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Caryāgīti-Koa or Buddhist Siddhas. ByProbodh Chandra Bagchi and Śānti BhikuŚāstri. pp. xlii, 215. Visva-Bharati,Santiniketan, 1956. Rs. 15.

R. Williams

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society / Volume 92 / Issue 1-2 / April 1960, pp 99 -

100DOI: 10.1017/S0035869X00119215, Published online: 15 March 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0035869X00119215

How to cite this article:R. Williams (1960). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 92, pp 99-100doi:10.1017/S0035869X00119215

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REVIEWS OF BOOKS 99

prudery which it opposed. So let us face the facts a bou t these scu lptures.Many of those which Dr. Anand reproduces seem to have no relation-

ship to the normal sexual activity of the people of the time, but rathersuggest the jaded pleasures of the idle and wealthy prince, surroundedby a host of concubines and slave-girls eager for satisfaction, and everin search of new means of stimulating his failing potency. We cannotfully explain their purpose, but it is fairly certain th at the more fantasticsculptures at least do not represent or symbolize the creative urge of

Divinity, and are not fertility charms, for they depict sexual activitiesof a completely sterile kind, which, from the creative point of view,are merely wasted energy. We suggest that as Divinity, in India and

elsewhere, has often been anthropomorphically conceived on theanalogy of a king, and heaven as a king's palace, so the worshipper at

Khajuraho or Konarak was encouraged to think of the lower stages of

heaven at least as resembling the antahpura of the ruling monarch'scourt. He was encouraged to hope for all the subtle refinementsdescribed in the Kam asutra which, in our view, is far more relevant tothe sculpture of Khajuraho and Konarak than is the literature of

tantrism . Here below, for the ordinary man or woman, sexual lifemight be commonplace, inadequate, and hedged around with taboos ;

in the lower heaven, the highest place of rebirth an ordinary manmight hope for was to be found exquisite and refined bliss, suchas on earth only kings and the very rich enjoyed. In our own viewthis is the main message of the erotic sculpture of Khajuraho and

Konarak. It in no way lessens our respect for the sculpture itself

much of which is art of a very high order. We pass over a furtherdevelopment of our theoretical explanation, once suggested half-

facetiously by a colleague, that, as a result of seeing such sculpture,the male temple-goer might be encouraged to anticipate the delights

of heaven by patronizing the devaddsis and that thus they are a formof advertisement. A L BASHAM.

Buddhism

CARYAGITI-KOSA or BUDDH IST SIDDHAS. By PROBODH CHANDRA

BAGCHI and SANTI BHIKSU SASTRI. pp . xlii, 215. Visva-Bharati,

Santiniketan, 1956. Es. 15.

The preface does not make quite clear that this work is a re-issue of

the late Dr. Bagchi's Materials for ritical Edition of the Old BengaliCaryapada published in Vol. XXX of the Journal of the Departmentof Letters of Calcutta University. Bagchi's introduc tion from Studiesin Tantras Calcutta, 1939 is reproduced textually. To this has beenadded an index of verses and an index of citations occurring in the com-

mentary. The revision of the text has been done with care and sound



1 0 0 REVIEWS OF BOOKS

scholarship by Bagchi's pup il, Santi Bhiksu Sastri who promises ano thervolume containing the ltis and their comm entary in the Tibetan version.

E. WILLIAMS.

T H E W H E E L O F L I F E . By J. BLOFELD. pp . 263, 24 illustrations.Eider and Co., London, 1959. 25s.

The subtitle calls this the autobiograp hy of a Western Buddhist ,and it is one of the most delightful books I have read for a long time.Here we have Mr. Blofeld, of an old Norfolk family, who persuadeshimself that he is really an Asiatic reborn by some strange fluke of fatein the barbaric W est ; who discovers the teachings of Buddhism in

the well-stocked library of Hailey bu ry ; who then , in Cambridge,resolves to tread the Middle W ay , quarrels with his father, andmoves to China, ben t on returning to his native land. There he fallsunder the spell of the age-old Chinese civilization which was apparentlyvery much superior to what we have to boast of in this part of theworld, and for a time his inte rest in Buddhism subsides. Then, however,his religious longing re-asserts itself and Taoists, Tibetans, and Mongolsrekindle his faith. A Chinese Zen monastery was obviously no t forh im ; sadly he left it, and h as now turned to the Tantric form ofBuddism. The vic tory of Mao-te-tsung forced him to leave China forSiam, where he works at the University of Bangkok.

The value of Mr. Blofeld's book lies in the patent honesty of a man,disillusioned by W estern civilization, and yet not fooled by any hoky-poky from the Ea st. Endowed with a strong spiritual urge, he longedfor the Peace which escapes us here. W ith his upbringing he could notpossibly know where to look for spirituality in the West, and what hefound in the E as t he could somehow not m ake his own. Many, far too

many, Northern Europeans are in the same predicament. He hassought, but, as he himself says, he has no t found. This candid admissionby itself pu ts him in a class ap art among Western Buddhists , whoare rath er prone to make-believe . Bu t though he is still far awayfrom the Eeality which Mahayana Bud dhists hope to win, he hasmade some encounters of absorbing interest, as with a Taoist sage,a Tibetan Lama, a shaman, with Buddhist monks in at least threemonasteries and a vast variety of more ordinary Asiatics. In tellingus about his life Mr. Blofeld has provided us with a first-class document

about the present situation of Buddhism in Asia.EDWARD CONZB.

RATNAKIRTINIBANDHAVALI. Edited by A. THAKUR. Tibetan SanskritWorks Series, vol. 3. pp . 36 + 142. K. P. Jayasw al ResearchIns titu te, Patn am 1957. Rs . 4s.

This is the third volume of a series of publications begun in 1953under the Patronage of the Government of Bihar, and utilizing photo-

review of caryāgīti-koṣa or buddhist siddhas. by probodh chandra bagchi and Śānti bhikṣu...

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