Śāntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra in Translation: A Century of Interpretation of a Sanskrit Mahāyāna Text

Many translations of ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra, a Sanskrit Mahāyāna Buddhist text of seventh/eighth‐century India, have been published since 1892. ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra is one of the few Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist texts available in Sanskrit and it was influential in Tibetan Buddhist schools. This article explores how translation of the Bodhicaryāvatāra is no longer the preserve of scholars but has moved to being carried out by Buddhist practitioners influenced by Tibetan schools of Buddhism. It shows how translators’ motives for translating the text have reflected changing attitudes to Buddhism and its texts. ?āntideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra has been translated as a source of information, a literary work, an inspirational work and, with the rise of Western interest in Tibetan Buddhism in the late twentieth century, as a vehicle for the transmission of Buddhist teachings. Nevertheless, further scholarly investigation of the Sanskrit text of the Bodhicaryāvatāra remains to be done.     

Robert Weston,Medical consulting by letter in France, 1665-1789

This review investigates Robert Weston’'s Medical Consulting by Letter in France, 1665–1789. Weston uses correspondence between physicians and patients to explore perceptions of health and methods of treatments in early modern France. He also approaches the theme of how authority was expressed and perceived in epistolary communication. This book is important in its exploration of an underutilized source and its contribution to an understanding of how medical relationships were constructed in the past. With a rigorous structure and a high volume of information, Weston’'s work is an invaluable contribution to historical literature on early modern France.     

Is Robert I in hell?

Can one use the most formal and formulaic type of source left us by the early Middle Ages to probe the beliefs and values of a tenth‐century leader? An enquiry into Robert of Neustria's ‘deposition’ of Charles the Simple, the importance of Saint‐Denis to Robert, and the contemporary meaning of the battle of Soissons.     

Pure and impure gestes: the generation of history in Jean d’Outremeuse's Myreur des histors

ABSTRACT

Scholars have long debated the place in medieval historiography of Jean d’Outremeuse's Myreur des histors, a universal history in celebration of Liège written in French around 1399. The abundance of Old French epic material in a chronicle that, according to its author, contained translations of only Latin sources, was once a source of outrage. The Myreur now holds significant interest, however, for its evidence of late medieval narrative strategies. This study demonstrates the Myreur's deliberate adaptation of epic material to glorify Liège. The author reimagines the Carolingian past as a source for future historical narratives by knowingly altering the genealogical framework of the chanson de geste universe. Carrying tales of sexual impurity, he describes the demise of the Carolingian line and transforms figures from epic to function within his linear history. This inventive approach allowed him to create a new hero- and history-generating lineage for his universal history.     

St Columba and the convention at Druimm Cete: peace and politics at seventh‐century Iona

Attendance at the ‘convention of kings’ at Druimm Cete in north‐east Ireland is one of the most famous episodes in the career of St Columba or Colum Cille, who died in 597. Discussion of the significance of this shadowy summit, largely informed by unreliable late evidence, has hitherto focused upon what (may have) transpired there between kings based in Ireland and Scotland. The result has been the neglect of the hagiographical dimension of the presentation of Druimm Cete in our principal source, Adomnán's Vita Sancti Columbae, composed c.700. Analysis of this material shows that Adomnán's information about the convention came from his principal source, composed some sixty years earlier. It reveals moreover that Druimm Cete assumed prominence within the Columban dossier in the 640s for what it represented, rather than because of what actually happened there. Once the hagiographical agenda of Vita Sancti Columbae and its principal source is restored to its rightful place in evaluating the text, it emerges that several of its best‐known stories – including the story of Columba's ordination of a Scottish king – are much more problematic as witnesses to sixth‐century history than is conventionally supposed. As scholars begin to lose their grip upon the historical Columba, however, they grow better able to grasp seventh‐century political history in north‐east Ireland and Gaelic Scotland.     

In search of lost selves: Aidan Higgins' Scenes from a Receding Past

This essay makes the case for a fresh evaluation of Aidan Higgins' long-neglected autobiographical novel Scenes from a Receding Past. It argues that it is most fruitfully understood as a contribution to the phenomenology of personal identity and that many of its formal idiosyncrasies, especially its deviations from the standard formula for Künstlerroman, are a direct result of its preoccupation with general concepts of selfhood rather than a concern with society, or with the artist's role. I trace the genealogy of Higgins' innovative and unique form of realism in this work, and in the novel to which it forms a prequel, Balcony of Europe, to his attempts to escape the influence of James Joyce; and using the work of, amongst others, Paul Ricoeur, demonstrate how his fiction contributes to a new understanding of the relations between narrative, memory, imagination, and consciousness.     

