Die Aṣṭāvakra-gītā by Richard HauschildReview by: Ludo RocherJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 89, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1969), pp. 437-438Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/596536 .

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Reviews of Books 437

ideation (nai va-sa mjina-ndsa hjiiayatana); why speak of other [planes] !" (sems mtshan ma ned pahi tin Ae hdzin la gnas pa ni hdu ses daA tshor ba hgog pa la dmigs sin sems tin Ae hdzin la gnas pa zes bya bahi tha tshig go/... hdu ses med hdu ses med min skye mched kyi sa pahi yid kyi rnam par ses pa dag 4gog pahi shoms par zugs pa la yod pa ma yin na gzan la ita smos kyah ci dgos).3 Furthermore, there is the famous story "The Con- version of Skriputra and Maudgalyqyana," for which Franklin Edgerton uses the Mahavastu ver- sion in his Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Reader, where we notice (p. 27): "Sariputrasya tam janakayam dr?tva anityasaMjia utpannd. . . Maudgalyaya- nasyapi ... dantamalani drtva asthisaMjnj ut- panna" ("When kriputra saw those persons, he had the idea of the impermanent; ... when Maudgalyayana saw their rows of teeth, he had the idea of bone.") Then, which of those expres- sions artha-sarhjfin and dharma-sawhji is the samjaid of that story? It must be an artha-samnjnia, where the artha is the "impermanent" or the "bone." It is not a dharma-sahjiiah, because the story does not attribute to the two disciples such an idea (of the pada type), "That is a group of persons," or "That is a festive group." They had a kind of painter's idea: the painter is not interested in the mental activity of calling the object by some name or phrase, but only in his mental construct of what Hattori terms the "svaripa," the characteristic feature. Besides, the disciples first perceived ("saw") by eye-perception something in common and subsequently had their diverse ideas. Since vijiidna, defined by the finite verbal form vijandti, is prior to, and in the above Vijfidnavddin passages independent of sarhjii&, artha-sa ijii& cannot cor- respond to "nTlarhjandti" (= "nTlam vijanati). We further notice that Dignaga, to firm up his logical terminology, seems to have avoided the

3 Vasubandhu and Gunamati thereby espouse certain celebrated disputed points of the Buddhists, namely theses of the "Vibhajyavadins" (cf. Andr6 Bareau, Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit V~hicule, p. 172): "5. In the non-ideational equipoise (asamjnhiisamdpatti) a subtle consciousness (suiksma-citta) does not cease." "6. In the cessation equipoise (nirodha-samdpatti) a subtle consciousness does not cease."

"sign" meaning of nimitta (see Hattori, pp. 158-9, Sarhkhya section) as associated with "ideas" (sanijia) and to have used instead the word kalpana ("conceptual construction"). So I believe that KamalasIla was right (see Hattori, p. 88) in claiming (in regard to paragraph Daa-2), that in Dignaga's position direct perception (pratyaksa) is nonerroneous (abhrdnta) because it does in- deed see blue, as well as free from conceptual construction because it is prior to and inde- pendent of the "ideas" involved with the "signs" (Abhidharmakosa, I, 14-c-d: samjna nimittodgra- hanattmika; ibid., VIII, tr. p. 185: the "signs" are ten in number), that is to say, "free from con- ceptual construction" (kalpanapodha) that applies discursive thinking to objects.

This reviewer feels that if specialists in the sub- sequent sections of Dignaga's first chapter, say in Sdrhkhya or Mimdamsaka, were to read their rele- vant sections in Hattori's translation and annota- tion, they would admire his accomplishment, agree for the most part, and perhaps have cause to sug- gest some slight modifications that do not affect the main issues. In these days of innumerable hastily-produced, second-rate publications, it is a pleasure to review a work in the highest tradi- tions of scholarship.

ALEX WAYMAN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Die Astavakra-gita. Bearbeitet und iibersetzt von RICHARD HAUSCHILD. (Abhandlungen der sachsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philologisch-historische Kiasse, Band 58-Heft 2.) Pp. 128. Berlin: AKADEMIE-VERLAG, 1967.

