• DOI:10.7312/adam13664
• Corpus ID: 160587059

The Mystique of Transmission: On an Early Chan History and Its Context

@inproceedings{Adamek2007TheMO,
  title={The Mystique of Transmission: On an Early Chan History and Its Context},
  author={Wendi Leigh Adamek},
  year={2007}
}

• W. Adamek
• Published 15 May 2007
• Art

Wendi Adamek’s Mystique of Transmission is a superb contribution to the study of Chinese Buddhism. Massive and masterful, insightful and thorough, articulate and engaging—the scholarship presented here is truly impressive. This is, to be sure, a professionally oriented volume; Adamek makes no effort to make her work accessible to readers outside the field of Chinese Buddhism, or even those outside the field of Chan (Zen) studies, and there is neither introduction nor conclusion explaining the broader significance of her topic and the implications of her findings. Nevertheless, her discussions covering such a wide range of important issues in Chinese Buddhist studies are so perceptive that her work can only be called magisterial. This is not merely one reader’s opinion; this book won the 2008 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Textual Studies from the American Academy of Religion. Mystique of Transmission consists of two major parts, the first a set of seven analytical chapters considering different aspects of the Bao Tang school (“Protect the Tang” school) founded by Wuzhu (714–74) and the anonymous Lidai fabao ji written sometime shortly after Wuzhu’s death in 774 (3– 296), and the second a complete translation of the text (over twenty-five thousand Chinese characters in length, here occupying 297–405). In addition to extensive annotation to the two sections (407–519), there is a list of abbreviations (521–22), a long bibliography (523–56, divided somewhat confusingly into three separate sections), and an index (557–78). Since Chinese and Japanese characters are included on the page throughout both text and notes, there is no need for a separate listing. The volume is handsomely presented and very well copyedited; I noticed only about half a dozen typographical errors, none serious.