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Review: [untitled]Author(s): T. Griffith FoulkSource: Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 507-510Published by: Sophia UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2385439.

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BOOK REVIEWS 507movement n the sixteenthcentury; t was one of the primaryculturalphenomenaofthe Tokugawaperiod; t was a centralaspectof traditionalJapaneseeducationand so-cial morality; t has beenone of thecrucial ntellectualnfluenceson twentieth-centuryJapan;and it has remained he sourceof much liberal political and social thinkingevenin the postwarperiod.Shinstudies,even thoseoriented o Christian ncounternthe broad sense,mustbeginto move also towardthese institutional actsin the future.Thus,althoughKeel didnot set out to writehistory,the centralproblematic mbeddedin this book, which concernsthe actualmeaningof Shinran's anguage,cannot beresolveduntil scholarsadopt a radicallyholistic theoreticalapproach,one thatwill inparticularattemptto accountfor Pure Land society.In any case, Keel and the few other Christian hinkerswho have paid attentiontoJapan'smajorBuddhist raditionhave correctlydentified hat somethingabout Shin-ran's thoughthas become, in the twentieth-centuryntellectualcontext, perhapsthemostchallengingbodyof historicalreligiousmaterial hatChristianhinkers aceany-where.To properlymeetthechallenge,however,Keel and otherChristianhinkersaregoingto have to workwithmorecompleteaccountsof Shin tradition.For theirpart,Shinscholarsarealsodeeplyresponsible or thecurrent nadequacy f communication(seethe note by JanVanBragton p. ix). Theythemselvesaregoingto haveto recastthe interpretation f Shinin waysthat allowit to escapefrom its currentmonopolisticcaptureby a theologizedsemantic ield,a capture hatlimits the possibilities or widerencounterwith a greatervarietyof Western nquiries.

Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community: A Translation of 'EiheiShingi'. Translated by Taigen Daniel Leighton and Shohaku Okumura.State University of New York Press, 1996. xxii + 272 pages. 19.95T. GRIFFITHOULKSarah Lawrence College

THEpresent volume is an annotated translation of a set of Buddhist monastic rulesknown as Eihei Shingi, rendered here into English for the first time. Dogen, 1200-1253, of course, is widely known as the patriarch of the Soto Zen lineage in Japan andthe founder of Eiheiji, the largest of the approximately twenty-five Soto trainingmonasteries in Japan today. Eihei Shingi as we have it now has gone through a numberof changes and redactions since Dogen's time, but it does accurately reflect his under-standing of the Buddhist monastic institutions and procedures he encountered in SungChina and his own approach to replicating them in Japan. Since the seventeenth cen-tury, moreover, Eihei Shingi has played a key role in the Soto school's understandingof itself as a distinct tradition deriving from Dogen. The work thus has great value asa historical document, and it continues to be used within the Soto school as a sourceof inspiration and authority in matters of monastic discipline.The translators, as Taigen Daniel Leighton's Introduction makes clear, are them-selves practitioners and teachers of Soto Zen in the U.S., and they view Eihei Shingias a spiritual guide and model for monastic practice that is (potentially, at least) asrelevant today as it was in the thirteenth century. There is a tendency in academic cir-cles in the West these days to denigrate such attitudes and motivations as unseemingly

