Beginning in the second century CE, for several hundred years Buddhist texts were continuously brought to China and translated into Chinese. In contrast to India, where texts were usually transmitted orally, in China texts were written down as they were translated. Hence, a large number of Buddhist texts, especially early Buddhist texts that have long been lost in India, have been preserved in their Chinese translations. Because texts transmitted orally are more likely to change than ones written down, early Chinese translations of Buddhist texts provide valuable information regarding the early development of these texts. Today Chinese Buddhist texts are not only studied by Buddhist scholars, but also widely used in fields such as history, religion, philosophy, linguistics, and cultural studies of the vast geographical area from China to India. The dating and attribution to translators/authors of the thousands of Chinese Buddhist texts extant today still rely heavily on the records in Chinese Buddhist catalogs or bibliographies (terms which Storch uses interchangeably). As Storch notes (xxii), while both China and Japan have long traditions of close studies of these bibliographies, there has been no systematic introduction in a western language. Before the printing of the Buddhist canon, opinion on which scriptures were authentic and how they related to each other was shaped mostly through these catalogs—they in a sense established the canon.
Chinese Buddhist Bibliography is expanded from Tanya Storch's PhD dissertation (1995) at the University of Pennsylvania. The first of its seven chapters introduces the Confucian bibliographic tradition starting from the Bie lu 別錄 and Qi lue 七略 compiled by Confucian historians Liu Xiang 劉向 (ca. 77–6 BCE) and Liu Xin 劉歆 (?–23 CE), which are the first two catalogs recorded in Chinese history. The earliest extant Confucian catalog is Ban Gu's 班固 (32–92 CE) Yiwen zhi 藝文志. Storch draws attention to the taxonomy of Confucian catalogs and their emphasis on the transmission process in assessments of the authenticity of a text. By comparing several later Buddhist catalogs to these early Confucian catalogs, Storch convincingly demonstrates how Buddhist catalogs were influenced by the Chinese catalog tradition.
In Chapters 2–5, Storch surveys Buddhist scriptural bibliographies dated from the late third century until the early tenth century. In Chapter 2, she introduces a series of lost bibliographies written between the third and the sixth centuries CE known from the records in Fei Changfang's費長房 (active in the late sixth century CE) Lidai sanbao ji 歷代三寶記. Among them the most influential one is Dao'an's 道安 (312–85) catalog, since most of its content was preserved in Sengyou's 僧祐 Chu sanzang ji ji 出三藏記集. Arguing against some ancient as well as modern scholars, Storch claims that Dao'an's catalog is not the oldest catalog of the Chinese Tripitaka (32). She also suggests that Dao'an's main method of judging the authenticity of a specific text was to determine whether it is reliably attributable to a translator. Storch emphasizes that Dao'an was in this way censoring the texts according to his political and religious positions (32). For unknown reasons, Storch does not deal with the manuscript preserved at Dunhuang which is believed to be the earliest Chinese Buddhist catalog extant by some major authorities, including Wang Chongmin 王重民, Su Jinren 蘇晉仁, Yao Mingda 姚名達, Bai Huawen 白化文, Naitō Ryūō 内藤竜雄, and Fang Guangchang 方廣錩.
Chapter 3 focuses on the Buddhist catalogs compiled in the Southern Liang 梁dynasty (502–57). During this period, Buddhism flourished under the support of the state. However, it appears that there was a tension between the somewhat contradictory interests of the imperial court and the Buddhist community. In 515, Sengyou 僧祐 (445–518), the leader of the Buddhist community, finished his Chu sanzang ji ji 出三藏記集, which is now considered by many to be the earliest extant Chinese Buddhist bibliography. This work was an extensive expansion of Dao'an's 道安 catalog. Storch points out that although Sengyou was fully aware of the traditional Indian division of scriptures into Vinaya, Sūtra, and Abhidharma, he chose to call them all jing 經 “classics,” the same word used by Confucians for their scriptures. By doing so, Sengyou implied that the wisdom of Buddhism was not foreign and “barbaric,” but equal in value to the Confucian classics. A few years after Sengyou published his catalog, the Liang court commissioned an official Buddhist catalog, Baochang's寶唱 Liangshi zhongjing mulu 梁世眾經目錄. It followed the Indian tradition of classifying scriptures according to Vinaya, Sūtra, and Abhidharma, but also adopted the principle of attributing the texts to translators. Apparently, the Buddhist community preferred Sengyou's catalog and preserved it, while Baochang's catalog was subsequently lost.
