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In the Footsteps of the Buddha
Grousset, Rene; Tr. By J.A. Underwood, In The Footsteps Of The Buddha
- GenresChina
337 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
René Grousset
205 books23 followersRené Grousset (September 5, 1885 – September 12, 1952) was a French historian specializing in Asiatic and Oriental history.
He was born in Aubais, Gard in 1885.
Having graduated from the University of Montpellier with a degree in history he began his distinguished career in the French Ministry of Fine Arts soon afterward. He served in the French army during World War I. In 1925 Grousset was appointed adjunct conservator of the Musee Guimet in Paris and secretary of the Journal asiatique. By 1930 he had published five major works on Asiatic and Oriental civilizations. In 1933 he was appointed director of the Cernuschi Museum in Paris and curator of its Asiatic art collections. He wrote a major work on the Chinese buddhist medieval pilgrim Huien Tsang, particularly emphasising the importance of his visit to the northern Indian buddhist university of Nalanda.
Before the outbreak of World War II, Grousset had published his two most important works, Histoire des Croisades (1934-1936) and L'Empire des Steppes (1939). Dismissed from his museum posts by the Vichy government, he continued his research privately and published three volumes on China and the Mongols during the war. Following the liberation of France, he resumed his curatorship of the Cernuschi Museum and in addition was appointed curator of the Musee Guimet. In 1946, Grousset was made a member of the French Academy. Between 1946 and 1949 he published four final works, concentrating on Asia Minor and the Near East.
-Wikipedia.
He was born in Aubais, Gard in 1885.
Having graduated from the University of Montpellier with a degree in history he began his distinguished career in the French Ministry of Fine Arts soon afterward. He served in the French army during World War I. In 1925 Grousset was appointed adjunct conservator of the Musee Guimet in Paris and secretary of the Journal asiatique. By 1930 he had published five major works on Asiatic and Oriental civilizations. In 1933 he was appointed director of the Cernuschi Museum in Paris and curator of its Asiatic art collections. He wrote a major work on the Chinese buddhist medieval pilgrim Huien Tsang, particularly emphasising the importance of his visit to the northern Indian buddhist university of Nalanda.
Before the outbreak of World War II, Grousset had published his two most important works, Histoire des Croisades (1934-1936) and L'Empire des Steppes (1939). Dismissed from his museum posts by the Vichy government, he continued his research privately and published three volumes on China and the Mongols during the war. Following the liberation of France, he resumed his curatorship of the Cernuschi Museum and in addition was appointed curator of the Musee Guimet. In 1946, Grousset was made a member of the French Academy. Between 1946 and 1949 he published four final works, concentrating on Asia Minor and the Near East.
-Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 20, 2024
It is hard to underestimate the role of René Grousset played in reception of Asian art in the West and France in particular. He was appointed as curator of both the Cernuschi Museum and the Guimet Museum after the war - definitely the two most important collections of Asian art in France and the world. The German language translation of Sur le Trace du Bouddha from 1929 was published in 1994 as part of Diedrich's Gelbe Reihe: "Die Reise nach Westen Oder wie Hsüan-Tsang den Buddhismus nach China holte". It's a book that I wanted to read since I have seen in a library in Vienna in the 1990s. Diedrichs's Gelbe Reihe (Yellow Collection) with its yellow rainbow to bright Saffron colors was unmistakably for me (and others) opening a window into Asiatic and World literature and philosophy, spirituality, mysticism, and history at affordable prices (not luxury) paperback editions. It's the one time I didn't regret my German language education - just to be able to read these. One could read Indian epos Ramayana, Mahabharata in a shortened version, - as well as Chinese classics such as I Ching and Tao Te King or Sohar (Kabbalah), Rumi and much more.
