Review

Author(s): Massimo Scaligero

Review by: Massimo Scaligero
Source: East and West, Vol. 17, No. 1/2 (March-June 1967), pp. 167-168
Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)
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is a small k?vya in the stotra style, dedicated to
R?dh? and Krsna, in which the mystic-poet gives
truly vibrant images of the mystical couple and
expresses a high form of meditation evoking the
beatific vision. Rasik Vihari Joshi has edited this
edition, and has translated it in such a way that
each Sanskrit strophe has its English translation
next to it; he also offers us a preface and an
explanatory introduction, and follows the text with
an important comment of his own entitled Ra
sikabhodirii. The text has both a mystical and a
cultural value, especially if one takes into account
the fact that Pandit Rampratap Shastri was not
only a mystic and a poet, but also a grammarian
and a philologist.
Massimo Scaligero
David St acton, Kaliyuga (London, Faber and
Faber, 1965, 196 pp.).
The author considers this mystical tale of his
? a quarrel with the Gods in both senses, a quarrel
together with them and a bill brought in against
them ?. In a narrative that is simple, efficient
and sometimes veined with pleasant humor, he
faces the theme of a contradiction that is the
millenary problem of philosophers and theologists,
never resolved and therefore always current; the
problem has been resolved, though, by ascetics
and mystics, not according to a doctrine, but ac?
cording to realism whose theoretical content is
hard to communicate. In a time such as the
present, man cannot be helped by new theories,
but by stimulating his inner research. David
Stacton undoubtedly succeeds in this attempt, above
all when he happily resolves into artistic activity
the doctrinary or philosophical element. It is
possible to educate and aid man today through
the really existent forces of the spirit, by giving
a new function to the novel. The novel can serve
to reflect something better than the banality, the
truisms, the episodic content or the psychologisms
of external daily life: it can facilitate man's meeting
with his own internal problem. Stacton's work
is a demonstration of this.
Massimo Scaligero
Nolan Pliny Jacobson, Buddhism, The Religion
of Analysis (London, George Allen and Unwin
Ltd., 1966, 202 pp.).
The greatness of Buddhism lies in its being
able to speak to all levels of conscience: from
the rarefied heights of the doctrine of the void,
to the simple rules for daily action; there is
room in it for the attitude of the philosopher, the
167
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religious thinker, the mystic, the yogi, the man
on the street... for all men. Here Jacobson, en?
thusiastic for a determined meaning of Buddha's
figure, manages to show us that the doctrine is
relevant not only in a religious and mystical sense,
but even in an empirical-logical and philosophical
analytical sense. Carried away by his enthusiasm,
he actualizes Buddhism in such a way as to make
it function as the key to a special aspect of modern
culture's problems: from Hume to Nietzsche, to
Marx and Engels, to Stuart Mill, Freud, and Witt?
genstein, the type of the Western thinker is ac?
ceptable if integrated with that which he lacks,
and that Buddhism can give, because Buddha's
doctrine already contains in itself the positions of
these thinkers. Jacobson with great facility as?
similates Buddhism to modern analytics, that is, to
that mode of philosophizing that betrays the ef?
fective loss of the interior dimension, and just
for this reason finally postulates it, and reproposes
it methodologically.
Basically, Buddhist logic did not lack the pos?
sibility of showing the final meaning of things,
together with the conception of samsara, as an
analytics of the real structure of human action:
for thinking, feeling and wanting. A work, this,
that is up-to-date and valid from a practical point
of view. ., c Massimo Scaligero
Archie J. Bahm, Yoga, Union with the Ultimate
(New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.,
1961, 162 pp.).
This is a new version of the Yogi Sutras of
Pot?njali, preceded by an essay by the author on
the originative and philosophical meaning of Raja
yoga and its relations to the techniques of the
other forms of Yoga. He also gives an interpre?
tation of the method of interior transmutation, in
psychological terms. The translation is simple,
clear and effective. He has, as is the custom,
grouped the s?tras into four books: The Aim, The
Way, The Method, Summary. The comments deal
mainly with the manifestation of the conscious
principle of the Yogic operation, that is, the
principle of the ? I ?, and in this sense they give
a form of present-day utility to the ancient rules.
Massimo Scaligero
Frithjof Schuon, Understanding Islam, translated
from the French by D.M. Matheson (London,
George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1963, 160 pp.).
If one looks for the intimate meaning of
Islamic religiosity, one finds a pure and precise
mysticism, with its own objectivity, involving
various levels of awareness and meditative oper
 ation. Schuon, like Guenon, has tried to trace a
path that may lead from the Western mentality,
through intuitive analysis and the discipline of
sentiment, to the understanding of this pure tra?
dition, a still-alive form of the great Tradition.
