inventing hui-neng, the sixth patriarch (review by john r. mcrae)

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China Review International, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 2007, pp.132-147 (Review)

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132 China Review International: Vol. 14, No. 1, Spring 2007

2008 by University of Hawaii Press

Hong Kong, the mainland, and Taiwan? I was staying in Toronto in July 2006 when the local Cantonese TV channel reported the suicide of one mainlander with two doctorates earned in North America. His Chinese university alumni associa-tion in Toronto rushed to his widows comfort and financial aida sign of a recent migrant community. But the Chinese diaspora extends around the world. Given the page limit of a book, it is impossible to cover every geographic area. To be fair, scholarship in the English language on Chinese diaspora has not kept up with its extent. My questions above reflect not criticism but encouragement to expand the research frontier to less-explored territory and to reach out to scholars who might have already traveled in that direction. The coeditors evident choice of a thematic organization serves the purpose well. This volume is a book well worth examining.

Maria W. L. Chee

Maria W. L. Chee is currently associate director of the Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies Program at the University of Virginia.

John Jorgensen. Inventing Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch: Hagiography and Biography in Early Chan. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 68. Leiden: Brill, 2005. xxiii, 862 pp. Hardcover $250.00, isbn 9004145087.

John Jorgensens Inventing Hui-neng is an extraordinary contribution to the study of early Chn Buddhism. First of all, it is massivethat is not a typo in the infor-mation summary above, the book really is almost nine hundred pages in total length. Of course, such a sizeable tome comes with a truly Brill-like priceat $250, it is certainly worth its weight in dollar bills, if not quite in gold.

Second, these are well-packed pages, too. There is a certain amount of repetition, primarily the restatement of previously made arguments, but certainly no more than is reasonable; the author presents his analyses and interpretations in economical language, without wasting words on airy nuance. There are only a few inadvertant word processing duplications, not nearly as many as might be expected for a book of this length. (Repetitions not otherwise mentioned below include information concerning Shnhus [684758] exile [pp. 66, 140 n. 387] and two basically identical references at the beginning and end of a four-line note [p. 288 n. 57]). Coverage is also comprehensive, in that having selected the hagiography of Hunng as his focus Jorgensen attempts to treat every possible aspect of the subject. He follows whatever direction this inquiry

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takes him, occasionally leading to excessive speculation and the investigation of subjects best left for other occasions. (His discussion of the famed poet-monk Jiorn [ca. 734ca. 791] is an example of the former tendency, with eight occurrences of may, might, or probably, and so on, in just over two hun-dred words [p. 404]. The attempt to characterize Buddhism in different regions of China, which he undertakes in order to understand the specific relevance of the location of Hunngs teaching activity, Xnzhu in the far south, is too demanding a topic even for this massive volume [pp. 473529].) However, Jor-gensens self-discipline is such that he never strays into entirely different matters, such as the doctrines attributed to this legendary figure but not relevant to the hagiography. The hagiography of Hunng is not precisely virgin territory for scholarly researchJorgensen himself reports how important for his work was the Komazawa University volume containing annotated sources for the Sixth Patri-archs life and teachings (Komazawa Daigaku Zenshshi kenkykai 1978)but he has certainly carried this inquiry into previously uncharted territory.

Third, an incredible amount of research has gone into the composition of this important volume. Although the authors interests in using previous scholar-ship wax and wanecuriously, almost in inverse proximity to his subject matter, as we will see belowhe has provided a truly amazing number of references to both primary and secondary sources, a veritable gold mine of assistance for future researchers. For example, Jorgensen has explored the mummification of Hunng through a variety of English, Chinese, and Japanese resources to an extent that is thoroughly unprecedented (pp. 237273). He also explores the potential relation-ship between mid-Tng intellectual and political developments and the emergence of new forms of Chn in a manner both exhaustive and inspired, making excel-lent use of ideas drawn from the writings of Peter Bol, Mark Lewis, John Make-ham, and David McMullen (primarily Bol 1992, Lewis 1999, Makeham 2003, and McMullen 1988). Jorgensen also makes some very insightful remarks concerning the role of Buddhism in sinification and as a catalyst for change in Chinese culture (pp. 194195, 202, 209, 374, 384). In all these cases Jorgensens treatment provides the foundation on which any further analysis will inevitably be based.