Sanskrit teachers who used the second edition of Thumb-Hauschild's Handbuch des Sanskrit (vol. 2) in their classes had become familiar with part of the Astavakragita since 1953. Now, nearly fifteen years later, we are provided with the complete set of materials which R. Hauschild collected in connection with this interesting text.

One could hardly imagine a more exhaustive study than this: all aspects of the text have been dealt with, and for some time to come this will

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438 Journal of the American Oriental Society, 89.2 (1969)

be the standard reference work for anyone who wants to work at or with the AstdvakragTtd. Text and translation are preceded by a long introduc- tion, in which the text is studied from the his- torical, philosophical, and philological points of view. First of all, the text is situated within the "ausgedehnte GIta-Literatur." Then, the editor elaborates on its philosophical background: "in der Astavakra-GUt5 aber haben wir es mit dem Monismus in seiner strengsten Form zu tun." This section deals at great length with the basic concepts of Veddnta, so that it can also be read by those who had no previous experience of this school of Indian philosophy. The philological part of the introduction lists and discusses earlier editions and translations, and describes the three Leipzig manuscripts which have been used here for the first time. It examines the internal structure of the text; we could not agree more with Hauschild's reaction to Zimmer's tendency to distinguish be- tween original parts and later additions. Only chapter 21 is accepted as being "von sphterer Hand." Then follows a list of variant readings, a series of notes on language and style, with a list of words that do not occur in the dictionaries, a few remarks on metre, and a paragraph in which the composition of the Astavakragita is placed in the 13th or 14th century A.D., or later.

Text and translation suggested only remarks of minor importance. We shall add here three typical specimens:

1.7. ayam eva hi te bandho drastdram pasya- sitaram, "das freilich ist deine Fessel: dass du den Schauenden als 'anderen' betrachtest." We fail to understand the note (p. 73, n. 5) to this transla- tion. Apparently Hauschild interprets: when you consider your real Self, which is the only spectator of the world, to belong to "the other," i.e., its object, the world. Does the text not rather say: you are wrong if you, the sole spectator, see, i.e., think that there exists, any other spectator? In our opinion the opposition is between eko drasta and drastaram itaram.

6.4. Hauschild translates va as "wahrlich;" this is indeed the idea which one would expect, but the reading vai does not appear among the variae lectiones on p. 35. If vai was not the read- ing of the text, we have to interpret differently:

"or." We are not completely convinced by Hau- schild's translation of the refrain verse iti jiinamn tathaitasya na tydgo na graho layah: "das ist die rechte Erkenntnis. Darum gibt es kein Aufgeben des einen, kein Festhalten des anderen-gibt es nur Verschmelzen." We are in favor of the com- mentator's layas ca na sambhavati (p. 79, no. 5), in view of Safikara's statement (Sutrabhasya 4.2.1) that a thing can only merge in its causal substance: yasya hi yata utpattis tasya tatra pralayo nyayyo mrdiva saravasya.

-11.1. In the compound bhavabhavavikaras Hauschild translates bhava by "Sein," abhava by "Vergehen," i.e., bhava as a state, abhava as a transition from one state to another. To be con- sistent bhavabhava? should express either "coming into being and disappearing" or "being and not being." Moreover, in the section on the language and style of the AstavakragTta (p. 41) Hauschild lists this compound as a dvandva with masculine singular ending. In our opinion vikara is the last member of a tatpurusa compound of which the dvandva bhavabhava is the first member: "the modification of being and not being." The author probably thought of such "existences" as that of an earthen pot, in between two periods of "non existence," before it is baked and after it is broken. We also fear that "in ihrer Natur begriindet" as a translation for svabhdvdt cannot be very clear to a person who is not acquainted with Vedanta ter- minology; it might have been useful to add: "with- out serving any real purpose." We think, e.g., of Sadnkarabhadya 2.1.33: anabhisamdhaya bahyam kimcid prayojanam svabhavad eva.

The book also seems to have been conceived as a class book; it contains a complete vocabulary (pp. 100-116), and, thus, can be read without the help of a dictionary. However, for the sake of the research scholar it might have been useful, at least for a number of important technical terms, also to add references to the verses in which they occur.

The volume closes with a translation of the Astavakra story in the Mahabharata, a bibliog- raphy, and four plates reproducing specimen pages of the Leipzig manuscripts.

LUDO ROCHER UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

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