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The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan . Edited By Wm. Theodore DeBary. New York: The Modern Library, 1969. xxii, 398 pp. Bibliography, Index, Title list. $2.45.

This is no rehash of secondary sources. It is an original work resting on careful study of the important texts. It is the product of fine scholarship; it communicates with the uninitiated student without the penalty of misguiding generalizations. It is an effective guide, an authentic introduction. The aim always is to clarify, never to mystify. Such notions as emptiness (siinya), consciousness-only (as in Vijndnavdda), Maitreya, Dharma-body and its immanence, preaching the Dharma in the celestial Buddha-land, and those of the esoteric school (Vajrayana) are presented in such a way as to give a convincing rationale for their development. The chapter on Gautama is especially good, tracing his development within the sixth century B.C. Indian religio-cultural context, its thought patterns and ascetic disciplines. The twenty page section on China is full and lucid, relating Buddhist developments to the Chinese milieu. The Chinese love for exotica and addiction to magic help explain early fascination with the Buddhist tradition. Meditation techniques, already current in the time of Laotzu and Chuang-tzu and enriched in Han Taoism, prepared the way for Buddhist discipline. Portraits of the Pure Land and Ch'en (Zen) movements show distinctive Chinese elements and also the persistence of earlier Indian elements. Some rather common theses are challenged, but not thoroughly argued. If this does not solve the problems, it does serve to question assumptions and provoke more work. The great importance of Ch'an, the author suggests, is not so much that it Sinified Buddhism, .but that it "extracted, concentrated, and made efficacious the essence of the Dharma." Again, concerning the interaction of Buddhism and Tantra he reverses the usual thesis that the degenerating influence of Tantra caused the downfall of Buddhism in India, concluding it more accurate to say that "Buddhism crushed the life out of the Tantras." The case either way is inconclusive. There are causal factors in the fading of either tradition which lie deeper in the human spirit than an encounter with another cult or some new historical situation. The bibliography is limited, but very helpful, as is the outline of the Pali, Chinese, and JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES