petech 1994 obituary tucci 8636-8444-1-pb

7/30/2019 Petech 1994 Obituary Tucci 8636-8444-1-PB

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THE JOURNAL

OF THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF

BUDDHIST STUDIES

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFA . K. Narain

University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA

E D I T O R SA lexander W. Macdonald Ernst Steinkellner

Universite de Paris X University of ViennaNanterre, France Wien, A ustriaBardwell Smith Jikido TakasakiCarleton College University of Tokyo

Northfield, Minnesota, USA Tokyo, JapanRobert ThurmanAmherst College

Amherst, Massachusetts, USAA S S I S T A N T E D I T O R

Roger Jackson , o i* y

Volume 7 1984 Number 2


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C O N T E N T S

I . A R T I C L E S1. T h e B ud dh is t Path to Libe rat ion: An Analys is of the

Listing of Stages, by Rod Bucknell 72 . T em p o ra ry Ord in a t io n in S r i L an k a , by Richard G om-brich 413 . The Symbolism of the Early Stupa, by Peter H arvey 674. Reason as the Pr ime Pr inc ip le in Tsong kha pa ' sDel inea t ion o f Dei ty Yoga as the Demarca t ionB e t w e e n S u t r a a n d T a n t r a , by Jeffrey Hopkins 9 55. Bu d d h i sm an d Be l i e f i n Atm a , by Y. Krishan 1176 . G i u s e p p e T u c c i ( 1 8 9 4 - 1 9 8 4 ) , by Luciano Petech 1377. Ko k an Sh i ren an d M u so So sek i : " Ch in esen es s " v s ." J a p a n e s e n e s s " in T h i r t e e n t h a n d F o u r t e e n t hC e n t u r y J a p a n , by David Pollack 1438 . T h e Rasavahini and the Sahassavatthu: A Com par i son , by

Telwatte Rahula 1699. A Study of the Th eo rie s of Ydvad-bhdvikatd a n d Yathd-vad-bhdvikatd in the Abhidharmasamuccaya, byAh-yueh Yeh 185

I I . B O O K R E V I E W SA lone W ith O thers: A n Existential A pproach to Buddhism,by Stephen Batche lo r ; The Way of Siddhartha: A

Life of the Buddha, by David J . and In dr an i Kalu-pa ha na ( rev iewed by Roge r Jackson ) 208The Buddha, by Michael Carr i thers (reviewed by PaulGriffi ths) 216


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3 . Buddhist and Western Psychology, edi ted by Nathan Katz(review ed by Pau l Griffiths) 21 94 . A Lamp for the Path and C ommentary, by AtlSa, transl a ted and annota ted by Richard Sherburne(reviewed by Jos Cab ez6n) 2245. Religious Festivals in South India and Sri Lanka, edi t edand prefa ced by Guy R. W elbon and G lenn E.Yo cum (reviewed by Peter Claus) 22 6

I I I . N O T E S A N D N E W S

1. 7th Conference of the Internat ional Associa t ion ofBu ddh is t S tud ies 23 02. L.M .Josh i : A Br ie f Com mu ni c a t i on 2 323 . I .A .B.S . , Inc . Tr ea su re r ' s R epo r t 23 3O B I T U A R YJ o h n B r o u g h ( 1 9 1 7 - 1 9 8 4 ) 2 3 6C o n t r i b u t o r s 2 3 9


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G iuseppe Tucci (1894-198 4)

by Luciano Petech

Now and then some tower ing pe rsona l i t i e s appea r , who l eavethe i r mark in more than one f ie ld of research , wi th equal in tensi ty and equal ly last ing influence. One such man was ProfessorGi u s e p p e T u c c i .Tu cci was bo rn a t M acera ta in Ce nt ra l I ta ly on J u n e 5 th ,1894. He rece ived a good humanis t ic educat ion , and unt i l theend of h is long l i fe he main ta ined an uncommon mastery ofLat in an d G reek , a l thou gh he se ldom ch ose to show i t. H e was aprec ocio us boy a n d at the age of 17 he p ub l ish ed his f irst ar t i cle, a s tudy of Lat in inscript ions found near his nat ive town.Already a t tha t t ime he fe l t the a t t rac t ion of Orien ta l thought .He graduated f rom the Univers i ty of Rome and a lmost a t onceshowed himself to be qui te a t home in such widely differentfie lds as Avest ic , Sanskri t , Chinese and Tibetan. His main interest lay, and always remained, in subjects connected with phi losoph y and re l ig ion , a l thou gh l a t e r he deve loped a lso a p en ch an tfor historical s tudies. His l i fe and work can be roughly dividedinto f ive periods.