Fourth, this immense research project has been carried out with a very high degree of accuracy. There are only a very few errors of fact, for example, not recognizing a Japanese transliteration *Zabiel as referring to Francis Xavier (p. 266 n. 325); misspelling the important St Zen temple Sji-ji as Sjo-ji (p. 270); misidentifying Doxuns fellow student Dosh as his teacher (p. 275); claiming that Bodhidharma is referred to in the Ldi fbo j as Dharmatrta, when he is actually referred to as Bodhidharmatrta (p. 280; cf. T 2075, 51.180b1415); reading the Chinese foot ch as shih (p. 304); and misunderstanding the questions about things in the Lngqi shz j (p. 333 n. 38). The book is beautifully produced throughout, with no typographical errors. As for the translations, the spot-checking I have done has turned up not a


single error in which Jorgensens basic understanding of the passage in question was incorrect. There are a number of idiosyncratic renderings in the translations and some interpretations with which one might disagree, but such occasional oddities do not undercut the utility of the volume as a whole. As we will see below, however, these minor oddities are accompanied by a number of analytic quirks that represent more serious obstacles to the authors rhetorical goals.

Jorgensen, a senior lecturer in Japanese at Griffith University, has been an innovative contributor to Chn studies over the years. His masters dissertation on the Dnhung manuscript containing the Treatise on the Two Entrances and Four Practices attributed to Bodhidharma, the legendary founder of Chinese Chn Buddhism, and associated material (Jorgensen 1979) was more notable for its innovative exhuberance and early publication date than for the reli-ability of its translations and interpretations, but it was an important contribution by a beginning scholar. A few years later Jorgensen published a seminal article on what he called the imperial lineage of Chn Buddhism (Jorgensen 1987), in which he showed that the lineage theory advanced by the factionalist advocate of the Southern school of early Chan, Shnhu, mimicked the expectations of contemporary Chinese domestic genealogies, most notably that of the imperial house. More recently Jorgensen finished a PhD dissertation dealing with issues of Chn and Chinese poetry (Jorgensen 1989), which unfortunately I have not yet been able to consult. Jorgensen has also written extensively on Korean Buddhism in ways that are of at least tangential relevance here (p. 776). Although this seems to be Jorgensens first single volumea 900-page first book!it is certainly fair to say that Inventing Hui-neng is the mature product of years of scholarship.

In order to evaluate this book in greater detail, let us begin by looking at two translated passages. The following is from the writings of Shnhu, who played a major role in the production of Hunngs hagiography. At one point Shnhu is recorded as denigrating the style of meditation practiced by the so-called North-ern school as

the dharma (method) of stupid people. The practice mode of Meditation Teacher Neng is divorced from these two Dharmas of suppression and nonsuppression. For this reason the sutra said, The mind not residing inside or outside; this is sitting in peace. One who sits like this the Buddha then seals (p. 392).

One cannot help chuckling at the rendering of ynk , seal of certifica-tion, with the simple English verb to sealis it like sealing a plastic bag, or an envelope? As background to this term Jorgensen introduces a passage from a commentary on the Confucian Lny popular during the Tng (the same information is repeated on pp. 546547), a citation drawn from John Makehams Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects (2003, p. 86). However, although the usage might conceivably have

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become more popular around this time due to its Confucian usage, it already occurred centuries before in Kumrajvas translation of the Vimalakrti Stra (see just below). This usage (which occurs again on p. 546) is indicative of Jorgensens work, in that it is reliable but occasionally quirky. From my own perspective the rendering of xngch as practice mode is also a bit overdone, and suppres-sion is not quite transparent as a rendering of tiof , regulate-suppress. I would render this passage as follows: This is the teaching of fools! Meditation Master Hunngs practice transcends the two Dharmas of regulating and not regulating [the mind]. Therefore, the text of the [Vimalakrti] Stra [reads], To have the mind neither abide internally nor locate itself externally: this is sitting in repose (ynzu ) . . . Those who are able to sit in this fashion [will receive] the Buddhas seal of certification. The ellipsis in the scriptural quotation indicates how Shnhu has selectively cited the Vimalakrti Stra passage (T 14.539c23 and 2526; cf. McRae 2004, p. 95), a detail not indicated in Jorgensens rendition.

Here is another characteristic translation passage, from another text of Shnhus:

In the sixth generation, the Tang court Chan teacher (Hui-)neng succeeded to Master (Hung-)jen. His lay surname was L, and his ancestors were from Fan-yang. Because his father was made an official beyond the Ranges, he lived in Hsin-chou. When he was twenty-two, (he went) to pay his respects at Tung-shan to Master (Hung-)jen. Master (Hung-)jen said, Where are you from? Why do you pay reverence to me? What thing are you seeking? Chan Teacher (Hui-)neng replied, I came from Hsin-shan in Ling-nan (South of the Ranges). Therefore I have come to pay obeisance. I only seek to become Buddha, I do not seek anything else.