In Chapter 4, after introducing the catalogs written in the Northern dynasties, Storch focuses on the Sui dynasty (581–618) catalogues. Fajing's 法經 Zhongjing mulu 眾經目錄 adopted the classifications of the texts from both the Northern and Southern catalog traditions, and provided an account of the history of Buddhism in China. Fei Changfang's 費長房 Lidai sanbao ji 歷代三寶記, finished circa 597, was the most influential Buddhist catalog compiled in this period. Fei incorporated the history of the spread of Buddhism into a narrative of Chinese history, thus providing a “Buddhist alternative to a traditional Confucian view of Chinese history” (92). He dropped the tradition dating from Dao'an that connected the authenticity of a text with the historical reliability of its transmission, and instead he took the approval of a legitimate dynasty as the source of a text's authenticity. Fei was criticized, however, for lenience toward suspicious and false scriptures and over-generous attribution of translations to particular translators.
Chapter 5 introduces briefly nine catalogs made during the Tang period, but concentrates on Daoxuan's 道宣 (596–667) Datang neidian lu 大唐內典錄 and Zhisheng's 智昇 Kaiyuan shijiao lu 開元釋教錄. According to Storch, the Tang dynasty is the last stage in the development and expansion in Buddhist catalogs. In the following Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), fewer new translations were made, and more importantly, the production of printed editions of the Tripitaka took over the role of manuscript catalogs in the compiling and censoring of the Buddhist canon.
As the authenticity of a text depended on how reliably it could be attributed to a known translator, it is understandable that the biographies of translators were taken seriously by Buddhist catalogers. Chapter 6 investigates records of translators’ lives in Buddhist hagiographies, including records of their supernatural powers and scholastic abilities. In chapter 7, Storch compares Buddhist catalogs with Christian scriptural catalogs and Greco-Roman catalogs, and demonstrates that Buddhist catalogs share a similar “theological mind.” These last two chapters are not on any specific catalog, but provide from a comparative perspective the underlying themes that are essential for the understanding of the history of Buddhist catalogs.
Chinese Buddhist Bibliography has some limitations, reflecting its origin in Storch's 1995 dissertation. Storch's decision not to use diacritics and Chinese characters in the main body of the book, a real inconvenience, was carried over from the period when multi-language processing on computers was still technically difficult. More serious, Storch made little if any use of Chinese scholarship of the last two decades, including general studies by Su Jinren 蘇晉仁, Xu Jianhua 徐建華, and Feng Guodong 馮國棟; studies on Sengyou's Chu sanzang ji ji by Huang Zhizhou 黃志洲, Su Jinren 蘇晉仁, and Xing Shanhong 興膳宏; and Chen Yazhen's 陳雅真 study on the Datang neidian lu.
A few inaccuracies should be mentioned. Daoan should be Dao'an (passim), Nanjō Bunyō should be Nanjō Bunyū (xxii). On page 215 two Chinese terms are misspelt: Dashseng should be Dasheng, shiqiao should be shigao (the latter has already been misspelt in Storch's dissertation 1995: 201). The term neidian 內典, which since the Southern and Northern dynasties consistently has the meaning “Buddhist canon,” is misunderstood as scriptures “kept within the walls of the imperial palace,” hence the discussion of the term and its influences on page 118 is totally wrong.
On the positive side, Chinese Buddhist Bibliography is well structured around the main theme. Throughout the book Storch uses language that is friendly to non-specialists. She also provides comparisons with other traditions that might be helpful for readers to put issues in context. For example, Dao'an's attitude toward the authenticity of translations is compared to that of the Septuagent, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (34); when discussing the situation that Sengyou faced in the attribution of translations to translators, she brings in comparisons to the creation of the New Testament canon (68). She also compares Liang Emperor Wudi's patronage of Buddhism with Constantine's support of Christianity (48). Chapter 7 is wholly dedicated to such comparisons.