1) After having taken an honorable par t in the Fi rs t WorldWar as a subal te rn in the I ta l ian army, he s ta r ted an unt i r ingpubl ishing act ivi ty , which lasted with few breaks unt i l h islast years of life. At first he seemed to feel his way in severald i rec t ions , be ing a t t rac ted main ly by Chinese ph i losophy. Hist rans la t ion of Mencius (1921) and h is h i s tory of ear ly Chinesephi losophy (1922) can st i l l be read with some profi t . Then hetu rn ed increas ingly to In d ia n s tud ies , be in g ch ief ly in te re s tedin M a h a y a n a B u d d h i s m .

2 ) T h i s t r e n d wa s c o n f i rme d a n d b e c a me p a ra m o u n twhen in 1925 he went to Ind ia , where he taught I ta l ian language and l i te ra ture a t the un ivers i t ies of Shant in ike tan and137


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138 JIABS VOL. 7 NO. 2Calcut ta . His long s tay in India , which las ted t i l l 1930, broughtto ful l matura t ion his sc ient i f ic personal i ty and gave him thatint imate knowledge not only of re l igious and l i terary texts , buta l so of the l iv ing sp i r i tua l i ty among the common people , ac quired in the course of his rambles on foot and by boat in thelower Ganges val ley. He was in c lose contact with RabindranathTagore , o f whose f r i endsh ip he was pa r t i cu l a r ly p roud . Theresul t of his Ind ian years was a series of acc ura te an d phi lologi-cal ly impeccable edi t ions of Mahayana texts , wi th constant useof the Tib e tan a nd C hinese t rans la t ions to correc t and comp le t e co r rup ted o r l a cunous Sanskr i t manusc r ip t s . At t he samet ime he never neglec ted another ta sk , tha t of making Eas te rntho ug ht be t te r kno wn in h i s cou nt ry ; we may only men t ion h isl it tl e book on B ud dh ism (1926) , a f ine bu t pe rh ap s p re m at u ree ffor t. His grow ing fame was ackno w ledged a t ho m e; in 1929he became one of the f i rs t members of the newly-foundedAcademy of I ta ly , and upon h is re turn home he was g iven in1931 the cha i r of Chinese a t the Orienta l Ins t i tu te in Naples ,from where he was soon cal led to the Universi ty of Rome asprofessor of Rel igions and Phi losophies of India and the FarEast; he taught there t i l l his final retirement in 1969.

3) During his s tay in India he had a lready made two t r ips(1928 , 1930) to Ladakh, Rupshu and Lahul ; a th i rd fo l lowed in1931 . In this way he came to be deeply interested in Tibetanstudies , which t i l l then had been a f ie ld reserved to academicscholars or e lse to explorers with mainly geographical interests .He was the f i rs t to combine both qual i t ies . After his re turnfrom India he dedica ted h imse l f wi th charac te r i s t ic energy tothe task of organiz ing, with private and publ ic means, a seriesof exp edi t ions in the H imalayas . T his was the Tibe tan per io d inhis l ife , last ing ap pr ox im at ely from 1932 to 195 0. As he felt hisac t iv i ty somewhat c ramped in the ra the r r ig id f rame of theunivers ity , in Febru ary 1933 he fou nd ed the I ta lian Ins t i tu tefor the Middle and Far Eas t ( IsMEO), in tended to be a cente rfor resea rch and cul tura l exchanges wi th Asia . Four miss ions toTib e t fo llowed w i th a reg ula r b iennia l cad enc e : 193 3 an d 1935to Weste rn , 1937 and 1939 to Cent ra l Tibe t ; the i r a im was thear t i s t ic explora t ion of those count r ies . The second World Warin te r ru pt ed the se r ies of exped i t ions , bu t no t h is schola r ly ac tivity, a l tho ug h h e ha d to go th ro ug h a ra th e r d if ficu l t an d un -


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GIUSEPPE TUCCI 139pleasant per iod. As soon as th ings became set t led , he resumedhis activity in the field, culminating with his mission to Lhasaand to var ious temples and monaster ies of Centra l Tibet(1948) . I t was h is las t oppor tuni ty ; shor t ly af terwards the in tegra t ion of Tibet in to the Chinese republ ic put an end to anypossibi l i ty of fur ther missions.