The meaning of the idea of ? Islam ?, the Quran,
the Prophet, the Gnosis and its perennial way,
are the themes that Schuon discusses with that
capacity for intuitive penetration that is possible
only when one has a basic relation of empathy
and knowledge with the subject under discussion.
A rare and precious attribute in an era in which
scholars now handle with a pretense of deep
analysis themes in whose reality they do not even
believe. The understanding of the spirit of Islam
can be thus elaborated by Schuon because he has
entered into it with the totality of his thought
and his interior adhesion. As is evident in the
pages of his book.
Massimo Scaligero
Vasudeva Upadhyay, The Socio-religious Condi?
tion of North India (Varanasi, The Chowkham
ba Sanskrit Series Office, 1964, xx + 388
pp. + 12 pis.).
The social problem and religious history fuse
in the theme under discussion, in that they act
on one another reciprocally in the reality of North
India. In his research, the author has made
particular use of the data of archaeology, as cor?
roborating facts for tradition, above all for what
the latter means in the process of social cohesion
and correlation between particular and specific
forms of Buddhism and Jainism. Historically, he
begins by examining the Arab conquest of Sindh,
the hierarchy of Br?hmanas, and the traditional
environmental conditions that converge towards
the formation of a society that will have its strength
in the caste system. He gives special attention
to the formative influences of Vaisnavism, of
Saivism, of Saktism with its mystical and erotic
mystical expressions, with the relative rites, cere?
monies and secret forms of research into ecstasy,
then Vajray?na down to the decline of Buddhism
and its assimilation by Hinduism. Vasudeva Upa
dhyay shows, with a sense of synthesis and pene?
tration, how spiritual forces act in a social way
in North India. To analytically examine this socio
religious phenomenon means to use the very art
of continuing in ideal creative form the intimate
impulse that requires today the cooperation of
the conscious being of man. It is obvious that
such an intimate impulse comes from a tradition
that today calls on new forces, not in contrast with
it, but working through the awareness and ideal
initiative of man.
Massimo Scaligero
168
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Studies of Esoteric Buddhism and Tantrism. In
commemoration of the 1.150th Anniversary of
the founding of Koyasan (Koyasan, Koyasan
University, 1965, 419 + 438 pp.).
On the anniversary of the 1.150th year of the
foundation by K?kai (774-835 A.D.) ? generally
known as Kob? Daishi ? of the Koyasan monas?
tery, a living center of the Shingon school, the
President of the Koyasan University, Gish? Naka
no, invited scholars from all parts of the world
to contribute to the commemoration volume. The
contributions are partly Japanese, partly non-Japa?
nese: the articles too are written either in Japa?
nese or in English and German. The Japanese
articles are summarized in English.
The volume contains many important contri?
butions: that on the Anantamukha-nirh?ra-dh?rani
by Kanjin Horiuchi; the Gos?-j?shin-gwan {Panc?
hhisamhodhi) in the Sarvatath?gatatattvasamgraha
by S. Sakai; the Amoghap?sahrdaya by R. O. Mei?
sezahl; ? Ways ? in Indian religions by J. Gonda;
Vajray?na texts from Gostana by H. W. Bailey;
the esoteric Buddhist art in the Shingon sect and
Tendai sect by Ry?ken Sawa, etc.
Giuseppe Tucci
Asiatic Mythology, a detailed description and ex?
planation of the Mythologies of all the Great
Nations of Asia, by J. Hackin, Clement
Huart, Raymonde Linos sier, H. de Wilman
Grabowska, Charles-Henri Marchal, Henri
Maspero, Serge Elisseev, with an introduc?
tion by Paul Louis Couchoud (New York,
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1963, 460 pp.,
16 pis. in colour and 354 other illustrations).
This book is the English translation of a well
known work which intends to present a resume
of the most important religions of Asia. One
might perhaps object to the term Mythology set
forth in the title, because the philosophical or
ritual background, of which many myths are only
a symbol, is generally discarded. The exposition is
therefore rather anecdotical and does not develop
along synthetic lines: it has an iconographic rather
than a theoretic value. Many of its chapters are
on account of recent researches outdated, e.g. the
chapter on Iran. Anyhow, this well illustrated
work can prove useful to common readers who
want to be initiated to the very complex study
of Oriental religious experiences. The value of the
book could have been increased if instead of
restricting themselves to a simple reproduction of