126 Book Review

The ancient Scythian language could in principle figure as one of four Old Iranian languages, along
with Avestan, Old Persian, and Median. We have extensive literary remains in the first two, and some
Median has, by more or less common consent (ever since Herman Hübschmann’s Persische Studien of
1895) been deduced from the non-Old Persian phonology of certain Iranian words in Old Persian. But
some scholars have proposed that Scythian, just as well as Median, could be the hidden language of
this vocabulary, an idea on the face of it not so unlikely (but I don’t believe it). If only we had sufficient
material to make it possible to distinguish Scythian from other Old Iranian languages: but Scythian
was not a written language in ancient times, and almost all our information about it comes from the
proper names cited in classical Greek writers – mainly Herodotus. And it is upon etymologies of these
names that we must depend.
This of course has to be the task of Iranianists, and it is very useful indeed to have this state-of-the-art
collection of Scythian by an expert Iranianist. But it is indicative of the scantiness of the material that
this is possible in only 26 pages of text.
The first sections list what is cited in Classical Greek writers as Scythian, followed by names cited
in other writers as ‘Scythian’. In the thorough discussion which follows, all words/names which can
be given a reasonable Iranian etymology are given one.
Next, the many problems which arise are discussed in a very sober way (as one expects from
Mayrhofer), in which wilder suggestions are excluded. An interesting suggestion by Lubotsky is
mentioned, in which Iranian farnah-‘glory, etc’. in the ‘Median’ found in Old Persian could actually
be Scythian. But I believe to have shown this word to be normal Old Persian (v. my article ‘Splendour
and Fortune’, in Philologica et Linguistica, Festschrift Helmut Humbach, (Trier, 2001.) pp. 485–496.
Sections 7 and 8 form the crux of the study, where Mayrhofer examines a total of only 36
words/names in ‘ Scythian’ which can be given a secure Iranian etymology and deduces what, if
any, special characteristics they may show. The results are something of an anticlimax: Scythian shows
itself in almost all respects to be a ‘normal’ Old Iranian language. There are just three cases where
Scythian may show some individuality: but they are all based on so little evidence (sometimes on only
one example), each of which can easily be otherwise explained, so that, alas, their probative value is
very doubtful.
But this is not in any way to diminish the value of this study, which brings all the available evidence
together in one volume, thoroughly and competently discussed. The book is also furnished with
indexes of every kind, including a very useful one listing every writer whose work is cited, with
cross-references to the word or words he has written about.

J. Elfenbein
University of Mainz (Retired)

Cultivating Original Enlightenment. Wŏnhyo’s EXPOSITION OF THE VAJRASAMADHI- ¯ SŪTRA

(KŬMGANG SAMMAEGYŎNG NON), The International Association of Wŏnhyo Studies’ Collected Works
of Wŏnhyo, Volume I. Translated with an Introduction by Robert E Buswell Jr. pp. xii, 424.
Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2007.
doi:10.1017/S135618630800919X

Wŏnhyo (Weonhyo, meaning ‘dawn light’, 617–686) is the most cherished figure in Korean Buddhist
tradition. He was born during the period of the Three Kingdoms in Silla which absorbed the other two
(Koguryŏ and Paekche) by 668. Buddhism, which became Silla’s state religion in 527, was understood
at the court as a force for developing the country and achieving unification. At large it was characterised
by a variety of sects and schools of thought brought from China. According to one tradition Wŏnhyo

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 Book Review 127

became a monk while still a boy, other sources place the event in the 29th year of his life, but maybe this
was the year of his full ordination. He is reported to have led an eccentric and itinerant life throughout.
At one time (659) he had an affair with, or was temporarily married to, a widowed princess (their
son, Sŏl Ch’ong, became a Confucian scholar and is reported to have had a hand in adapting Chinese
characters for writing Korean words). This affair became a popular romance, eventually elaborated
even into a modern novel (1940) by Yi Kwangsu.
Wŏnhyo studied under different teachers who had been trained in China and knew most of the
scriptures they brought to Korea, but he never made it to China himself. A tale related in the Sŏn
(Seon, Zen) type biographical work Records of Fingers Pointing to the Moon by Qu Ruji (1602) describes
his two attempts to go there in the company of Ŭisang (625–702): in 650 they were detained when
travelling through Koguryŏ (Goguryeo) territory as spies for Silla, but managed to escape back to Silla.
When Silla conquered Paekche (Baegje) in 660, it gained access to safe sea ports. On the way to them
in 661 the two were caught in a storm and took refuge in what they thought was a cave. Wŏnhyo
quenched his thirst from a bowl full of rain water which he found in the darkness, but in the morning
he saw that they slept in a tomb and the bowl was a skull. The storm continued raging and they had
to stay put another night deeming themselves haunted by ghosts. Pondering over the satisfaction in
quenching his thirst and the revulsion he felt when he saw the skull he had drunk from as well as the
peace of mind when he thought he slept in a cave and the sense of being haunted by ghosts the next
night, Wŏnhyo realised that all experiences were in the mind – and so was the final truth. When this
truth was realised, external projections could not abolish it, even though they continued. Wŏnhyo
then saw no point in continuing his journey (while Ŭisang went on, returned from China in 670 and
founded the Hwaŏm [Hwaeom] school based on Aavataṁsaka Sūtra or ‘Garland of Discourses’).
Wŏnhyo’s realisation of inner calm undisturbed by external projections is probably the source of his
ability to reconcile his boisterous lifestyle, in which he continued, with extensive scholarship and with
his way of spreading the message of the Buddhist goal of salvation to the masses by popular means
which included poetry, music and dance. This gave Korean Buddhism a lasting flavour well illustrated
by annual festivals in honour of Wŏnhyo still held in Punhwangsa (Bunhwangsa), a temple site near
the old Silla capital Kyŏngju (Gyeongju).
Wŏnhyo’s learning is attested by 23 preserved works of 86 he is reputed to have written, a result
of not only prolific study of scriptures, but also of countless discussions with teachers of all sects and
schools he could encounter, besides his original thinking and insights. True to his understanding that
different external teachings, although valid in their own way, are the mind’s projections as any other
phenomena which find their fulfilment and reconciliation in internal realisation of final truth, he
worked all his life for the reconciliation of all sectarian teachings and schools of thought. Nearest to his
understanding of the Buddhadharma was the Chinese Tiantai (T’ien T’ai) school based on the Lotus
Sūtra with its teaching that all things harboured at bottom the Buddha-nature. He therefore propagated
its Korean form Ch’ŏnt’ae ( Jeondae) which later brought into its fold Hwaŏm and Sŏn during the
Koryŏ (Goryeo, 918–1392) period. When Sŏn reconstituted itself as Chogye ( Jogye) school during
the Chosŏn ( Joseon, 1392–1910) period, it nevertheless retained under the influence of Ch’ŏnt’ae
teachings a distinctive character which differentiates it from Chinese and Japanese varieties of Zen.
For the salvation of masses Wŏnhyo upheld also the teachings of the Pure Land school; he regarded
the mundane land and the Pure Land as correlative projections of the mind. It is hard to find a section
of Korean Buddhism where some element of Wŏnhyo’s influence cannot be traced. He is regarded as
the greatest Buddhist thinker in Korea and acquired a great reputation also in China and Japan. When
his Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra, which was probably his last work, was brought to China, it was
given an honorary title lun, i.e. śāstra, indicating that it was on a par with traditional Buddhist scriptures
brought from India.