That said - this book is one of the saddest and clearest examples of Edward Said's Orientalism-if there ever was one. It is predicated on the aesthetic and racial superiority of European art and classical Western philosophy. Yes, René Grousset was a man of his times, but the fact that his views have been translated in unadulterated and largely uncommented form in the 1990s should also give us pause. The colonial adventurism and the colonial utopias of the 1920s and 1930s were very much alive for this foremost of French orientalists and art historians. I truly hope that such an unrepentant chauvinistic outlook coloring everything what one does, says, and thinks is well over altough there's signs it's coming back in vogue.
Reading René Grousset's 1929 heavy handed interpretation of the great Buddhist pilgrim monk and translator Hüan-Tsang (also known as Tripitaka from the Monkey: The Journey to the West folk literature classic) leaves one perplexed. Why not let tge actual traveler do the thinking and talking - why translate everything into French history biases? Of course there's no detached or completly unbiased but why all the sameness everywhere? Reading trough various descriptions of artworks, clothing articles, physionomie found along the land routes taken by the Chinese monk around year 629 -as related by a French museum curator is an exercise in self censorship. Not throwing away this book immediately despite its distorted content and racist common places is very hard.
It is the more annoying if one hopes to read the actual views and impressions of a pilgrim monk from 1400 years ago and find out more about the actual descriptions of the places he visits on his journey across Asia in search of the original sutras he wants to bring back to China. Instead one hears the meddlesome views of some self important Eurocentric supremacist close that completely ignores local context and drums classicist nonsense while building up hierarchies of peoples, nations, ethnicities all arranged along a perfection or imperfection axis stemming from Greece.
Kanishka is Chlodwig etc It's good to make comparisons, but to always prop up a case for your own embellishment is pure narcissism. A curator who depicts everything in terms of civilized/barbarian binaries and civilisational mission of European whites - stands at the opposite ends of Buddhism itself.
It is not about Hsüan-Tsang but about René Grousset racial fantasy of Euro superiority on a scale where the more remote you are from the heroic European model - the less you are talented, civilized, refined etc. What made me write this scorching review was one such glaring example - page 144/145 (German edition). In a small blurb, all the weaknesses and absurdities of such colonial orientalistic enterprise are visible to everyone. It is a "What If" (conceived by Grousset) in which the Hephtalite barbarians or Islamic iconoclasts didn't invade the Greco-Buddhist provinces of Kapisa, Lampaka and Gandhara. Ita not because probably Buddhist art would have followed other paths. It's only because they missed the European chance. Probably without such accidents they would have then ended up like the glorious examples in Europe. All was cut short by iconoclasts. Anyway he seems to forget the iconoclasm of the French revolution (or maybe foe him it's the same barbarians).
For him, the Greco-Buddhist art is basically just a stand-in for Christian Europe. It's the Hellenistic legacy that he cares for. Europe finds its mirror image in Asia, what a surprise!
For such scholars of the past, Oriental art existed only as a museum example of Western aesthetic greatness (or evolutionary superiority). Value fundamentalism in its primary form - a pseudo scientific view that underpinned other discourses today. Something is great only by virtue of its anticipation, Greco Buddhist art is proto European Gothic art, 900 years before the Gothic.
By making this assumption it is all a matter of historical Vandalism - be it pious one (in the case of Islam) or wild Vandalism (in the case of the Hephtalite Huns) it is easy to dismiss what actual impulses or transformation Buddhism was producing across Eurasia. Not to mention that by affirming the preeminence of an eternal Christian France he is basically in a long line of chauvinists and islamophobes stretching till today's European ethno-populists.
