps mo on pgapy anconcls, along a goo al of ca ccal nkng, ok a amly fallsous xplc pojc of has’s book. ho, n snglng ou possbl connc-

ons bn ancn an mon pacc, has pons up ponal alu of sucsac. in, on of book’s s s o glg aas o poblms n Km su-s a call fo fu sac.

t follong o caps s as conologcal naa o lop mo alaccounts of distinctive features of Cambodian Buddhism. Chapter 3, ‘Territorial and SocialLnamns’ suys Km lgous lanscap an mpass on nmnglngof Anms, Bus an sgal Bamanc lmns n aonal pacc. Funamnalp- o xa-Bus noons of spaal oganzaon a scb along noks of associated ancestral and other spirits, the full range of nominally non-Buddhist ritual o-cans, as ll as caacsc accssos an paccs. ts pos a conxual

backop fo scussons of pyscal, ual an conomc oganzaon of KmBus monasy. in has’s ans bcoms cla o a xn Bus xs anms popula Km supnaual ol, jus as monasy s aonally an-mated by beings and beliefs from beyond any orthodox Theravādin realm. Historical con-siderations gure usefully into these accounts without ordering the narrative.

Chapter 4, ‘Literary and Cult Traditions’ provides an overview of the Cambodian tex -tual landscape since the introduction of Theravāda. A brief presentation of genres and thefomal aspcs of manuscp aons s follo by mo al accouns of slccagos: Pal lau, nacula oks of moal nsucon (Cpap’ ), CamboanRāmāyaṇa and, nally, esoteric Buddhist texts and associated cult traditions. This last sec-

on, c consus la alf of cap, s an mnnly usful pécs of Fanços Bzo’s mpoan ok on xa-canoncal Km Bus xs. has sla pmay an sconay souc maal, noably gang Camboan ancnpo, n an amp o socally an ocnally sua, as accualy as possbl gn cun sa of sac, xaonay soc aon ocumn an ana-lys pmaly by Bzo. t nuanc an appopaly nconclus concluson s athe Cambodian tradition does not simply involve a syncretic amalgamation of Theravādaand Tantric ideas, and while it may be related to the Abhayagirivihāra, it is not necessarilynon-Mahavihāra as the orthodox Sri Lankan movement may itself have had secret com-ponns. An nsgful sum of gnal caacscs of Camboan aon s

followed by discussions of specic texts and practices, at long last making this key aspectof Camboan Busm accssbl o a publc. Fom a Buologcal pon of ,these Khmer specicities, which distinguish Khmer Buddhism from Theravādin practiceas s gnally knon n o conxs oay, a of pacula ns. i s appop-a, n, a fa of s aon n mon po coms o gu naaajcoy of s of book.

t las fou caps of Cambodian Buddhism a o o mon po, fom sablsmn of Fnc Pocoa n scon alf of nnn cn-uy o conmpoay pos-Km roug a. Cap 5 gs a al accoun of gopolcal nplay, c l o fomaon of Camboa’s o Bus scs,

tommayu an Maankay, an gaual lopmn of nnal son n la. Pacula anon s gn o lnks bn colonal foms an sof the Buddhist modernist project as French authorities suspicious of Thai inuence onCamboan polcs oug tommayu o ln ncasng suppo o Maankay

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elements oriented towards modernist reform. Having demonstrated the specicity of tra-onal Camboan Busm o l n paccs ncfo lga o nly fomdomain of the ‘Old Mahanikay’, Harris’s narrative highlights the historical stakes of thesealy mon lopmns. t fomal classfyng of Bus pacc n s ay as

driven by political forces heralding ‘modernity’. The emerging Buddhist groups would, inturn, play signicant political roles over the course of the modern period.

Cap 6 xamns go of Camboan naonalsm ou of s y Busseeds, and the manifold inuences and uses of Buddhism in both right- and left-wing anti-colonial movements. In an academic context frequently dismissive of Sihanouk’s ‘BuddhistSocalsm’ as sngulaly nsnc, manpula o np, has’s mo nuanc angsof s omnan naonals polcal fomaon a paculaly lcom. w s pos-inpnnc lopmns as pa of a socal connuum n c lgon an pol-cs a alays bn lnk. Busm s no sn o a bn a smpl faça fo anypacula aco’s polcal gans.