Master (Hung-)jen said, You are a Ling-nan Hunting Lao.359 How can you become a Buddha? Chan Teacher (Hui-)neng said, What difference is there between the Buddha-nature of a Hunting Lao and your Buddha-nature? (pp. 133134)

This is a famous encounter in Chn literature, although it is remembered in later years primarily through a version found in Mng-dynasty editions of the Platform Stra. We may note a minor inconsistency in format with respect to the passage cited above, in which parentheses were used to indicate a synonym: method was equivalent in the given context to dharma. Here parentheses are used to indicate elided characters in the personal names that occur, a detail that was not made explicit in the Meditation Teacher Neng of the other passage. Oddly, Hunngs lay surname is given as L, whereas the character is pronounced l; the same transcription error occurs throughout for both Hunngs lay surname and the state of L in which Confucius lived (p. 84). Incidentally, Jorgensen has found a potential model for Hunngs father, L Zngyng (also mistakenly transcribed as L), whom he describes as a Taoist-cum-Buddhist who was active


around court and opposed Empress Wus extravagance in the period 700 to 705 (p. 152 n. 466). It is an interesting suggestion, although not much can be made of it at this point.

More than the spelling of Hunngs lay surname, it is the rendering of the term glo that draws ones attention: Hunting Lao seems to ren-der the variant lilo , which occurs in similar contexts in later versions of the Platform Stra and elsewhere. In my own translation of the Mng-dynasty text (McRae 2000, pp. 2829), which Jorgensen does not cite, I followed an interpretation given by Richard von Glahn (von Glahn 1987, pp. 2021) to the effect that glo referred to a specific ethnic group, the Klao, who had migrated from the Guzhu Plateau across the Yngzi from the fourth century onward, and who by the mid Tng had spread so widely that the term was applied to various non-Hn ethnic groups that were perceived by the Hn to be shiftless and lazy. (See Hny dcdin Va107a in the twenty-one-volume edition for this usage.) But Jorgensens term Hunting Lao is based on Chinese research (cited in p. 133 n. 359 and repeated on p. 327). The rendering Hunting Lao thus may be justified, even though the specific equivalent is not used in the passage translated here; it is an odd usage, but one based on a solid research foundation.

A few other minor oddities of rendering may be mentioned at this point. First, the name of the Buddha is given as kya Muni (e.g., p. 16), while tathgata is given as Thus Come. At least once Jorgensen refers to the Buddha as kya Thus Come (p. 277), which is both mechanical and awkward. Also, Sanskrit consonants usually indicated with a dot underneath the roman letter are given using cedillas, hence ua rather than ua. In some cases the diacritical marks are simply omitted, hence Lankvatra rather than Lakvatra and Tripitaka rather than Tripiaka. In addition, Jorgensen refers to the trans-mission of the lamp texts of Chn as lamplight transmission histories (p. 3), and lamplight is used throughout where simply lamp would have sufficed. And why are Jingnn and similar locations transliterated with outdated postal spellings: Kiangnan and so on (p. 455)? There are capitalization and format inconsistencies in the bibliographical citations both in the notes and at the end of the book, and several different terms used indiscriminately for Buddhist groupings (i.e., lineage [p. xi], Order [p. xi], school [p. 42], and sect [p. xi]). Readers may find it frustrating that the listing of abbreviations is done with cross-references to the bibliography, making it necessary to consult two locations at the front and back of the book, while additional abbreviations are given (with greater detail) in the Conventions section (pp. xixxxi).

Earlier I mentioned that Jorgensen never cites my translation of the Mng-dynasty version of the Platform Stra. This is a general feature of his research style, which is to exhaustively explore everything but previous research directly relating to his own topic. The following are important studies on topics (limited to those in English, for convenience) directly related to his subject matter that

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Jorgensen either underutilizes or does not cite at all (only representative relevant pages in Jorgensen are given):

Barrett, T. H. 1990. Kill the Patriarchs! Buddhist Forum 1: 8798. (Relevant to Jor-gensen p. 168.)

Bielefeldt, Carl, and Lewis Lancaster. 1975. Tan ching (Platform Scripture), Philosophy East and West 25, no. 2 (1975): 197212. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 406.)

Bodiford, William M. 1993. St Zen in Medieval Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 314 n. 179.)

Broughton, Jeffrey L. 1999. The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 546.)

Chen Jinhua. 1999. Making and Remaking History: A Study of Tiantai Sectarian Historiography. Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series 14, Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies in Tokyo. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 219 n. 116.)

. 2002. Monks and Monarchs, Kinship and Kingship: Tanqian in Sui Buddhism and Politics. Kyoto: Italian School of East Asian Studies. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 47, where a Toung Pao article by Chen is mentioned in n. 48 that is not listed in Jorgensens bibliography.)

Chinese Buddhist Electronic Texts Association (CBETA). Electronic texts of the Taish shinsh daizky. (Vols. 155 and 85 have been available since 2001.)

Eckel, Malcolm David. 1992. To See the Buddha: A Philosophers Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen pp. 233234.)

Faure, Bernard. 1997. The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 45.)

