of

interpretation

satisfactory

the

music.

is no doubt that the originality and

modernity of the concept appear still more
surprising in the light of some develop?
ments of modern Western medical science
There

(pp. 71-74).
We
feel that in Dr. Perinu's work the
details concerning the forms of composition
(dhrupad, khy?ly etc.) ,the styles of ex?
ecution (y?rii) and the schools of execution
(ghar?na), are of particular interest; the
exact differences that he outlines are
essential in order to correctly comprehend
the techniques of execution as well as their
historical and aesthetical evolution. Equally
valid in this context, is the discussion on
the nature of nibaddha and anibaddha
music, paradigmatic terms of comparison in
the identification of popular and classical
traditions (pp. 78-82).
enriched by the addition
The work ?
of an excellent aesthetic essay written by
so a renowned scholar of music as Giulio
?
is completed by some essential
Cogni
biographical notes on Indian musicians and
of

scholars

an

music,

extensive

glossary

and a rich and exhaustive

(pp. 157-172)
bibliography (pp. 143-157).
In the happy event of a future reprint
of the volume, it would nevertheless be
for Perinu to deal more
worth while
profoundly with the themes relating to
music

Vedic

and

musical

instruments.

However, by saying this, it is certainly not

our intention to criticise a work that, for
its

scientific

thoroughness,

care

in

research

and composition, and amplitude of docu?

mentation,

is a contribution

not only for Indological

for

the

of

advancement

of great

interest

studies but also

Italian

culture.
Irma

Viovano

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

N.

Rastogi, The Kram a Tantricism of

Kashmir vol. I, (Delhi, Motilal Banar
sidass, 1979, pp. xxx, 297).

if Tantrism is now no longer the

of
summary trials and scornful dis
object
Even

and
missal, at which eminent European
Indian scholars excelled, we are still far
from having reached a profound and clear
understanding of this phenomenon. The
very term 'Tantrism',which faute de mieux
to be used,
both
and
expresses
a single
confusion,
great
suggesting
structure
for diverse
doctrines
and
experi?

continues
causes

ences, which we often find rigthly or

wrongly opposing each other (Vajray?na,
Pratyabhijn?, Spanda, Krama, Kula, Saiva
P?ncar?tra

siddh?nta,

The

etc.).

existence

of a word whose outlines are so indefinite

has its share of responsability in the pro?
liferation of studies that are equally evasive
and generic, chasing after a Tantrism with
a capital T, which is inevitably captured
without much effort and triumphally con?
signed to the reader. And the latter,when
he is not superficial, is inevitably disap?
pointed in his wish for definite and clear
knowledge. This is true not only of popular
books but also, albeit in a differentway,
of recent general surveysmade by qualified
scholars (*). In this connection it seems
relevant to quote Louis de La Vallee
Poussin's
more

on

words
than

half
sacrees

ecritures

Buddhism,

written
les

ago:
century
'...pour
autres
des
branches

du

et leurs commentaires,
et cette
Bouddhisme,
enorme
ou
tous
litterature
les pays
boud
sommes
ont
leurs part, nous
loin
dhiques
meme
II
d'etre
modestement
documentes.
est

des

essentiels
dont
ouvrages
ou
ni edition
traduction.

possedons
maire,

ni meme

la

table

des

nous
ni

ne
som
(2).

chapitres...'

What
is at present required from scholars
of Tantrism is, in my opinion, the close
study of single schools, on the basis of
the published texts (where they exist) and,
above all, the difficult work of editing
what is preserved in manuscript form (3).
Only the minute and intense tasting of
each individual flavour would allow one
to make

future

synthesis.

The demand for rigour and ample docu?

mentation ismet by the book thatDr Navji
van Rastogi has devoted to the sources of the
Krama school, which is to be followed by
a

second

volume

devoted

to

the doctrines.