Also it's not a wild stretch to see how such Eurocentric adulation of Gandhara art by Orientalist curators has also sealed its fate during Taliban occupation. The more ot was adulated by intellectual Western circles the more it became a target. The coup d grace of Bamiyan Buddhas destruction was given by a group that made it a mission to show how despicable are those historical remains of Afganistan that attract the Western good taste. How to make the Westerners cringe and suffer (talking here about the Bamiyan and other relics distraction in 2000s and am anticipation of the September 11) as by accomplishing some kind of suicidal act - demolishing the last connection with such art historical preference.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the great orientalist Grousset sounds more or less like a police chief complaining about the attack in the banlieues or about graffiti art barbarisms making the walls dirty. Here below is the fragment I am mentioning (although one could give countless such examples from this book):
"Stellen wir uns jedoch die Hunnen und die Araber vor, wie sie über Gallien in der Geburststunde von Reims und Chartres herfallen, einer Stunde, da das Genie unserer Bildhauer erblühte"... Genau die widerfuhr der 'gotischen' Kunst von Kapisa und Lampaka: Vom 475 and wird das Kabultal von den hephthalitischen Hunnen heimgesucht, den größten Ikonoklasten unter den Barbarer, nach dem Atempause, die sich von der Mitte des 6. bis in die Mitte des 7. Jahrhundertss erstreckt, werden die Araber eintreffen."
As to those that still say we should not measure those thinkers by the value of our present, I answer with Adventures of Ideas by ANW - which is basically following exactly such dim backgrounds of potentiality but not looking for confirmation or easy dismissal. In fact ANW has got a very nice fragment about the Huns and other migratory people - switching the perspective on us from the bland view that they are uncultured wreckers of civilization. What made them take on that adventure. One cannot always take the side of the roman imperial centers. Not to mention that Grousset and ANW where contemporaries.
If you can get over such Western Orientalist prejudice ita up to you.
Also I'll be the first to admit that there's always some good to extract:
-whenever Tripitaka enters the libraries or meets various Buddhist (and non Buddhist) Śramaṇa experts in the various directions and philosophical schools.
-whenever he discusses the various jataka Buddhist fables
-whenever there's a subtle link, or even transversal transhistorical notes across traditions of idealism/transcendantal philosophy East or West such as when he mentions the necessity of learning Mādhyamaka dialectics - ad one cannot understand Fichte or Schelling without Kant.
-geographic botanical or weather description made by Tripitaka or the way he's trying to find all the signs (relics) shadows, traces of various Buddhas-one can get an insight of how this monk might have perceived the world around him.
That said - this book is one of the saddest and clearest examples of Edward Said's Orientalism-if there ever was one. It is predicated on the aesthetic and racial superiority of European art and classical Western philosophy. Yes, René Grousset was a man of his times, but the fact that his views have been translated in unadulterated and largely uncommented form in the 1990s should also give us pause. The colonial adventurism and the colonial utopias of the 1920s and 1930s were very much alive for this foremost of French orientalists and art historians. I truly hope that such an unrepentant chauvinistic outlook coloring everything what one does, says, and thinks is well over altough there's signs it's coming back in vogue.
Reading René Grousset's 1929 heavy handed interpretation of the great Buddhist pilgrim monk and translator Hüan-Tsang (also known as Tripitaka from the Monkey: The Journey to the West folk literature classic) leaves one perplexed. Why not let tge actual traveler do the thinking and talking - why translate everything into French history biases? Of course there's no detached or completly unbiased but why all the sameness everywhere? Reading trough various descriptions of artworks, clothing articles, physionomie found along the land routes taken by the Chinese monk around year 629 -as related by a French museum curator is an exercise in self censorship. Not throwing away this book immediately despite its distorted content and racist common places is very hard.
It is the more annoying if one hopes to read the actual views and impressions of a pilgrim monk from 1400 years ago and find out more about the actual descriptions of the places he visits on his journey across Asia in search of the original sutras he wants to bring back to China. Instead one hears the meddlesome views of some self important Eurocentric supremacist close that completely ignores local context and drums classicist nonsense while building up hierarchies of peoples, nations, ethnicities all arranged along a perfection or imperfection axis stemming from Greece.
Kanishka is Chlodwig etc It's good to make comparisons, but to always prop up a case for your own embellishment is pure narcissism. A curator who depicts everything in terms of civilized/barbarian binaries and civilisational mission of European whites - stands at the opposite ends of Buddhism itself.