Forte, Antonino. 1988. Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias in the History of the Astronomical Clock: The Tower, Statue and Armillary Sphere Constructed by Empress Wu. Roma: Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente; Paris: Ecole franaise dExtrme-Orient. (Relevant to Jorgensen pp. 5354.)

Gregory, Peter N. 1991. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Relevant passim.)

Gregory, Peter N., and Daniel Getz, eds. 1999. Buddhism in the Sung. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant passim.)

Gregory, Peter N., and Robert Gimello, eds. Studies in Early Chan and Hua-yen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant passim.)

Jia Jinhua. 1999. The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism and the Tang Literati. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado at Boulder. (Relevant passim.)

Kloppenborg, Ria. 1974. The Paccekabuddha: A Buddhist Ascetic: A Study of the Concept of the Paccekabuddha in Pli Canonical and Commentarial Literature. Leiden: Brill. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 37.)

McRae, John R. 1983. The Ox-head School of Chinese Buddhism: From Early Chan to the Golden Age. Pp. 169253 in R. M. Gimello and P. N. Gregory, eds., Studies in Chan and Hua-yen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 436.)


. 1987. Shen-hui and the Teaching of Sudden Enlightenment in Early Chan Buddhism. Pp. 227278 in Peter N. Gregory, ed., Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, Studies in East Asian Buddhism 5. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 61.)

. 19931994. Yanagida Seizans Landmark Works on Chinese Chan. Cahiers dExteme-Asie 7: 51103. (Relevant passim.)

. 2000a. The Antecedents of Encounter Dialogue in Chinese Chan Buddhism. Pp. 4674 in Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, eds. The Kan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 366.)

, trans. 2000b. The Platform Stra of the Sixth Patriarch. BDK English Tripiaka 73-II. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 69.)

. 2001. Religion as Revolution in Chinese Historiography: Hu Shih (18911962) on Shen-hui (684758). Cahiers dExteme-Asie 12: 59102. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 28.)

. 2003. Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Zen Buddhism. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Relevant passim.)

Nagashima Takayuki. 1976. Hypothesis: Shen-hui Was Not Acquainted with Hui-neng . Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 49 (25, no. 1): 4246. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 155.)

Nattier, Jan. 2003. A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to the Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipcch). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 233.)

Nguyen, Cuong Tu. 1997. Zen in Medieval Vietnam: A Study and Translation of Thin uyn tp anh. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen pp. 304305.)

Poceski, Mario. 2000. The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism during the Mid-Tang Period. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. (Relevant passim.)

Schltter, Morten. 1989. A Study in the Genealogy of the Platform Stra. Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 2: 53114. (Relevant to Jorgensen pp. 631640.)

Strong, John S. 1992. The Legend and Cult of Upagupta: Sanskrit Buddhism in North India and Southeast Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 47.)

Weinstein, Stanley. 1987. Chinese Buddhism, Schools. In Encyclopedia of Religion 2:482a87b. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 42.)

Yifa. 2002. The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China: An Annotated Transla-tion and Study of the Chanyuan qinggui. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Relevant to Jorgensen p. 42.)

This is a substantial list, including some of the very best of recent English-language scholarship. Part of the issue, of course, is the date of publication. In spite of bearing a 2005 publication date, nothing listed in Jorgensens bibliography (other than two of his own publications) is later than 2003. Two items, in fact, bear a March 2003 date (see pp. 775 [Ishii Ksei] and 777 [Kinugawa Kenji]),

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implying that this was the effective cutoff for his research. Nevertheless, even with the materials he does cite Jorgensen underutilizes previous research on the early Chn throughout the volume. One example is Bernard Faures short but very important article on Bodhidharma (Faure 1986), which Jorgensen dutifully cites (p. 21) without seriously considering its profound implications. Jorgensen cites other authors abundantly, but usually without identifying precisely how the resource in question was helpful, and he almost never critiques the work of others. I noticed only a single occasion on which he explicitly disagrees with another scholar (p. 119 n. 318), and in the discussion cross-referenced there I find Jorgensens ex silentio argumentation to be questionable (pp. 418420; in chapter 5 rather than chapter 7 as stated in the note). Sometimes Jorgensen misconstrues a source he cites (e.g., p. 438 n. 347), but in a far larger number of cases he cites multiple works dealing directly with his subject matter without any indication that he has actually apprehended the implications of the previous scholars work.