In Tibet Tucci fe l t a t home. Tibetans accepted himwarmly, marvel ing a t a Western t raveler who would hold d isputat ions with learned lamas in their own language on diff icul tpoints of rel igion. On the other side, i t was character ist ic ofTucci ' s enormous capaci ty for work that the years between eachmission were ut i l ized for wri t ing and publishing his fascinat ingtravel accounts, and for making avai lable at once the scient if icresul ts obtained; they were mostly included in the seven volumes of the ser ies Indo-Tibetica ( 1 93 2 - 1 9 41 ) . T h e en f o r ced r es tat the end of the war gave him the leisure for compil ing hism a g n u m o p u s , Tibetan Painted Scrolls (1949); in spite of i ts unpretent ious t i t le , i t is a real summa of the ar t , l i terature, rel igionan d his tory of Tib et . I t was a lan dm ar k in Tibetological s tud ies .But even af ter this great effor t he never quit this f ield, wherehe remained act ive t i l l almost the end.

4) The new ci rcumstances compel led Tucci to look foranother f ield for his never-abat ing act ivi ty, and he found i t inNepal , mainly in border areas inhabi ted by Tibetans . His twomissions in that region (1952 and 1954) star ted a t rend of research which was a lmost a t once taken up and cont inued by hispupi ls Raniero Gnol i and Luciano Petech. In th is per iod he a lsoproduced some works of synthesis on a large scale, such as hish i s to ry o f Ind ian ph i losophy and h i s monograph on the theoryand prac t i ce o f the manda la .

5 ) T h e Nepa lese per iod was r a th er shor t , pe rha ps becauseof the relatively limited scope of this field. Soon, starting fromthe connect ions between Tibet and Ucjdiyana (Swat) , the homeof Padmasambhava , he tu rned to the absorb ing p rob lems concer nin g the in terac t ing cul ture s in the areas on both s ides of thepre sen t Pak i s tan-Afghan i s tan bo rde r . In 1955 he ca r r i ed ou t aprel iminary survey of possible si tes for excavation in Swat, select ing with an almost uncanny archaeological f lair the mostpromis ing ones : Mingora and Udegram. Thi s was the s t a r t fo ra rapidly increasing act ivi ty, carr ied out through a special Cen-


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140 JIABS VOL. 7 NO. 2ter for Studies and Excavations in Asia, set up within theIsMEO under Tucci ' s overal l control . For many years , t i l l hewas wel l over e ighty , he went out year af ter year to d irect personal ly in the f ie ld the various enterprises of the Center , whichex te nd ed grad ual ly to o t he r s ites in Pakis tan , an d th en to Afghanis tan (1957) and Iran (1959). Restorat ion work was alsounder taken , fo r which a h igh ly spec ia l ized team was o rgan ized(e.g . , res torat ion of Persepol is ; rehabi l i ta t ion of the main bui ldings in the h is tor ical center of Is fahan). Tucci was everywhere,o rg an iz in g , d i r ec t i n g , i n sp i r i n g . An o th e r im p o r t an t s t ep wasthe creat ion , due to h is in i t ia t ive, of the Nat ional Museum ofOriental Art in Rome, to which the archaeological col lect ions ofthe IsM EO w ere en t rus ted on depos i t . I t is to be deep ly reg re t ted that la ter pol i t ical events in Afghanis tan and Iran in terrupted excavat ions in these two countr ies .

Publ icat ion of the excavat ion and conservat ion resul ts wasof course lef t to the archaeologis ts who col laborated with Tucci ,whi le he h imsel f s lowly receded in to the background . He re mained active t i l l his last days, chiefly in preparing revised edit ions of o lder works that had been long out of pr in t , but a lsoworking at a new s tudy (Eros and Thana tos in India) that wasinterrupted by his death . Of course, he real ized the l imits imposed u po n him by adv an cing old age ; in 1978 he ret i re d fromact ive work , re l inqu ish ing the p res idency o f the IsMEO. Buteven as honorary p res iden t he con t inued to fo l low the work o fhis successors, and his advice was taken on every major issue.Tw o years ago an un tow ard acc iden t (a b ro ken fem ur bad ly se t)confined him to his home at San Polo dei Cavalieri , in the hil lsno r th o f Ro m e, whe re he was devo ted ly t en de d by h is wi fe ; an dthere he d ied on the 5 th of Apri l , 1984.Tucci ' s scient i f ic achievements were recognized al l over thewo r ld an d b ro u g h t h im m an y ack n o wled g em en t s . He was d o c tor h.c. of the universit ies of Kolozsvar (now Cluj), Delhi , Lou-v ain , T e h e r a n a n d K a t h m a n d u ; m e m b e r of m a n y a c a d e m i e san d learn ed societ ies in E ur op e , Asia an d A m erica ; rec ip ien t o fth e J aw ah ar l a l N eh ru Aw ard fo r i n t e rn a t io n a l u n d e r s t a n d in g(1978) and of the Bazan Award for h is tory (1979). He accepteda ll h o n o u rs , b u t r em a in ed su p e r io r t o t h em a n d n ev e r sp o k e o nth i s theme. Being a lways a t t rac ted by ph i losoph ica l though tan d ab o v e a ll b y Bu d d h i sm , h e u n d e r s to o d a n d re sp ec t ed