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508 Monumenta Nipponica, 51:4pious and to assume that they must necessarily mpede the professional exerciseofcold-eyed, criticalscholarship.I do not believe that the positionthe translators ake,standing as they do within the normativetraditionof Soto Zen, necessarilyentailsany loss of scholarly udgmentor criticalacumen.On the contrary,as a profession-al academicwho has long workedon ancientBuddhistmonasticrules,I am delightedto see that there are Zen practitionersn the West today who care enough to studythem, and who set their sights on producingaccurate ranslations.The criticisms hatfollow are not intendedto put down the 'amateurs'who have dared to tread on my'professional' urf, but rather o encouragegreatercooperationbetween rainedscho-larsof Buddhismand scholarlymindedpractitioners nd teachersof Buddhismn theWest who wish to studythe basic texts of their respective raditions n the originallanguagesand make them available n translations.An unfortunateconsequenceof the translators'otherwiseadmirablebelief in therelevanceof Eihei Shingifor the modernworld s theirtendency o discussbygonefea-turesof Buddhistmonasticdisciplineas if theywere stillbeingpracticed,withno sig-nificance hanges, n Japan oday. Indeed,they presentEihei Shingi n such a waythatthe average eadermightwell take it to be a set of ruleswrittenby Dogen at Eiheijiandimplemented t that monasterymore or less continuously romthe thirteenthcenturydown to the present.The translation,for one thing, is illustratedby photographsofbuildingsnow standingat Eiheijiand by contemporary round plans of the monks'hall andthe monasteryas a whole. The translators'notes, moreover,often discuss nthe present enseproceduresdetailed n thetext, asthough theycouldstillbe observedbeing practiced odayatEiheiji ustas theywere n Dogen'stime. It wouldtake a care-ful scrutinyof the Introduction,and some additionalhistorical nformationnot con-tainedtherein,for thereader o realize hat EiheiShingias such hasneverbeenusedtoregulate rainingat Eiheiji.This is because a) it was not compiledas a singletextuntil1667, more than four centuriesafter Dogen's death, and (b) following that compila-tion, although t was muchstudiedandgreatlyreveredwithinSoto circles, t wasneverdeemed suitablefor day-to-dayuse in regulatingEiheijior any othermonastery.As Leighton notes in the Introduction,Eihei Shingi is in fact a collection of sixtextson differentaspectsof Buddhistmonasticdiscipline hat Dogen prepared or hisfollowers at three monasteriesbetween he years1237and 1249. The six are:(1) 'Ad-monitions for the Cook' (Tenzo Kyokun), (2) 'Procedures or Practicing he Way'(Bendoho), (3) 'Procedures or TakingMeals' (Fushukuhanpo), 4) 'Regulations orthe CommonQuarters' ShuryoShingi), (5) 'Procedures or Relating o MonksFiveRetreats Senior to Oneself' (Tai TaikogogejariHo), and (6) 'Rules of Purity forMonasteryOfficers'(Chiji Shingi). Dogen based all of these texts on his own ex-periencesn the greatpublicmonasteries f SungChina and on writtenmonasticrulesthat were n usethere.Writingn classicalChinese,he incorporatedmanydirectquota-tions from 'Rules of Purityfor Ch'an Monasteries' Ch'an-yuanch'ing-kuei), 1103,and fromChinese ranslations f HinayanaVinaya exts. Intwo of theworks,'Admo-nitions for the Cook' and 'Rules of Purityfor MonasteryOfficers',Dogen also citednumerousanecdotespertainingo the monasticoffices n question hathe hadgleanedfrom koan collections and biographiesof famous patriarchs.The six texts were first brought together to make a single monastic code, EiheiShingi, n 1667.The text on which hepresent ranslations based, however, s one thatwas reedited n 1794by the fiftieth abbot of Eiheiji,GentoSokuchui.Leightonmakesno mention of it, but in 1805 Gento also published a smallermonastic code, Eihei

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BOOK REVIEWS 509Shoshingi,thatwasbased n part onEiheiShingiandwas a practicalmanual ntendedfor use at Eiheiji.Aboutthe same time, effortsbeganto rebuildEiheijialongthe linesof the Sung-stylemonastery hat Dogen had originallyfounded. The fact that EiheiShingi containedprocedures or practicein a Sung-stylemonks hall and commonquarters, or example, ed to a reconstruction f those two facilities,whichhad longsinceceased o existatEiheiji.Historical acts suchas thesedo nothingto diminish hereligiousauthorityand relevanceof texts such as Eihei Shingi. On the contrary,thefactthat the text andthe modes of communalpractice t recommendswereallbut for-gottenin Japanfor severalcenturiesbefore beingrevivedbearswitness o its potentialfor inspiringothersuchreconstructions f Zen tradition n the West.The translations, for the most part,sufficiently ccurateandintelligible o be serv-iceable.It suffers,however,from numerousminorand not-so-minorerrors.The keyterm shingi, for example,does not mean 'pure standards',as if the rulesthemselveswere pure, but rather 'standardsof [maintaining]purity [of the monastic com-munity]'. The titles Bendoho, Fushukuhanpo, and Tai Taikogogejari Ho are mis-translatedas 'TheModelfor Engaging heWay', 'The Dharma or TakingFood', and'TheDharmawhenMeetingSeniorInstructorsor Five SummerPracticePeriods',re-spectively.Thewordho & in all of thesetitles simplymeans'procedures' r 'method',not 'model'andnot 'Dharma' n the senseof 'teachings'or 'truth' (for correct rans-lations,seeabove).Thetechnical ermhosshin,whichrefers o givingriseto the bodhi-citta,or 'thoughtof enlightenment',s mistranslateds 'awakeningheirhearts' p. 33).The expressionbusso is incorrectlyrenderedas 'Buddhaancestors'(p. 150 and else-where): t should be 'buddhasand ancestors'.The word for merit,fuku, is miscon-struedas meaning fortune'or 'blessings' pp. 104, 160 & 162); he standardBuddhisttropeof a 'fieldof merit' (fukuden) is renderedas 'blessing ield'andmisinterpretedin the notes (pp. 770, 162& 196);and a reference o dedicatingmerit,eko, to protect-ingdeities s misinterpretedp. 100).Mistakes uchas thesebetraya lackof familiaritywith the traditionsof East Asian Buddhism hat Dogen knewso well.Someother errors n thetranslation temdirectly rom the unwarranted ssumptionthat currentpracticesat Eiheiji are a reliableguide to determining he meaningofterms appearing n Eihei Shingi. In Dogen's day, for instance,anja referred o laypostulants candidatesor noviceordination)who livedin monasteries ndfunctionedas servants or the monks.When theselaymenservedmealstheywere called onin, or'puremen' (a translationof the Sanskritupasaka),and when they announcedthename of the dishes o be served hey werecalledkasshiki.But the translatorsmistaken-ly assume hat allof thesepositionswerefilledbymonkssincethatis presently hecaseat Eiheiji.Most of the abovemistakeswill probablygo unrecognizedby generalreaders,butthere s anotheraspectof the book that will be a botherto those readers: he frequentuse of Japanesewordswithouttranslatinghem,as if theywere alreadywidelyknownand accepted n English.The names of the followingmonasticofficers,for example,areused asEnglish hroughout: enzo, jisha, anja,shuso, ino. The rationale,perhaps,is that these terms are currently n use in AmericanZen centers,but readersnotfamiliarwith Zenwillbe forcedon nearlyeverypageto consultthe glossaryat the endof the volume.