What is noteworthy about this is the unparalleled effort Jorgensen has undertaken to use scholarship concerning European Christianity and Chinese intellectual history, the former to introduce his conceptual terms and the latter for purposes of cultural context. In fact, there is a regular pattern to his discussions, in that he generally begins each chapter or major section by introducing some concept or category on the basis of Western scholarship and then applies those findings to the study of the hagiography of Hunng. In the introduction he defines the cult of the relics and the cult of the book, which he goes on to identify with the Coq dsh zhun and Platform Stra, respectively (pp. 78; see further discussion at the end of this review). In chapter 1 he introduces the subject of hagiography on the basis of research on eastern Christianity (p. 35); similar generalizations are repeated at the beginning of chapter 5. At the beginning of chapter 4 he draws on research into the theft of relics in the European middle ages (p. 322), at the beginning of a major section in chapter 5 he cites a Western authority on authority (p. 385; discussed below), and at the beginning of chapter 6 he cites a European historian on the role of place in hagiography (p. 451). In other cases his references to Western concepts give the impression that he takes them as universally valid, such as in his implication that the medieval was a specific cultural characteristic identically applicable to Europe and China. Given this identity, Jorgensen can then state that Chn was simultaneously medieval and modernising, whatever that means (p. 30). In general, Jorgensens approach is relentlessly deductive. In the introduction to part 2, The Writing of the Hagi-ography, for example, he writes that Having examined the contents of the hagi-ographies of Hui-neng . . . I now shift my attention to the formation of the hagiog-raphies as documents. But this approach is backward: he should have considered the evidence as given in the texts first, then drawn his inferences.

One indicator of Jorgensens perspective is the presence of more than twenty citations of Reginald Rays Buddhist Saints in India (1994) throughout the book.


Jorgensen has accepted as canonically accurate Rays description of forest monks as maintaining an ascetic ideal, in contrast to the sometimes degenerate and inevitably distracted monks residing in the monasteries. Here the early 2003 cutoff for other scholarship used in Inventing Hui-neng is particularly disappointing, for Jan Nattiers A Few Good Men, which came out at the end of that year, includes a substantive and nuanced critique of Rays thesis (see Nattier 2003, pp. 9396 in particular). (I should point out that I am indeed prejudiced regarding the value of Nattiers scholarship, being married to her!)

What is more significant here than the possible flaws in Rays interpretation, though, is the manner in which Jorgensen takes the Indian categories of establishment monastic and forest renunciant as immediately and inflexibly applicable to the Chinese situation. At one point Jorgensen suggests that the Northern Chinese successors to Bodhidharma had an ascetic outlook that

probably also inclined them toward the veneration of a group of early Buddhist saints, beginning with Mahkyapa and ending with Upagupta, because they practiced ascetic meditation and could be viewed as taking the place of the Bud-dha, and even be called Buddha.46 Thus it was in later Chan hagiography, begin-ning with the works of Shen-hui, if not earlier, that Mahkyapa and those other forest saints were made members of the Chan lineage. (p. 47; note 46 cites five different pages in Ray 1994)

There was, however, an important contrast between those who did Chn and those who wrote about it:

The Chan historians were probably monastic rather than ascetic meditators, were probably from the upper classes, and so when they wrote about the saints tended to do so from a conservative perspective, sanitising their subjects or placing them into set formulae accepted by the normative tradition. So as a gen-eral rule, until recently, the histories written from the bottom up were usually hostile, reformist polemics, or anti-clerical. (pp. 192193)

This statement seems to be based on a priori assumptions from Western studies. Methodologically, the most troubling point is when Jorgensen (p. 192 n. 7) cites Rays inference that in India monastics treated lay people and women as lower castes (Ray 1994, p. 401). The implication, clear if unstated, is that this question-able assertion describes medieval Chinese Buddhism as well.

Jorgensens attraction to Rays sharp distinction between establishment monastics and forest renunciants is not merely the appreciation of another scholars analysisit also fits Jorgensens understanding of his own personal identity, which he has chosen to foreground in several ways. Jorgensen describes himself as having led a marginalized professional existence. (Certainly, given his research productivity he is underemployed as a senior lecturer in Japanese.) Even though he has a scepticism that comes from my experience of life on the margins, he writes, this does not mean I think Chan is valueless (p. ix), surely an apophatic indication of his own true opinion. He observes correctly that the

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evidence for the fabrication or invention of the legend of Hui-neng has come almost entirely from the margins of China (p. 6), although he does not consider whether this might be largely an accident of transmission. Instead, he writes frequently of how Chn developed on the geographical and social margins of Chi-nese culture, sometimes characterizing medieval Chinese monastics as either mar-ginal or anti-establishment figures (pp. 47, 48, 59, 190, 192, 339, 532). He actually devotes a lengthy footnote (pp. 190191 n. 2) to an enumeration of which Chn monks were possibly/probably/definitely from or not from the elite; the numbers he gives are intriguing, and it would be interesting perhaps to see the data and how it has been analyzed, but one wonders about its implications. Would we not expect that all monks listed in these sources would have either been born into or have achieved elite status?

