The Prajñāpāramitā Literature by Edward ConzeReview by: D. Seyfort RueggJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 101, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1981), p. 471Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/601295 .

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BRIEF REVIEWS 471

People, Princes and Parmount Power. Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States. Edited by ROBIN JEFFREY.

Pp. xii + 396. Delhi: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1978. Rs. 80.

Historians of modern India have long been preoccupied with British and other colonial rule, while little attention was paid to the kingdoms which remained under native princes, save for the relations foreign powers had with them. The book under review is the first organized attempt to reverse this trend. The fact that most contributors are younger scholars underscores the novelty of the endeavor. Yet the high quality of the craftmanship reveals that much talent can be applied to the enterprise, and that archival material is plentiful. Perhaps most remarkable is the fact that the authors resisted the temptation to over-compensate for long neglect, and did not concentrate on princely India to the exclusion of its colonial environment, in the form of British paramountcy. The result is a superb demonstration of the interlocking texture of India prior to 1947, and an examination of the blend of success and failures, exchanges and oppositions, which led to the merging of all components in the Indian Union.

The first seven pages present case studies of individual states: Alwar, Hyderabad, Baroda, Travancore, Patiala, Mewar, and Rajkot. The last five are topical, and devoted to the Indian Political Service; the demise of the princely order; the role of princes in post-1947 India and Pakistan; com- parative domestic politics in the princely states; and British laissez-faire policy vis-a-vis the native kingdoms. To these is prefixed an engaging introduction by the editor, who also contributes the study on Travancore. Useful features include a glossary of Indian terms, a list of the 83 states with salutes of eleven guns or more, together with their sizes in square miles and population, and an index. A consolidated bibliography would have been helpful, and provided a basis for the further studies which the book seeks to generate. Contributors, editor, and the Australian National University, which sup- ported the work with a subvention, must be commended for a stimulating and well executed contribution to a more balanced view of modern Indian history.

ROSANE ROCHER

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

The Prajifpdramita Literature. By EDWARD CONZE. Second edition revised and enlarged. Bibliographia Philologica Buddhica, Series maior I. Pp. iv + 138. Tokyo: THE REIYUKAI. 1978.

When the first edition of this work was published in 1960 (Indo-Iranian Monograph Series, vol. vi) it was welcomed as

a valuable bibliography and survey of what was known about the Prajfidpdramitd SUtras and many of the related com- mentaries. Containing as it does an extensive annotated bibliography of the Indian texts and the ancient and modem translations of the SUtras and a shorter section on the commentarial literature of Chinese and Tibetan as well as Indian origin preceded by historical sketches of the develop- ment of this vast literature both in and outside India, the work represents a very considerable advance over the biblio- graphical and historical material available from earlier pub- lications, such as E. Obermiller's article on the doctrine of Prajffipdramita (Acta Orientalia 11 [1932] to whose impor- tant pioneering work full recognition has however not been accorded on pp. 29-30 and 91, although it is referred to from time to time).

Compared with the first edition of 1960 the second edition has been revised and new references have been added to both the historical sketches and the annotated bibliography of the "Ordinary Prajfidpdramita Sfitras," the "Special Texts" and the "Tantrik Texts." Some additions have also been made to the chapter on the commentarial literature. And this chapter retains the very useful diagram of the stages of the Path (mdrga) in correlation with the ways of the Srdvaka and Pratyekabuddha and the way of the Bodhisattva (pp. 108-11). Among the Sastras connected with the Prajfidpdramita the Pdramitdsamdsa ascribed to Arya-Sfira-and thus, if authen- tic, a quite early text-has not been included, perhaps because it is not a direct commentary on any particular SUtra and it is sometimes classified as a Madhyamaka work (e.g., in the bsTan-gyur). Due attention has been paid to the iconography of Prajfiaparamitd. The new edition ends with a bibliography of Professor Conze's numerous publications on the Prajn-a- paramita compiled by Dr. A. Yuyama of the Reiyukai Library (pp. 127-38).

This volume will be found to be an indispensable aid by all readers of the enormous and complex Prajfidpdramita litera- ture.

D. SEYFORT RUEGG

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

The Science of Criticism in India. By A. K. WARDER. (The Adyar Library General Series, 7.) Madras: THE ADYAR

LIBRARY AND RESEARCH CENTRE.

The format of this short work is a set of lectures delivered at the University of Madras. Summing up the reflective and personal conclusions of one of the major students of kavya and Sanskrit poetics, they invite comparison with the simi- larly conceived set of (five) lectures of S. K. De "Sanskrit Poetics as a Study of Aesthetic" delivered at Chicago in 1961.

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