309

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Krama, which had among its followers the

great Abhinavagupta, is one of the main
currents of that vast and complex philo?
movement

sophical-religious

known

the

by

name of Kashmir Shaivism. Rather little

is known of this school, apparently orig?
inated in Uddiy?na
(4), west of K?smir,
and in some aspects linked with Spanda,
since some of its chief texts have not
survived. Traditional yogic techniques and
ritual practices play only a very secondary
part in it. They give way to an uninter?
to

attention

spontaneous

rupted

the

all

lines of

energy that animate ordinary

existence; through interior meditation on
the succession {krama) of these k?li, organ?
ised in 'wheels' with many spokes, the
adept brings himself from the periphery to
the centre with a spontaneous spiralling
movement, identifyingwith increasinglyhigh
levels

of

The

supreme
immersion

energy.
involve

not

does

attainment
a

in

state,

however high, but total adhesion to the

movement itself of the Power as manifested
?
to
through the infinite k?li; kramamudr?
a passage
that survives
?
is the realisation

it with
explain
the Kramas?tra

double

movement,

from
the

penetrating
the
and

exterior

the

the

from

of

interior
from

exterior

interior.
book

Rastogi's

represents

the first attempt

to establish knowledge of this school on

a firm basis, assembling at last a reliable

account

of

the

and

works

masters

the

connected with it. Anyone who deals with

indological studies will know how intricate
questions of attribution and chronology
usually are, and how almost desperate they
may

become

in the case

such as Krama, which

ago
now
faced

of an esoteric

school

died out

longtime

are
texts
where
many
important
lost
for ever.
has
perhaps
Rastogi
acumen
them with much
and patience,

and

and has almost always (5)managed

conclusions,
satisfactory
common
of
knowledge

both published
very use

and

of manuscript

displaying
the extant

to reach
an

in manuscript.
sources

un?

literature,

The

(6) constitutes

one of the major qualities of this excellent

book and would be sufficient in itself to

it

distinguish

from a mass

of

similar

publications.

The
as

questions affronted by Rastogi

have

innumerable

said,

and

are,

complex,

and the material he presents is extremely

vast; he invites the reader to contribute on
the basis of his own specific competence
to that definitive settlement that the very
of

abundance

data

and

suggestions

requires.

few notes that follow are intended to

The
answer

this

is a reference
''Mantras?ra

invitation.

On

p.

to a ms.

in B.O.R.L,
as
of Utpaladeva',

134

there

catalogued
to a possible

hitherto unknown work by this author; in

reality this ms., which I had occasion to
some

consult

time

ago,

contains

under

the

titleMantras?ra simply a long fragment of

the Var?trimsik?laghuvrttiof Abhinavagupta.
On the same page the author puts forward
the hypothesis that the lost fik? of Utpala?
deva may be identified in a work preserved
in ms.
at Mysore
under
the title
'Isvarapratyabbijn?vy?khy? of Utpaladeva';
unfortunately I too was attracted by this
title in the catalogue of the library of the
Oriental Research Institute of Mysore, but
when I had the ms., whose colophon does
indeed have this denomination, in front of
me, I had to acknowledge with great
disappointment that this was only one of
the many copies of the Pratyabhijn?hrdaya
of

Ksemar?ja;

not

even

does

the ms.

of

B.O.R.L
(Pratyabbijn?vimarsim of Utpala)
have anything to do with the famous tik?,
being only a fragment (1.4.4-2.3.9) of the
of

Isvatapratyabhijn?vimarsim

Abhinava?

gupta. The passage fromKsemar?ja quoted

by Jayaratha in the Tantr?lokaviveka, of
which mention is made on p. 170, is not
taken from some lost work of his, but
from the Sivas?travimarsirii (ad II. 7). The
date of Varadar?ja alias Krsnad?sa is estab?
lished by Rastogi as being between 1000
and 1050 and that of Srivatsa, presumed
author of the Cidgaganacandrik?, between
But in an unpublished
1125 and 1175.
work

of

Krsnad?sa

preserved

in ms.