Cap 7 conss Bus unpnnngs of Km roug ol.Harris’s analyses here make a signicant contribution to an extensive body of literatureskng xplanaon fo smngly nxplcabl. h gos byon an xamnaon of oos of Km roug n Bus naonalsm o nu socologcal, n psy-coanalycal npaons of socal lopmns. hs poposons a ang, bulagly conncng. has ss, fo xampl, a cypo-monasc aangmn n Kmcommuns o xngus sxual s n socy a lag; mp of s populaon, cn of Pnom Pn bcoms a sub-conscous collc fomulaon of a Buspu lan; an so on. tougful an nfom bo n ms of Bus aon anKhmer Rouge history, these readings are a far cry from the supercial and essentializing

characterizations of the Khmer ‘mentality’, or of Khmer Buddhism, which can appear todominate work in the eld. Harris’s appeal to further study of the indigenous culturalfactors that may have inuenced the Khmer Rouge movement is indeed mindful of other,xnal moang facos n socal lopmns and of naquacy of anongn o nnal facos o a.

The nal chapter follows contemporary developments from the fall of the Khmerroug. if pcng xploaons of ays n c Busm as subsum noCambodian communism over the course of the twentieth century have not suced tospo of-al a of Busm n Camboa, s cap ll: has ocu-mns n ga al o Camboan Busm as son slf o b y muc al,

f no ncssaly alays ll, o pas f cas. t polcal onaon of book is at its most explicit here. The ocial re-establishment of rst the Mahanikay andn tommayu o s s n conx of s of Camboan Popl’sPay an -poblmac noucon of capals focs an mocac pocsssno a-on, poy-sckn naon. has monsas Busm o play a kyol, a y las n nam, n y pos-Km roug polcal fomaon, boos n an ou of po ampng, myscally o sagcally, cyncally o no, o a-nss lgous po. Monasc nolmn n polcal oppsson as ll as mocacagaon s xcngly ll ocumn. has complcas mo smpl pcusoften painted: of an apolitical individually oriented religion, or of the pacist/activist

monk resisting authority. This divide is, rst, historicized in Buddhist terms, and furthernuanc n slppy conmpoay soco-polcal Km conx.

Mos mpoanly paps, n ms of soy an pacc of Busm nCambodia, is this last instalment in the book’s long narrative thread on ‘traditional’ Khmer

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Buddhism: the quasi-tantric Theravāda practices that came to be subsumed under theterm ‘Old Mahanikay’ in the colonial period, and that contemporary scholars are tendingto classify (in what I see to be a reifying gesture of dubious utility) ‘the boran (ancn)momn’. has’s naa monsas o polcal conous of an ongong

delineation between the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’ are tellingly reminiscent of thosen colonal po. in so, colonal suppo of fom Maankay (mons)goup can b sn o a bn bon n gus of nnaonal communy; l‘traditional’ monks nd support in the people, and in the ruling People’s Party. The activist(reformed Mahanikay) monk nds himself in a predicament not unlike that of the earlyN Maankay foms: sks bcomng a san of non-Km focs skng osabls a fogn polcal o n Camboa. All no-colonal focs(of aonalsm, mocacy, c.), socally ngag Busm s ncasngly pc nopposon o aonal soc paccs, paculaly as s a anss by payauos skng o consola po.

A ss of auxlay ocumns nanc book’s uly fo aous auncs. Kmspecialists will nd highly useful inventories of Buddhist material from the ancient andml pos n Appncs A an B. t ls of cclsascal ls consung AppnxC ll b of ns o scolas of Camboan Busm an o Buologss. Anextensive glossary provides precise and sometimes extensive denitions of terms usedn boy of x; s ns book accssbl o non-spcalss of Km anBuddhist studies. Khmer readers will be relieved to nd a word list with the Khmer spellingof os foun n ansla o poncally anscb foms n x pop. tbblogapy s slf a monumn o Camboan Busm an o ian has’s unaunoougnss. A compns nx faclas us of olum fo fnc, of

cous, bu also ang of a x lan complca cun nams an ls.ian has’s sngs o cay n m can aknsss. A ms naa-

bcoms olm s olum of maal akn no consaon.t ncyclopac mass of als can on occason g on sns of mssng fo-s fo s.

