The Mystique of Transmission: On an Early Chan History and Its Contexts by Wendi Adamek (review)

Book Reviews 93 Journal of Chinese Religions 37 (2009) The Mystique of Transmission: On an Early Chan History and Its Contexts WENDI ADAMEK. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. xv, 578 pages. ISBN 978-0-231-13664-8. US$50.00, £29.50, hardcover. Over the last few decades critical scholarship challenged normative narratives and established views about the early history of the Chan school 禪宗, and reframed academic discussions of the relationship between Chan and the rest of medieval Chinese Buddhism. Traditional accounts of the initial growth of the nascent Chan movement revolve around a genealogical narrative of patriarchal transmission that postulates the passing on of the ineffable and timeless essence of Buddhist enlightenment via a singular lineage of putative Chan patriarchs. Recent research has not only exposed the convoluted textual and ideological origins of the notion of patriarchal transmission, but it has also revealed a remarkable diversity among the disparate groups that were subsumed within the early Chan movement. This kind of farreaching rethinking of early Chan history was largely made possible by the discovery of longlost Chan manuscripts—especially those found among the Dunhuang documents—and by the application of new approaches to the study of early Chan sources. Prof. Adamek’s book is a welcome addition to the growing scholarly literature on early Chan. It is noteworthy for being the first English-language study and translation of Lidai fabao ji 歷代法寶記 (Record of the Dharma Jewel Through Generations), one of the early Chan texts discovered in Dunhuang, which purport to tell the story of the short-lived Baotang school 保唐宗 that flourished in Sichuan during the eighth century. Within the Tang context, Lidai fabao ji was a minor record produced by a marginal Chan lineage, criticized by some for its historical fabrications and antinomian teachings. The text’s relative obscurity contributed to its disappearance from the Chan scene, only to be rediscovered among the Dunhuang documents. However, its very oblivion contributes to the text’s importance for the study of early Chan history, since it is among the few documents from the mid-Tang period that is preserved in its early form, without the kinds of later editorial additions, ideological revisions, and pious embellishments that are among the hallmarks of classical Chan literature. One of the first impressions one gets from reading Adamek’s remarkable book is its large scope and wide-ranging scholarship. The book is divided into two parts: a study of Lidai fabao ji and its broad contexts (with the second taking up much more space), followed by a complete English translation from the original Chinese. The translation of the primary text— arguably the best part of the book—is very well done, nicely complemented with rich annotation and conveniently divided into sections that facilitate reading and research. The translation is accompanied by the original Chinese text, a nice feature that is increasingly becoming standard for academic books of this kind. The translation also takes into account the alternate versions of the original text, as preserved in the Pelliot and Stein collections of Dunhuang manuscripts. The study part of the book is a remarkable piece of critical scholarship, although it is also where we find its main weaknesses in terms of form and contents. The seven chapters that 94 Journal of Chinese Religions comprise it are on the whole well written and display the author’s exemplary mastery of scholarly literature on a broad array of topics relevant to the study of medieval Chinese religion. At the same time, the author’s seeming concern with producing a creative work that differs from conventional scholarly volumes—the typical study-cum-translation of a particular classical text—often leads her into expansive and undisciplined discussions of a broad array of themes, motifs, historical personages, and the like that are only tangentially connected with the Baotang school and early Chan in general. Often form takes precedence over content, and there is an occasional tendency towards unnecessary obfuscation. On a number of occasions the narrative veers into longwinded discussions of matters that are not that relevant to understanding the life and teachings of Wuzhu 無住 (714–774), the leader of the Baotang school to whom most of Lidai fabao ji (and...