This latest contribution by Johan Elverskog is a continuation of his earlier research on the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Road in general (Buddhism and Islam along the Silk Road, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), and particularly among the Uyghurs (Uygur Buddhist Literature, Turnhout: Brepols, 1997). This is a long-expected and welcome publication. The author successfully provides a comprehensive picture of Uyghur Buddhism from a variety of perspectives, thus providing both scholars and the general public with a long-overdue research resource on Uyghur Buddhism.
The monograph consists of an Introduction and five chapters: “Becoming Buddhist,” “Buddhist Politics,” “Buddhist Economies,” “Uyghur Buddhisms,” and “Becoming Muslim.” It concludes with notes, index, and bibliography. The book is written in lucid language, making it easily accessible for both scholarly and general audiences, and it contains a comprehensive summary of the scholarship on Uyghur Buddhism in Western languages, predominantly in English and German. As long as Western scholarship on Uyghurs remains advanced, one can compose a general study proceeding almost exclusively from the Western publications, but from a more general perspective, such an approach fails to provide a more comprehensive image of the state of the field and most recent advances. New textual discoveries occur mostly in the PRC, and Chinese publications are essential in reconstructing the history of Buddhism among the Uyghurs.
In the Introduction, the author clarifies his points of departure: he is concerned with the general problems of Islam meeting Buddhism, the meaning of being Buddhist, and the importance of Uyghurs and their Buddhism in “shaping the sweep of Asian history.” This last item is of special concern for the author, for he claims that Buddhism is often imagined as “being outside of history” (pp. 3–4). This observation is correct in the sense that Buddhism has remained outside the scope of attention of the traditional Sinitic historiography on which most of our knowledge of Uyghurs, Tanguts, and Khitan is based. If one turns to the Tibetan sources, one immediately discovers that the international relations in Central Asia were imagined as the spread of various Buddhist teachings in various realms. However, Tibetan religious historiography concerned itself mostly with Tanguts, and much less with Uyghurs.
The first chapter provides accurate historical context, discussing the evolution of Uyghur political power and the formation of various Uyghur states, and thus provides the background necessary for what follows. The author is correct in observing that little is known of the initial Uyghur contact with Buddhism. In general, the author is correct in observing that Uyghur conversion to Buddhism and their rejection of Manichaeism was determined by the political developments in Central Asia, their contacts with other nations, and their continued openness to outside influences. These influences were multifaceted and diverse, including the circulation of texts from Sinitic mainstream Buddhism; local developments, such as the formation of the Buddhist complex in Northern China (known sometimes as Liao Buddhism); and the circulation of texts in local languages (Tocharian, Tangut). This makes the Uyghurs a part of Central or East Asian Buddhist history. Their version of Buddhism was an adaptation of the types of Buddhism prevalent in Central Asia during the tenth to thirteenth centuries. This point of view is methodologically correct and can be adopted by future scholarship.
The second chapter, “Buddhist Politics,” discusses the role of Buddhism in international relations and in the “state protection” cults (especially based on the Lotus Sūtra and the Golden Light Sūtra) from both textual and art-historical perspectives. However, the issues of scriptural translation and the importance of repentance rituals, discussed in this chapter, probably belong either in the previous chapter (in the discussion of the availability of Chinese canons) or in the “Uyghur Buddhisms” chapter. The author is correct in observing a multilayered structure of influences in the formation of Uyghur Buddhism: influences from the Liao, Uyghur influences on the Tanguts, Tangut influences on the Uyghurs, and so forth. The author discusses at length the specific forms of the Uyghur cult of Maitreya, but I failed to notice any discussion of the popularity of the Uyghur version of the biography of Xuanzang: this particular feature is unique to Uyghur Buddhism and merits scholarly attention, and is a special entry in the history of Uyghur Buddhism. (The author touches upon this only briefly on p. 106.) The chapter on Buddhist economies is understandably short and is based on a much more limited variety of sources, simply because the relevant sources are scarce. However, the picture of the thriving monastic economy and the role of monasteries as economic and financial centers are presented clearly.
The chapter on “Uyghur Buddhisms” discusses a variety of issues, some already touched upon in previous chapters. In this chapter, the author attempts to locate Uyghur Buddhism in the general framework of the religious history of Central Asia, Tibet, and the Central Plains. On the other hand, the author attempts to see the peculiar features of what he identifies as the “Golden Age of Uyghur Buddhism.” This again is methodologically justifiable and offers a rich research perspective. The chapter is informative, but the materials presented therein are sometimes random, and in several instances exceedingly laconic: for example, discussion of the Uyghur translation of Tibetan tantric texts is limited to one paragraph (p. 125). Such imbalances are understandable, since the original sources are also miscellaneous; however, the author correctly indicates the shift from Sinitic Buddhism to Tibetan Buddhism among the Uyghurs, and the growing dependence of Uyghur Buddhism on the Tangut liturgical literature, as well as the ambiguous nature of the Uyghur translations of the vinaya and Abhidharma literature. The participation of Uyghur monks in the revision of the Buddhist canon during the Yuan is correctly observed, but the nature of the project was more complicated than a reader may infer from the exposition and involved a variety of scholars of other ethnic origins. The dynamics of the shift from Sinitic Buddhism to Tibetan Buddhism during the Yuan was dictated not so much by the Mongol conversion as by the growing presence of Tibetan lamas in Central Asia before the Yuan was established; the Uyghurs were part of this process, rather than the followers of their Mongol sovereigns. The Uyghur translations of esoteric instructions are treated with extreme brevity. Such titles as “Nāropa book of the dead” (p. 125) need to be explained: otherwise, a reader may infer that Nāropa actually wrote something like that, which is not the case. The emergence of the Mañjuśrī cult is again a noticeable feature of Uyghur Buddhism; however, its origins are again more complicated and are traceable to Tangut Buddhism. The final chapter on the Uyghur conversion to Islam is beyond my expertise, so I refrain from further discussion.
To conclude, this recent publication by J. Elverskog is an important and welcome contribution to the field. Most of the deficiencies mentioned above are determined by the nature of the subject matter of the book: excavated documents are usually hard to arrange into a coherent narrative, and locating them within an overarching “great tradition” is even harder. This is true for the Dunhuang texts in Chinese; it is even harder for the Uyghur texts. The fact that Elverskog was able to achieve a synthesis of excavated texts, standard sources, and art objects attests to the quality of his scholarship and makes his recent publication a valuable resource for further study.