Related to this self-image of life on the margins is a sense of moral outrage, which Jorgensen feels entitled to express even toward his eighth-century subjects:

Throughout this study, words such as fabrication, forgery, invention, fic-tion, and contrivance are frequently used, for the central subject matter is the construction of an elaborate, legitimizing hagiography from little more than the name of a monk, his location, and evidence that he was the pupil of a well-known, influential monk. Although these words have a moral judgment implicit in them, they are not used here as a blanket or absolute condemnation. All can be viewed as kinds of innovation and creativity, even while inventing historic continuity.27 Fiction, the expedient that gives meaning to existence, is in some estimates quintessentially human, as humans invent the symbols with which to interpret the world in an artificial manner, through language, and to create their own identities. As most of human aspirations are fictitious,28 surely religion itself is a fiction, as is history. (p. 10)

And, indeed, the pages of Jorgensens book are filled with words such as those he lists in the passage quoted just above, and even worse. Here is a partial list: lie (p. 18) or lies (p. 283); megalomaniac (p. 64); ludicrous allegations (p. 131) or outrageous allegations (p. 177); diatribes (p. 156); fabrication (pp. 274, 283, 334) or fabricators (p. 312); forgery (p. 64), forgers (p. 156), or forging (p. 312); and bigotry (p. 438). No doubt more examples could be found. I did not consciously search his text for more positive phrasings and thus cannot state the following definitively, but after the passage just cited I do not recall him using anything like innovation or creativity ever again.

Continuing from the passage quoted just above, Jorgensen writes:

These are social or cultural fictions, which should be distinguished from lying and deception. Fiction is not consciously intended to mislead, for in a sense it is both a self-deception and a willing suspension of disbelief, to which we consent.29 Religion is not exempt; in fact, it is a prime perpetrator of lying . . . (p. 10)


Jorgensens notes are to works by Eric Hobsbawm, Ernest Becker, and Sissela Bok, the last of whom he goes on to quote regarding lying and pious fraud. A few pages later Jorgensen continues, with notes to Bok and Elaine Pagels:

It is here that I join those critics in moral censure, for evidence points to Shen-hui acting to make he himself the seventh patriarch and true heir to ortho-dox Buddhism as authenticated by a surety of transmission. This aristocratic assumption of the noble lie61 and recognition of the coercion or violence implicit in this deception62 on the part of Shen-hui (684758) and his imitators, the main hagiographers in this study, taints the very positive results of their creations and fictions. The very formation of a key definition of Chan, the lineage of trans-mission from the Buddha, was initially meant to benefit Shen-hui himself and exclude others. In other words, the transmission of the patriarchal robe in Chan had a legitimising function, rather like the fiction of the bodily resurrection in early Christianity, which provided the authority of certain men who claim to exercise exclusive leadership over the churches as the successors of the apostle Peter.63 (p. 17, citing Pagels 1979, p. 6)

The citation of luminaries of recent anglophone scholarship as authorities for Jorgensens ideas reveals another concern of his, which seems implicitly related to his self-image as a marginal scholar. That is, the latter part of his book is particularly concerned with matters of authority. As already mentioned above, at the beginning of a major section in chapter five called Wen, Authority and the Lives of Hui-neng (p. 385), Jorgensen begins with the following quotation from Paul Corcorans Political Language and Rhetoric: One must have a certain status to produce a myth: one must be an authority, a source. A writer or speaker having this status is thus able to produce a myth or lie, the very success of which reinforces his status (1979, p. 6). This passage serves as the template for next hundred pages or so of Jorgensens text, in which the word authority abounds. The word is used in the titles of section A and both its chapters (5 and 6). In a quotation from a modern Chinese article, he glosses zu creator as author-ity (p. 387). Invoking the specific terms used by Corcoran, Jorgensen writes that at a certain time Hui-neng was not yet accepted as an authority; nor Shen-hui as his author (p. 400). After a lengthy paragraph of speculation, he concludes that the Boln zhun , an important text associated with Mz Doy (709788), lacked authority at the centre and was condemned to marginality and the periphery (p. 414). A few pages later he refers to the usurpation or abuse of the authority of the Buddha by the compiler of this text, in a manner which seems to conflate modern interpretive notions of authority with eighth-century Chinese ideas (p. 424). And, in the conclusion to the section he uses authority fourteen times, plus once in a quotation (pp. 446450).

The heart of Jorgensens exposition is the assertion of a closely interlocking set of propositions. He devotes extensive energy to the investigation of the hagiographies of Confucius, Bodhidharma, and Hunng, for example, covering

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the following hagiographical elements: ancestry, birth, place of birth; center versus periphery; predictions or omens of an illustrious future; upbringing; early career; assassination attempts on the sage teacher; relations with rulers; predictions on the future of their teaching; premonition of death; miracles associated with death; tombs, relics, shrines; and number of pupils (pp. 170183). His conclusion (stated and repeated at pp. 71, 169170, 183184, and 215) is that the hagiographies of Con-fucius and Hunng are structurally alike, although there are minor flourishes in the latter similar to those in Bodhidharmas biography. I do not find the evidence to point in this direction, and there are so many different elements and nuances in the biographical materials that Jorgensen himself introduces as to make the analy-sis exceedingly complex.