It is not about Hsüan-Tsang but about René Grousset racial fantasy of Euro superiority on a scale where the more remote you are from the heroic European model - the less you are talented, civilized, refined etc. What made me write this scorching review was one such glaring example - page 144/145 (German edition). In a small blurb, all the weaknesses and absurdities of such colonial orientalistic enterprise are visible to everyone. It is a "What If" (conceived by Grousset) in which the Hephtalite barbarians or Islamic iconoclasts didn't invade the Greco-Buddhist provinces of Kapisa, Lampaka and Gandhara. Ita not because probably Buddhist art would have followed other paths. It's only because they missed the European chance. Probably without such accidents they would have then ended up like the glorious examples in Europe. All was cut short by iconoclasts. Anyway he seems to forget the iconoclasm of the French revolution (or maybe foe him it's the same barbarians).
For him, the Greco-Buddhist art is basically just a stand-in for Christian Europe. It's the Hellenistic legacy that he cares for. Europe finds its mirror image in Asia, what a surprise!
For such scholars of the past, Oriental art existed only as a museum example of Western aesthetic greatness (or evolutionary superiority). Value fundamentalism in its primary form - a pseudo scientific view that underpinned other discourses today. Something is great only by virtue of its anticipation, Greco Buddhist art is proto European Gothic art, 900 years before the Gothic.
By making this assumption it is all a matter of historical Vandalism - be it pious one (in the case of Islam) or wild Vandalism (in the case of the Hephtalite Huns) it is easy to dismiss what actual impulses or transformation Buddhism was producing across Eurasia. Not to mention that by affirming the preeminence of an eternal Christian France he is basically in a long line of chauvinists and islamophobes stretching till today's European ethno-populists.
Also it's not a wild stretch to see how such Eurocentric adulation of Gandhara art by Orientalist curators has also sealed its fate during Taliban occupation. The more ot was adulated by intellectual Western circles the more it became a target. The coup d grace of Bamiyan Buddhas destruction was given by a group that made it a mission to show how despicable are those historical remains of Afganistan that attract the Western good taste. How to make the Westerners cringe and suffer (talking here about the Bamiyan and other relics distraction in 2000s and am anticipation of the September 11) as by accomplishing some kind of suicidal act - demolishing the last connection with such art historical preference.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the great orientalist Grousset sounds more or less like a police chief complaining about the attack in the banlieues or about graffiti art barbarisms making the walls dirty. Here below is the fragment I am mentioning (although one could give countless such examples from this book):
"Stellen wir uns jedoch die Hunnen und die Araber vor, wie sie über Gallien in der Geburststunde von Reims und Chartres herfallen, einer Stunde, da das Genie unserer Bildhauer erblühte"... Genau die widerfuhr der 'gotischen' Kunst von Kapisa und Lampaka: Vom 475 and wird das Kabultal von den hephthalitischen Hunnen heimgesucht, den größten Ikonoklasten unter den Barbarer, nach dem Atempause, die sich von der Mitte des 6. bis in die Mitte des 7. Jahrhundertss erstreckt, werden die Araber eintreffen."
As to those that still say we should not measure those thinkers by the value of our present, I answer with Adventures of Ideas by ANW - which is basically following exactly such dim backgrounds of potentiality but not looking for confirmation or easy dismissal. In fact ANW has got a very nice fragment about the Huns and other migratory people - switching the perspective on us from the bland view that they are uncultured wreckers of civilization. What made them take on that adventure. One cannot always take the side of the roman imperial centers. Not to mention that Grousset and ANW where contemporaries.
If you can get over such Western Orientalist prejudice ita up to you.
Also I'll be the first to admit that there's always some good to extract:
-whenever Tripitaka enters the libraries or meets various Buddhist (and non Buddhist) Śramaṇa experts in the various directions and philosophical schools.
-whenever he discusses the various jataka Buddhist fables
-whenever there's a subtle link, or even transversal transhistorical notes across traditions of idealism/transcendantal philosophy East or West such as when he mentions the necessity of learning Mādhyamaka dialectics - ad one cannot understand Fichte or Schelling without Kant.
-geographic botanical or weather description made by Tripitaka or the way he's trying to find all the signs (relics) shadows, traces of various Buddhas-one can get an insight of how this monk might have perceived the world around him.