Another problemwith the translation(or non-translation)of technicalterms isinconsistency.The names of manyothermonasticofficers 'abbot', 'guestmanager','bath attendant', infirmarymanager'), or example,aresimplyrenderednto English

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510 Monumenta Nipponica, 51:4withoutany indicationof the original Sino-Japanese,and withoutbeingincluded nthe glossary.In a few cases,the sameSino-Japaneseerms(for example,anja, shuso)appearas anglicizedwords(anja, shuso) on one page, and as translatedwords (atten-dant monk, head monk) on another.

Finally,it is difficult o know who is speaking-Dogen, or someChinesetext he isquoting-at differentplaces n the text. Thetranslatorsdo an inadequateob of mark-ing such transitions, and the editorial devices they employ (indentations,quotationmarks, notes) are inconsistentand confusing. In the translationof ChijiShingi, forexample, Dogen's commentssometimesappear n indentedblocks of text that looklike quotations of otherwritings, while passages that actually are his quotations ofother Chan recordsgo unmarkedas such.It is a shamethat this volume s marredby so many small mistakesand glitches, formost of the translation s sound and useful. If the translatorsand editors had onlyenlisted the aid of academicspecialists n the fieldat the end of the process,it wouldnot have taken much to turn this into a first-rate ieceof work. As it stands, the bookwill still be useful for anyone wishing to learnmore about the history and ideals ofZen monasticpractice.

Religion in Japan: Arrows to Heaven and Earth. Edited by P. F. Kornicki &I. J. McMullen. Cambridge University Press, 1996. xxv + 312 pages. ?40.00.JANET R. GOODWINLos Angeles

AT firstglancethecollectionof essays n this volume seemsa bit unusual or a book ti-tledReligion in Japan. Neither he major schools of Buddhismnor mainstream hintoreceivemuch attention; nstead, we find essays on offbeat opics such as spells andfoxspirits.Upon carefulconsideration,however, his book may be just what the professorordered o providea fullpictureof a religious radition hatemphasizes itualandprac-tice over doctrine,and to whichmagicand occultpracticesare even now not strangers.This seemsappropriate or a volume dedicated o the distinguished cholar of Japa-nese religion, CarmenBlacker, a pioneerin taking seriouslyphenomena hat othersmight shrug off as 'superstition'.The coverage n this volume is historicallyand geographically road. Essayscoverperiods from classicalto contemporary imesand embraceOkinawaand the Ainu inHokkaido. This breadthplus a diversity f topicscall for a standard ntroductionn ad-dition to the openingessayon Blacker's ife andcareer.Unfortunately he editorsdidnot provideone. Hadthey done so, they mighthave pinpointed everal ssuesthatlinksome of the essaystogether-issues such as the relationshipbetweenthe religionsoftwo differentcultures,continuitywith the past, and the role of ritual n the Japanesecommunity.The book opens with an article by David Waterhouseon the kuji, a nine-syllableTaoistspellusedby shugendoand martial-arts ractitioners.Waterhouse as tackleda

difficultproblem,sincethehistoryof kujiis poorlydocumented.His evidence s some-times too sparsefor his arguments o be persuasive; or instance,his conclusionthatthe kuji 'probablybecame knownin Japanfirst via Pure Land Buddhism' p. 37) is