And nally, it strikes me as important to note, as Harris does in the Preface, that hecam o s pojc as a Buologs; as o bcom a Kmologs only o cous of pojc. tacs of s ajcoy can b foun ougou x. in so faas he may be seen at times to lack a ‘native’ absolute familiarity with both the researchcorpus and the eld, Harris is not always adequately discriminating with regard to his

souc maal. Many suc nsancs a laly bngn; os on occason la ognally mno cass of msnfomaon o msnpaon. On qus, fo xampl, ucon of numb of s assoca ancsal sp (neak ta) osp o‘three basic types’ (p. 55). Likewise, it is surprising to hear that the still commonplacefunerary ritual of ‘turning the body’ ( pre rup) is ‘now quite rare’ (p. 99), or that New Year’scelebrations can ‘border on the orgiastic’ (p. 173). Excessively general characterizationsa sca ougou x, noabl xcpon mnon abo of pas-sags concnng Km roug soy, a oman n c has appas o a alaybn paculaly famla a m of mbakng on pojc. w a ason-ishment, for example, that ‘modern Khmer reject any common ancestry with the mon-

tagnard … and prefer to regard themselves as descendants of Hindu princes’ (p. 49); orthat in a case of a head monk having relations with a woman, ‘there is no conception …that the misdeeds of an individual might adversely aect the condition or standing of themonastic order as a whole’ (p. 76). Similarly, in a note referring to ‘the Khmer penchant

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for gambling’ (p. 285), we see a complex socio-historical phenomenon swept away throughan appal o a agu noon of naonal caac. Of cous, any sync ok of o of Cambodian Buddhism uns sk of o-gnalzaon a y un. in canno b ao; n som cass, o, fu conxualzaon mg a s

o mn a of lmma.Pons of confuson mos fqunly as n laon o Km lngusc usag. i ll

g a f xampls bcaus s s nca of mo gnal poblms n Kmsus u n lag pa pcsly o sos of xm culual an socal complx-s a ian has’s book xplos (.g. unganly an compng sysms of ansl-aon/anscpon a a pouc of a long an mulfac culual soy of c Cambodian Buddhism s also a pa). Fo nsanc, has as fom an xmlycuous gloss of a common colloqual xpsson o suppo a qusonably boa socalstatement regarding the political engagement of Buddhist ritual ociants (achar ) (p. 78).in scbng aonal manuscp xs, has caaczs vien as ‘shorter texts’ in

opposon o satra, in so far as the latter can be ‘particularly lengthy’ (p. 81). While this dis-tinction in the relative quantity of content often holds, the dening dierence between thetwo manuscript types is in the length of the leaves themselves. A note tells us that ‘“bon”, Km o nomally ansla as “m”, also nos “gny o ank’” (p. 255).ts bon s non o an Sansk puṇya, c appas as suc n glossay.

inconssn anslaon can pouc naly nsumounabl uls o comp-hension. In an introductory note, Harris points out the diculties arising from persist-ent scholarly use of dierent systems for rendering Khmer words in Roman script. Hearms that, with the exception of material derived from publications by the École Française’exêm-On, c ypcally us a sysm bas on a ly accp fo ansl-

erating Sanskrit, the book employs ‘a simplied rendering with stronger emphasis on oralaculaon’. Y s nong smpl abou has’s usag. As follos no sngulasysm, no os nsu s on, a sngl o o xpsson can appa n mulplguises throughout the text. We nd, for example, kmauit long dened as ‘a ghost of some-one who was murdered or committed suicide’, one in a series of types of ‘ghost ( khmoc )’(p. 59). Khmoc an kmauit a n fac sam o; fom, mo common spllng of o, c accualy ns Km spllng accong o Sansk-basanslaon sysm, appas n Km o ls a n of book; la osno. Fumo, long simply means ‘to haunt’; the common expression khmoc long osnot refer to any specic type of khmoc ; smply mans a aunng gos. A os of smla