The Conte-en-vers: Expanding Stith Thompson's X-File of Obscene Motifs

The conte-en-vers is a narrative dealing with bawdy subjects presented in verse form and with a certain elegance of expression that contrasts markedly with its licentious content. La Fontaine's Contes, provide material through which to explore bawdy stories that were circulating during the seventeenth century. Furthermore, La Fontaine's followers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries afford a rich source from which to glean information about erotic folktales current in France during that period. The conte-en-vers genre is of special significance to folklorists because the authors incorporated current folklore motifs into their tales, making of them an important, though neglected, repository of folklore during three centuries. The conte-en-vers provides a corpus which facilitates the task of filling in Stith Thompson's blank category of obscene motifs, X700-749 “Humor Concerning Sex.”     

Ancestral neologisms in Richard fitz Nigel's Dialogue of the Exchequer

Although Richard fitz Nigel's Dialogus de scaccario (Dialogue of the Exchequer) has received extensive critical attention as a source for fiscal and governmental history, its importance in relation to twelfth-century perceptions of vernacularity has been largely overlooked. Richard's work incorporates a novel and sophisticated treatment of the interaction between Latin and the vernacular languages which is integral to the success of his historical project. The source of Richard's linguistic innovation is paradoxically located in a valorisation of patrimonial heritage: in using language history to trace, shape and reify the distinguished past achievements of his own family, Richard constructs Latin etymologies which simultaneously explore the development of the vernaculars, particularly French. This presentation of etymology as genealogy enables the supple and subjective qualities of philology to be exploited both as a witness to the past and to the glory of the Norman present.     

Jewel of the Pacific and planter's paradise

A 10‐week series with 60 photographs on the Solomon Islands was not unusual in illustrated newspapers and magazines in the early 20th century, and The Queenslander was maintaining a pattern of photographic imaging of sub‐empire going back to the 1890s, concentrating on possible post‐war colonial realignments, appropriateness of British policy and the economic and political roles Australians would adopt if a formal relationship existed with the Solomon Islands. In calling for a greater presence in 1917–18, The Queenslander was supported by expansionists, missions and traders, shipping companies and readers with personal links through work, investment, friends or missions. This essay acknowledges the role of photography in Australian relations with the Pacific, its role in shaping public opinion, and the access it offers to the history of Australia's diverse regional links and particularly its thwarted claims for a closer relationship with the Solomons, depicted optimistically as a planter's paradise and a potential addition to an Australian sub‐empire.     

The Serious Century and Hedayat's Grim Laughter

Perhaps inspired, more than anything else, by The Blind Owl's famous opening lines, the reception of the novel has so far been dominated by a dark view of the narrative. However, subtle inter-textual links and formal patterns in the narrative could help to read a radically subversive laughter in it which targets the novel's predecessors and readers equally and concurrently. This article engages the aesthetic qualities of the novel and attempts to account for and emphasize the literariness of the text in interpretation. By singling out a few inter-textual links and elaborating upon them in detail, the narrative's parodic laughter, its significance and the way it can change our appreciation of the novel are discussed.     

The relevance of Morris's utopia

This paper considers the reputation of William Morris's News From Nowhere and its evaluation as a utopia. It argues that there is a discrepancy between scholarly estimations of the book's importance and its treatment as a utopia relevant to socialism. Whilst scholars have for many years almost unanimously praised News From Nowhere as Morris's crowning achievement, most have also attempted to argue that Morris did not intend his work to be used as a serious model for socialism. After reviewing some of the secondary literature and distinguishing between a variety of different interpretations of Morris's work, I suggest that the relevance of News From Nowhere might be assessed by the standards which Morris applied to Thomas More's Utopia. Considering Morris's work in this framework of utopianism, I argue that the relevance of Morris's utopia lies in what Norman Geras has called its “maximum” vision.     

Much Ado About Dugald: The Chequered Career of Dugald Stewart's Letter to Sir William Forbes on James Beattie's Essay on Truth

Summary

Although Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo's An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie has long served as an invaluable resource for those interested in Beattie's life and thought, there has been little scholarship on the genesis of Forbes's book. This article considers the role played by Dugald Stewart—as well as that of his friend, Archibald Alison—in the making of Forbes's Life of Beattie. It also examines the reasons for Forbes's decision not to print Stewart's letter in its entirety in the Life of Beattie and explores the letter's significance for understanding Stewart's philosophical development.     

The Mid-Tang Scholar-Monk Shenqing and His Beishan lu

Abstract

This article investigates the thought of the mid-Tang scholar monk Shenqing through an examination of his Beishan lu. In this work, Shenqing launched a fervent attack against Southern Chan, while pressing for the harmonization of the Three Teachings. His critique of Southern Chan reflects his Theravadin tendency, as he expressed negative views about Southern Chan's violation of traditional Buddhist teachings. He specifically attacked its de-emphasis on the vinaya, and the fabrication of the 28-Patriarchs theory of transmission. In an effort to establish the orthodoxy of Southern Chan in early Northern Song, Chan clerics found it necessary to respond to Shenqing's critique, as clearly reflected in the writings of the monk Qisong. Beishan lu is a valuable source for a study of Shenqing's thought, and the unfolding of the harmonization of the Three Teachings. It also allows us to trace the historical unfolding of the Southern Chan movement from a different perspective.     