The Confucian structure of the Hunng hagiography has an important corol-lary, though: that the originator of that hagiography, Shnhu, was himself deeply influenced by Confucianism. Jorgensen takes as a significant and distinctive fact of Shnhus identity that he was trained in the Confucian classics (p. 62), as is stated in his biographysurely a standard hagiographical trope if there ever was one! The identification of Shnhu as Confucian is repeated often (pp. 71, 168, 434, 456, 469, 532), but without ever considering the implications that Shnhu was simultaneously (in Jorgensens depiction) deeply influenced by Confucianism, which is profoundly concerned with human morality, and a bald-faced liar as well.

The identification of Shnhu as Confucian does important work for Jor-gensens overall thesis, in which Shnhus teachings are associated closely with the Southern Learning school of Tng-dynasty Confucianism. That is,

For Shen-hui, not only was the sudden (South) versus gradual (North) significant in this dichotomy, but also the Confucian Southern Learning Schools theory of only one heir per generation in a lineage (tsung) versus the Confucian Northern Learnings permission of more than one heir per generation, for that provided ammunition for his definition of tsung. (p. 76, citing Jorgensen 1987, pp. 111114)

and

[Shnhu] adopted the Southern Learning Confucian theories of the Chinese imperial lineage or tsung, merging it with the Indian Buddhist theories of the cakravartin king, recently used by Empress Wu Tse-tien. Empress Wu had claimed to be the legitimate Confucian ruler of the Chou Dynasty, a cakravartin ruler and an incarnation of Bodhisattva Maitreya . . . Shen-huis use of a Confu-cian concept for a Buddhist lineage cast the die: Hui-neng was then predomi-nantly modelled on Confucian motifs and paradigms, perhaps the transmission of the throne to sage emperors. (p. 168)

Of course, according to Antonino Fortes exhaustive research on Empress W, she generally avoided reference to the cakravartin ideal of traditional Buddhist doctrine, presumably because it was so closely identified with being male (Forte 1976 and 1988, the latter of which Jorgensen does not consult). For Jorgensen, however, Empress W represented Northern Chan and hence opposition to


Hui-neng (p. 336)although to whom she represented this is not made clear. Not only this, but because of the association between women and the Bodhisattva Avalokitevara in China, Jorgensen actually wonders whether Shnhu disapproved of Avalokitevara (p. 333 n. 38)!

The assumptions that Shnhu was both a Confucian and a liar lead Jorgensen to conclude that he never actually met his supposed teacher Hunng, and moreover that he never even went to Coq . This inference was made decades ago in a series of articles and a University of Lancaster dissertation by Nagashima Takayuki (published as Nagashima 1978, which Jorgensen lists but does not use). Jorgensens bibliography lists one Japanese article by Nagashima from 1993; as mentioned above, neither does he refer to Nagashima 1976. Nagashimas work did not, shall we say, maintain a high standard of scholarship, and the argument made both by him and by Jorgensen is done entirely ex silentio. My own understanding is that Shnhu used Hunng for his own legitimation and virtually nothing else, but that this does not allow us to infer that the two men were totally unacquainted. For Jorgensen, though, the logic is clear: Shnhu is an establishment monk and therefore degen-erate, and his obvious fabrications in other areas mean that he lied in this case as well. Since he was not a true meditation specialist (in this Jorgensen seems to follow McRae 2002) and thus lacks the religious purity of Rays Indian forest ascetics, his teachings do not matter nearly so much as his hagiographical fabrications.

Fortunately, Jorgensens sequence of propositions culminates in a manner that is genuinely helpful as a framework for future analysis. After Shnhu and the Ldi fbo j , which Jorgensen asserts suggests no distinctive additions to the hagiography of Hunng, the Coq dsh zhun , Platform Stra, and Boln zhun emerged from different cultural and religious milieux and made significant contributions to the hagiography. As already mentioned above, he identifies the Coq dsh zhun with the cult of the relics and the Platform Stra with the cult of the book, correspondences that seem to work fairly well. Jorgensen of course cites publications by his one-time fellow student, Gregory Schopen, but he has actually relied more on an article by Donald Lopez (1995, p. 41) and of course on the writings of Reginald Ray. For his own part, Jorgensen has noticed that the Coq dsh zhun and Boln zhun emphasize the importance of Hunngs relics. In contrast, the Platform Stra derives, in Jorgensens interpretation, from a community of Shnhus successors in southern China that had no relics of Hunng in its possession. As a result, this text describes the transmission using Bodhidharmas robe as at an end, substituting transmission through possession of the text of the Platform Stra itself (p. 672).