at

Trivandrum, the Laghuvrttivimatsini which

I am using for the critical edition of the

310

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Par?trimsik?laghuvrtti of Abhinavagupta, the

Cidgaganacandrik? is quoted; thus either
the author is not the Krsnad?sa in question
(but there is apparently nothing to lead
one to suppose that he is not) or else one
of the two dates (probably that of the
Cidgaganacandrik?) must be revised.
Raffaele Torella

(*)' I refer to S. Gupta, DJ. Hoens,

T. Goudriaan, Hindu Tantrism, Leiden/
is nevertheless an
K?ln
1979, which
excellent work, especially the part con?
tributed by T. Goudriaan, who states that
he is perfectly aware of the provisional
character of this synthesis. Even provisional
syntheses, in which what is already known
is ordered and the direction of future
research

outlined,

have

an

undeniable

im?

portance in furtheringknowledge.
(2) L. de La Vallee Poussin, Bouddhisme.
Opinions sur Vhistoire de la Dogmatique,
IV ed., Paris 1925, Avant-Propos pp. VI
VII.
(3) Exemplary in this respect is the
valuable work of Prof. Vrajavallabha Dvive
di, ex-Head of theDepartment of Yogatantra
at the Sanskrit University of Varanasi,
author of many editions of Tantric texts
often accompanied by important introduc?
tions, capable as few others of moving
with equal authority among themost diverse
schools.

(4) Rather

maintains.

than in Kashmir, as Rastogi

and there there are a few

(5) Here
(p. 163)
arguable points; for example
everything leads one to think that Praka
ranastotra

and

Kramastotra

are

the

same

thing, or again (pp. 147-150) it seems to

me very unlikely that the S?rad?tilaka can
But it
be attributed to Laksmanagupta.
is always a matter of single instances which
do not in any way impair the complessive
validity of the whole.
(6) It is, however, regrettable that the
Author has not taken into account the
Nepalese mss., which are particularly im?
portant in this field.

SINOLOGY
Edward L. Drey er, Early Ming China. A
Political History
1355-1435
(Stanford,
Stanford U.P., 1982, 315 pp.).
The dates in the title are not erroneous;
everyone knows that the Ming dynasty
dates from 1368, but the Ming had risen
more than a decade previously from a small
band of rebels. The Mongol empire was
in decline, its authority undermined daily
by the peasant revolts. The date 1435 in
the book's title coincides with the end of
the reign of Hs?an-te, fifthEmperor of the
dynasty,
centuries
most

was

which
more.
to

space

to

last

the

first

to

the

Hung-wu,

sovreign

one

successive

of

two

er devotes

Drey

to the period of consolidation

and

over

for

L.

Edward

(1368-1380)
direct

rule

it is he who is the founder

(1380-1388):
of the dynasty, and in a certain sense the
restorer

of

national

successor

Chien-wen,

power

after

China

underwent

period of foreign domination.

long

his

With

period of civil war (1398-1402), but soon

Yung-lo, defined by the author as an
Emperor on horseback, acceded to the
throne, and it was during his reign (1402
1424) that the famous naval expeditions
beyond the Indian Ocean, bringing Chinese
ships as far as the coasts of East Africa,
took

With

place.

(1424-1426)
'normal

his

successors

and Hs?an-te

Confucian

Hung-hsi

(1426-1435)

Government'

was

the

estab?

lished; by this time the dynasty was con?

solidated. The volume, which is based on
Chinese

source

material,

is

easy

to

read

and undeniably useful to anyone studying

the history of imperial China.
Lionello Lanciotti

John Avers, Helene Fromentin, Madeleine

Paul-David, Adolfo Tamburello, La Cera
mica deWEstremo Oriente, (Milan, A.
1983, 398 pp.).
Mondadori,
Four

well-known

specialists

have

collab?

orated in the realisation of this fine volume:

311

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