A Devonian fish fauna from subsurface sediments in the eastern Officer Basin,South Australia

This paper reports the discovery of three of the most iconic New Caledonian endemic genera, Amphorogyne, Paracryphia and Phelline, as dispersed leaf cuticle fossils in the early Miocene of New Zealand. New Caledonia's endemic angiosperm families have given it a reputation as one of the most interesting botanical regions in the world, but unfortunately it has no known pre-Pleistocene Cenozoic plant fossil record. A once more widespread distribution of its key plants in the context of a cooling and drying Neogene world suggests the current vegetation of New Caledonia is the result of contraction, or even a migration, from more southerly landmasses. Thus, New Zealand may have been a source of at least some of New Caledonia's plants.     

Politics and Public Policy

Abstract

Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others has been widely praised as the first German film to confront the horrors of the East German communist regime. But the film's politics may be ambiguous. As critical as it is of East Germany, it does not offer a ringing endorsement of West Germany. For example, the film's playwright-hero seems to have artistic problems in the West, just as he did in the East. The film's equivocal attitude toward communism is epitomized by its apparently positive view of the Marxist author Bertolt Brecht. This essay compares The Lives of Others with Brecht's play The Good Person of Szechwan in an effort to understand Donnersmarck's attitude toward his East German predecessor and what it means for his larger view of communism and its relation to art.     

Fugitives and ethnography in Priscus of Panium

Abstract

Because the historical writings of Priscus of Panium survive only in fragments, we regrettably lack knowledge of the full complexity of this fifth century historian's concerns. Widely cited in Byzantine sources, the greatest part of Priscus’ work is found in the Excerpta de Legationibus, which was compiled from ancient texts by the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos in the middle of the tenth century as part of an encyclopedic collation of educational and practical information. The Excerpta, which dealt with international relations, found much of interest in Priscus, whose history included a detailed account of the struggle between the Romans and Attila the Hun. Of particular value is Priscus' first-hand account of an embassy to Attila in 449 to discuss the exchange of fugitives and other matters. On this journey Priscus served as an assistant to Maximinus, the leader of the diplomatic mission sent from Constantinople. Envoys to foreign lands regularly included in their reports detailed observations of the societies they visited, and in this tradition the fragments preserved in the Excerpta constitute an invaluable source of information about Hunnic life as well as diplomatic matters. Priscus later reworked his acute observations of the Huns made on the embassy and mixed them with other information in the larger framework of his historical treatise, adapting part of his diplomatic intelligence report to the needs of a different sort of literary enterprise. We cannot know with any certainty the thematic architectonics of this historical work, but its fragments make it clear that Priscus' treatment of the relations between Rome and the Empire of the Huns and his development of cultural issues implicit in those relations were more subtle than the tenth century editors' focus on diplomatics might suggest.     

ET SI C'ÉTAIT PAR LA FIN QUE TOUT COMMENÇAIT? PEN BEFORE PLOT,OR TRESCH ON POE'S REVERSALS

This brief comment offers some reflections on John Tresch's “Compositor's Reversal.” Contrasting his approach with Gaston Bachelard's, I situate Tresch in the tradition of reading Edgar A. Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as a riddle to be decoded. I suggest that Tresch's analytical emphasis on material composition practices rather than Pym's content opens up insightful ways of reading both Pym itself in terms of its composition, style, and narrative voice, and also Poe's well‐known programmatic Philosophy of Composition. The key achievement of Tresch's article beyond its engagement with Poe scholarship is its contribution to the study of writing practices and media studies more broadly. By demonstrating the tight connection Poe forged between natural theology and the material practice of typography, Tresch inserts the typesetting process as an important step in the historiographical trajectory between pen and typewriter. He shows that the mid‐nineteenth‐century context of natural theology marks a decisive difference in connotation between Poe's compositional play with questions of authorship and plausibility, of truth and appearance both described in and performed by his narrative, and later concerns with the apparatus and its potential for the production of an écriture automatique.     

Defences of classical learning in St. Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana and Erasmus's Antibarbari

New information technology can be an invaluable aid to research in the history of ideas provided it is built on scientific foundations. This article discusses the case of Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie and analyses its use of earlier dictionaries (the Dictionnaire de Trévoux, Chambers's Cyclopaedia and Moréri's dictionary). It also shows how neglect of existing research in the history of ideas and ignorance of how these eighteenth-century European publications were elaborated, combined with inappropriate use of software for detecting plagiarism, have led to totally mistaken findings. These findings, widely publicised thanks to the Internet, constitute a real danger for future research. The article concludes that the intellectual community urgently needs to invest seriously in the digital humanities in order to safeguard future research.