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 128 Reviews of Books

Vajrasamādhi Sūtra or ‘Discourse on Diamond Absorption’ (rendered by Buswell ‘Book of

Adamantine Absorption’), is a work regarded generally as originated in Ch’an (Chan, Zen) school in
China; but Buswell, who provided its translation in his earlier book The Formation of Ch’an Ideology
in China and Korea (Princeton, 1989), argues in it that it was composed in Korea around 680–685 by
a person named Pŏmnang, but the question of authorship can hardly be regarded as settled. In any
case, the intention of the compiler clearly was to make it seem as if it came from India by giving it
the Sanskritised title and using Sanskrit terminology when describing the nature of consciousness and
states of mind in meditative absorptions. The main purpose of the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra is to show a way
to restoring ‘original enlightenment’ which, in Buswell’s words, is in East Asian Buddhism innate to
the mind and inherently accessible to all. He credits Wŏnhyo with being the first who saw outlined in
this sūtra a way of cultivating original enlightenment systematically. The fact that beings are not aware
of their inchoate buddhahood (tathāgatagarbha) is due to adventitious defilements. Being extrinsic,
defilements cannot touch the intrinsic luminosity of the mind. All beings are therefore enlightened,
even if they do not know it. In a note Buswell rightly invokes the quotation from the Aṅguttara-nikāya
1.10 about the luminosity of the mind (prabhassara citta) and the adventitious defilements to show the
early Buddhist source for the Mahāyāna elaboration of the doctrine of original enlightenment. In his
initial study as Part I of this book he then explains how Wŏnhyo in his exposition of the Vajrasamādhi
Sūtra outlines six specific stages of contemplation culminating in the ‘single-taste’ contemplation which
amounts to experiencing the tathāgatagarbha or to realising the original enlightenment. The single-taste
designation of this achievement is again a reference to an early Buddhist passage – in Cullavagga ix.14 –
where the Buddha is reported as saying: “As the vast ocean . . . is suffused with a single taste, the taste
of salt, so too . . . is my teaching and discipline suffused with a single taste, the taste of liberation”.
It would be of course helpful to have read the Buswell’s translation of the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra in his
earlier book before embarking on the study of the present one, but Wŏnhyo quotes in his Exposition
a number of passages from the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra in which Buswell made some new minor revisions.
This book can therefore stand on its own as a self-contained study. In truth, it is not just a translation
with an Introduction, but a scholarly work in its own right. Buswell’s introductory study elucidates
on 43 pages many of the topics discussed in the Exposition as well as the circumstances under which
it was written. The translation of the Exposition is annotated and provided with headings for different
portions of the text, named parts, subparts, sections, subsections, divisions and subdivisions. The book
is a worthy first volume of the mammoth undertaking of publishing all works by Wŏnhyo, a truly
towering figure in Korean Buddhism.

Karel Werner
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

The Temple Architecture of India. By Adam Hardy. pp. 256. Chichester, Wiley, 2007.
doi:10.1017/S1356186308009206

Adam Hardy is one of the most original and prolific current writers on Indian temples. His new
book offers the most thought-provoking thesis on the principles of temple architecture since Stella
Kramrisch’s enduringly famous study, The Hindu Temple (1946). Specialists in the field might suspect
this compliment of being double-edged, for while Kramrisch’s book has always justly been held in high
esteem, many readers have ultimately found her portrayal of Indian design processes unconvincing,
or incomplete. Some have questioned her claim to have approached the subject from a perspective
derived from the temple builders’ own shastras (or technical literature) rather than from within a
western art-historical system. Hardy likewise goes for the grand interpretive theory that is said to be

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