Die apologetischen Schriften des buddhistischen Tang-Mönchs Falin, with an English Summary by Thomas Jülch (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews 109 from Zhanguo Confucianism directly to the Neo-Confucians without saying a word about the Han does look a little awkward to the specialist, although this may have been due to the constraints of the limited space that 168 pages offer. This problem is, however, the only one that I can find in this booklet, which I have read with profit and which I do think will serve as an excellent introduction to the ideas of early Chinese Confucianism for a general readership. HANS VAN ESS, LMU University of Munich Die apologetischen Schriften des buddhistischen Tang-Mönchs Falin, with an English Summary THOMAS JÜLCH. München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2011. xiv, 690 pages. ISBN 978-3-8316-4026-3. €98.00 hardcover. We are indebted to the seventh-century historians of the Tang dynasty (618-907) for much of our knowledge of the previous centuries of Division. This is as true for political and social history as it is for the central aspects of religious history. Thomas Jülch has now published his doctoral thesis on the main texts by the Buddhist monk, Falin 法琳 (572-640), which, together with the more numerous compilations by Daoxuan 道宣 (596-667), goes a long way to help reconstruct the intellectual environment of the sixth and early seventh centuries. It was during this time that the Buddhist sangha engaged in long drawn-out and occasionally acrimonious debates over the place of Buddhist thought and institutions in the current social and political environment. This voluminous book offers a complete translation of Falin’s Poxie lun 破邪論 (“Treatise Refuting the False [Views and Accusations]”; T. 2109), in which he refutes Fu Yi’s 傅奕 (544-639) famous attack on Buddhism submitted to the throne in 622, the Eleven Statements On the Reduction of [Buddhist] Monasteries and Pagodas, of [Buddhist] Monks and Nuns to Benefit the State and Serve the People 減省寺塔僧尼益國利民事十一條. Of the twelve sections (distributed over eight chapters) that comprise Falin’s Bianzheng lun 辯正論 (“Treatise Discussing the Correct”; T. 2110) of 633, Jülch translates six sections (i.e., Chapters 1, 2, 5 and 6). In this, his magnum opus, Falin engaged with the continuing debates on the respective status of the three religions—Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism—in the early Tang state. This resulted, as Timothy Barrett puts it, in “the most complete surviving 110 Journal of Chinese Religions statement of the issues between Buddhism and Daoism until the renewed debates of the Mongol period.”2 The translations amount to a staggering 520 pages. They are preceded in the first 120 pages by an introduction in which the author briefly places Falin’s texts in their contemporary historical context. In his research, he is mainly interested, however, in placing the Poxie lun and Bianzheng lun within the tradition of Buddhist apologetic writing. Jülch explores this by answering two questions. First, to what extent did the author draw on previous debate literature? Second, what were the intertextual relationships among Falin’s two texts and the subsequent Chinese Buddhist historiography? To answer the first question, Jülch divides the debate literature in general into layers. He defines the predominant layer of this genre of texts, in which he sees Falin’s contributions firmly embedded, as an ongoing attempt to position Buddhism politically and ideologically in such ways as to obtain imperial favors for its institutions. Characteristically, the argumentative strategy elaborated in this type of Buddhist apologetic writing employs a threefold structure: first, arguments demonstrating that Buddhism stands in line with Confucian values; second, arguments demonstrating the superiority of Buddhism to Confucianism in achieving these values; and third, arguments demonstrating the superiority of Buddhism to Daoism. Much of the introduction is dedicated to establishing a catalogue of the elements that constitute the argumentation of both the Poxie and Bianzheng lun, and to showing the extent to which Falin drew upon well-established topics from the previous centuries. As to the second question regarding Falin’s influence upon later Buddhist historiography, Jülch documents the borrowings that authors like Daoxuan have made from Falin’s two treatises. This purely textual approach fails to recognize that these seventh-century texts could be more than mere bibliographic repositories of...