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GIUSEPPE TUCC1 141the numinous e lement in a l l c reeds and in a l l count r ies . As ateacher , he gave univers i ty lec tures tha t were absorb ing andst imula t ing . But he d id no t lay grea t s tore upon academicteaching , and the bes t por t ion of h is format ive work wi th h ispupi l s was done in the course of personal encounters in h ishome; he opened to them a l iberal access to his amazingly r ichl ibrary , which he la te r donated to the IsMEO.Italy and the learned world at large have lost with him agrea t scholar , an insp i r ing force in many d i rec t ions of research ,and above a l l a man who was in tense ly human, in the bes t andh ighes t mean ing o f the word .A comple te b ib l iography of Tucci ' s books and ar t ic lesdo w n to 1970, com pi led by the pre se nt au th or , is fou nd in G.Tucc i , Opera Minora, Ro m e 1972 . I t was con t inue d dow n to1974 in the preface to Gururdjamanjarikd: studi in onore di Giuseppe Tucci, N aple s 19 74. A co m ple te and final bibl iog rap hy isbeing compiled by the IsMEO. A select l is t of Tucci ' s mosts ign i f ican t cont r ibu t ions to research (exc luding t rave l accounts ,e tc .) is ap pe n de d be low.

Scritti De Mencio, L a n c i a n o , 19 2 1 .Storia della filosofia cinese antica, Bologna , 1922 .Linee di una storia del materialismo indiano, in Memorie del-

VA ccademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1923 an d 1929 (part lyr e p r i n t e d i n Opera Minora).II buddhismo, Fol igno , 1926 .Pre-Dihndga Buddhist texts on logic from Chinese sources,Baroda , 1929 .On some aspects of the doctrines of M aitreya [ndtha] and A sahga,Calcut ta , 1930 .The N ydyamukha of Dihnaga, being the oldest Buddhist text on

logic after Ch inese and Tibetan texts, Heide lbe rg , 1930 .(wi th Vidushekhara Bha t t acha rya ) , Madhydntavibhdgasu-trabhdsya-tikd of Sthiramati, L o n d o n , 19 32 .

The Abhisamayalahkdrdloka of Haribhadra, Baroda , 1932 .Indo-Tibetica, 7 vo l s . , Roma , 1932-1941 .Form e dello spirito asiatico, Milano , 1940 .Asia religiosa, Roma, 1946 ./ / libro tibetano dei morti, Milano , 1949 ( rev ised ed i t ion , Torino 1977).


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142 JIABS VOL. 7 NO. 2Tibetan Painted Scrolls, 2 vols, an d a po rtfolio , Ro m a, 1949(reprinted Kyoto 1981) .Teoria e practica del mandala, M ilano , 1949 ( rep r in te d Rom a

1969; English t ransla t io n L on do n, 19 61, re pr . 1969) .Tibetan folksongs from the district of C yantse, Ascona, 1949(revised and increased edi t ion, Ascona 1966) .The tombs of the Tibetan kings, Roma, 1950 .Minor Buddhist Texts, M i l , Ro m a 1956, 1958, 197 1.Preliminary report on tw o scientific expeditions to Nepal, R o m a ,

1956.Storia delta filosofia indiana , Bar i , 1957 ( rep r in te d Bar i1977).Tibet, Paese delle Nevi, N ova ra , 1967 (English t ransla t ion,Lo nd on 1967; Fre nch t rans la t ion , Par is 1967)./ / Trono del Diamante, Bari, 1967.Die Religionen Tibets, in G. Tucci and W. Heissig, Die Reli-

gionen Tibets und der Mongolei, Stu t tgar t 1970 (Frenchtransla t ion, Par is , 1973; I ta lian t rans la t ion , Ro m a, 1976;Engl i sh t rans la t ion , London , 1980) .Opera Minora, 2 vols. , Roma, 1972.

Deb t'er dmar po gsar m a, Tibetan chronicle by bSod nam s gragspa, Roma , 1 971 .

Tibet ("A rchaeologia Mundi"), French , Eng l i sh and G ermanedi t ions , Geneva , 1973 .

On Swat, the Dards and connected problems, in East and West2 7 ( 1 9 7 7 ) , p p . 9 - 8 5 .

petech 1994 obituary tucci 8636-8444-1-pb

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