poblms can b foun n s sam passag. t baysayt , dened here as ‘a ghost that liveson an xcmn an s capabl of akng uman o anmal fom’ s n beisach only pages earlier (p. 55), where we nd it dened as the retinue of an ancestral spirit (neakta). in s cas, n spllng appas n Km o ls o glossay. Fu nthe former passage we nd the priey dened as ‘a ghost living in a large tree with the abil-ity to turn into a ball of re’ (p. 59). We have come across the same term earlier, but spelledbray, and dened as ‘another class of exclusively female and highly dangerous spirits of gns o of omn o a n clb’ (p. 55). Only la spllng appas nthe Khmer word list. Likewise, few readers will be able to discern that ‘Khvav Brah Dhatu’(p. 32) and ‘Preah Theat Khvao’ (p. 248) are one and the same site, and thus that the legen-

ay soy of sa s coun n la-nnn-cnuy oyal concls s aknup n conmpoay blfs. A mo blaan osg s nson of capons accom-panyng poos of o naonally mpoan sp sns, a of Nak ta Klang Moungn Pusa Ponc, an a of Nang Ck Nang Cum n Sm rap.

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to all bu a ny an bspcacl coo of lnguss an Km spcalss, s llb mpcpbl blmss on sufac of an xaonay book: a so of googl-a of Busm n Camboa, fom smalls als o bggs pcu. ianhas s a n sa n Km sus consllaon os nx conbuon s agly

aa.Asly tompson

Scool of Fn A, hsoy of A an Culual Sus, Unsy of [email protected]

Zen Classics: Formative Texts in the History of Zen Buddhism,s Sn hn & dal S. wg (Oxfo: Oxfo Unsy Pss, 2006),

viii + 283 pp, £14.99, ISBN 0-19-517525-5

in os of os, Zen Classics, a squl o The Zen Canon (Oxfo: Oxfo UnsyPress, 2004), invited ‘scholars doing original research on China, Korea and Japanese Zen lit-erature to survey a single work or genre of works that, because of its power and inuence,as lp sap Zn aon an caus o b a s oay’ (p. 3). incluson asn by nss of nual auos a an an amp o suy all mosmpoan Zn oks: Zn classcs a an Zn classcs. t a, fo nsanc, nocaps on Platform Sūtra o Shōbōgenzō, l oks of lss mpoanc o aon are co. Bu f Zen Classics os no s as a concs suy of majoworks of the tradition or as a comprehensive reference work, it does reect the fruits of

recent decades of research by leading scholars in the eld.wl squl olum, The Zen Canon, gs ga g o Cns (Can)aon, Zen Classics focuss on Japan, only on acl – Mao Pocsk’s pc on Guishan jingce溈山警策 – specically about a Chinese text. There is only one entry onKorea – Charles Muller’s chapter on Sŏn commentaries to the Diamond Sutra – and noneon Vietnam, reecting the relative weakness of Sŏn and Thien studies. Other texts andgns co nclu esa’s Kōzen gokokuron興禪護國論, Eihei Dōgen Zenji Goroku永平道元禪師語錄, the ‘Rules of Purity’ in Japanese Zen, koan ‘capping phrase books’, Tōrei’s 東嶺 commnay on Damoduolo chanjing達摩多羅禪經 an Mnzan’s面山 Jijuyū Zanmai.

Mo an bf summas of conns of s oks, caps nclu xn-s scusson of socal an lay backgoun. t ssays a paculalysong n placng oks un scusson n conx of o Zn ngs an Busliterature more generally, illustrating both the distinguishing characteristics of dierentaons an ays n c y nac. Koan commnas on DiamondSūtra, for instance, reect the greater prominence given to the scholastic analysis of scrip-ture in Sŏn than in Chan or Zen (p. 44); ‘rules of purity’ in Japanese Zen periodically drewon a smla gn n Cna as lop fom Song oug Mng ynass (p.138); capping phrase books were inspired on the one hand by Zen practices and writings,an on o by Cns lay gams (p. 173). Onc unsan ogn anlopmn of s gns b appca s focs a sap Znaon.

takn as a ol, Zen Classics llusas bo ay an mpoanc of gnin Zen writings. Zen writers tackled dierent issues from dierent perspectives dependingon whether they were writing hagiography, ‘recorded sayings’, koan collections, monasticrules or commentaries. When compiling ‘recorded sayings’ a monk might criticize medita-

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