True scholarshipespecially a project decades in the making such as this onemay be the outcome of a personal quest. The volume under review here is certainly such a product, and it contains a splendid wealth of information not found in any other source. The author has chosen to adopt a judgmental moral stance, which I am tempted to label the hermeneutics of resentment. In spite

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of the air of negativity that pervades the text, however, many readers will strive to look past Jorgensens idiosyncratic personal stance and problematic inductive style in order to benefit from the impressive efforts he has made in producing this massive research report. Given its scale and level of detail this book is certainly not appropriate for general readers or novices in the study of early Chn Bud-dhism, but it is truly a boon for researchers.

John R. McRae

John R. McRae taught at Cornell and Indiana Universities prior to his retirement and move to Japan in 2005. His initial research specialization was in the study of Chinese Chan or Zen Buddhism, but recently he has been exploring wider issues involving state formation and the indigenization of Buddhism throughout East Asia. He currently lives in Hachioji, Japan.

References Bol, Peter K. 1992. This Culture of Ours: Intellectual Transitions in Tang and Sung China. Stan-ford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Corcoran, Paul E. 1979. Political Language and Rhetoric. St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press.

Faure, Bernard. 1986. Bodhidharma as Textual and Religious Paradigm. History of Religions 25, no. 3: 187198.

Forte, Antonino. 1976. Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century: Inquiry into the Nature, Authors and Function of the Tunhuang Document S.6502, Followed by an Annotated Translation. Napoli: Istituto universitario orientale, Seminario di studi asiatici.

. 1988. Mingtang and Buddhist Utopias in the History of the Astronomical Clock: The Tower, Statue and Armillary Sphere Constructed by Empress Wu. Roma: Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente; Paris: Ecole franaise dExtrme-Orient.

Jorgensen, John. 1979. The Earliest Text of Chan Buddhism: The Long Scroll. MA dissertation, Australia National University.

. 1987. The Imperial Lineage of Chan Buddhism: The Role of Confucian Ritual and Ancestor Worship in Chans Search for Legitimation in the mid-Tang Dynasty. Papers on Far Eastern History 35: 89133.

. 1989. Sensibility of the Insensible: The Genealogy of a Chan Aesthetic and the Passionate Dream of Poetic Creation. PhD dissertation, Australia National University.

Komazawa Daigaku Zenshshi kenkykai . 1978. En kenky . Tokyo: Taishukan shoten .

Lewis, Mark Edward. 1999. Writing and Authority in Early China. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Lopez, Donald S., Jr. 1995. "Authority and Orality in the Mahyna." Numen 42: 2147.Makeham, John. 2003. Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on

the Analects. Harvard East Asian Monograph. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.McMullen, David. 1988. State and Scholars in Tang China. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.McRae, John R. 2002. Shenhui as Evangelist: Re-envisioning the Identity of a Chinese Buddhist

Monk. Journal of Chinese Religion 30: 123148.


2008 by University of Hawaii Press

McRae, John R., trans. 2004. The Vimalakrti Stra. BDK English Tripiiaka. Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research.

Nagashima Takayuki Shono. 1976. Hypothesis: Shen-hui Was Not Acquainted with Hui-neng . Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 49 (25, no. 1): 4246.

Nagashima, Takayuki Shono. 1978. Truths and Fabrications in Religion: An Investigation from the Documents of the Zen (Chan) Sect. London: A. Probsthain. (This is based on the authors 1975 Ph.D. dissertation, University of Lancaster.)

Nattier, Jan. 2003. A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipcch). Honolulu: Univeristy of Hawai'i Press.

Pagels, Elaine. 1979. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Random House.Ray, Reginald A. 1994. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations.

New York: Oxford University Press.von Glahn, Richard. 1987. The Country of Streams and Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and the

Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian

Studies.

William C. Kirby, Robert S. Ross, and Gong Li, editors. Normalization of U.S.-China Relations: An International History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005. xix, 376 pp. Hardcover $49.50, isbn 0674019040.

This collection of essays is the result of collaboration between the Center of Inter-national Strategic Research of the Central Party School of the Chinese Commu-nist Party and the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. It claims to have pursued a more comprehensive approach to the normalization of Sino-U.S. relations, and consequentially it offers a more multilateral perspec-tive on bilateral Sino-U.S. relations (preface, p. ix). Indeed, it has. All of the eight essays address the dynamics of the normalization process during that crucial decade of 19691979, but each follows a different path in his or her research. As the subtitle of the book suggests, the result is An International History. True to its promise of an international scope, the volume comprises essay by writers who come from not only China and the United States, but also from Taiwan, Canada, Great Britain, and Russia, bringing with them perspectives firmly grounded in their close examinations of myriad historical materials, many of which are official documents recently declassified by their respective governments.

This volume, designed to study the making of Sino-American bilateral relations in the 1970s, goes an extra mile in the direction of making it an international history.