March 1, 2013
Zweigeteilt
"Hsüan-tsang drang nun allein in die Wüste ein, in die grenzenlose Gobi, die Mörderin ganzer Herden und Karawanen. Sich nach den aufgetürmten Gebeinen und den Haufen von Kamelmist richtend, mit denen die Wüste reichlich gesegnet war, zog er mit langsamem und beschwerlichem Schritt seines Weges."
Selten liest man heutzutage Fachbücher mit einem derartigen Verve; moderne Fachbücher halten sich dahingehend eher zurück, was ich schade finde, denn, wie dieses Buch beweist, lassen sich auch mit einem dynamischen, poetischen Stil viel Informationen transportieren. 1929 war soetwas noch möglich.
Leider verliert der Autor mich als Leser immer mehr gegen Ende des Buches. Während die Beschreibungen des zentralasiatischen Teils der Reise, durch das heutige Kasachstan, Usbekistan und Afghanistan, sich begeisternd lesen und wirklich ein Bild der damaligen Khanate auferstehen lassen, sind die Teile, die in Indien spielen, sehr repetitiv und haben Aufzählungscharakter: Es wird eben ein Ort nach dem anderen mit einer Anekdote aus Buddhas Leben aufgezählt. Sind die zentralasiatischen historischen Begebenheiten noch so geschildert, dass man Lust hat, sich das ganze nötige Hintergrundwissen zusätzlich anzulesen, wird man beim indischen Teil überflutet mit Orts- und Personennamen, die der normale Leser nicht einordnen kann. Hierfür ist schon ein gewisses Vorwissen erforderlich, um den Inhalt würdigen zu können.
Die Ausstattung ist auch zu spartanisch für ein Buch, das eine Reisebeschreibung beinhaltet: Eine einzige, dazu sehr dürftige Karte zeigt die Reiseroute; diese Karte enthält weder Grenzlinien noch Höhen- oder Klimainformationen. Einige Bilder, die hauptsächlich Reproduktionen von Kunstwerken sind, lockern den Inhalt auf.
Das Vorwort versucht, dem dichten Text etwas Unterbau zu geben und ist lesenswert. Die Übersetzung aus dem Französischen gibt den blumigen und verschachtelten Stil Groussets schön wieder.
Insgesamt ein lesenswertes Buch, wenn man gewisse Grundkenntnisse der Geschichte mitbringt. Für Anfänger kann dies Buch aber auch ein Startpunkt für weiterführende Lektüre sein. Man benötigt aber dringend zusätzliche Landkarten, und sollte sich diese beschaffen, bevor man mit der Lektüre beginnt. Dieser Mangel des Buches kostet einen Stern.
Wichtig ist zu erwähnen, dass dieses Buch nur sehr wenig mit dem klassischen chinesischen Roman "Reise nach Westen" zu tun hat, der auch nur am Rande hin und wieder erwähnt wird. Wer aber die historische Grundlage für diesen Klassiker sucht, wird hier sicher viel Interessantes finden.
"Hsüan-tsang drang nun allein in die Wüste ein, in die grenzenlose Gobi, die Mörderin ganzer Herden und Karawanen. Sich nach den aufgetürmten Gebeinen und den Haufen von Kamelmist richtend, mit denen die Wüste reichlich gesegnet war, zog er mit langsamem und beschwerlichem Schritt seines Weges."
Selten liest man heutzutage Fachbücher mit einem derartigen Verve; moderne Fachbücher halten sich dahingehend eher zurück, was ich schade finde, denn, wie dieses Buch beweist, lassen sich auch mit einem dynamischen, poetischen Stil viel Informationen transportieren. 1929 war soetwas noch möglich.
Leider verliert der Autor mich als Leser immer mehr gegen Ende des Buches. Während die Beschreibungen des zentralasiatischen Teils der Reise, durch das heutige Kasachstan, Usbekistan und Afghanistan, sich begeisternd lesen und wirklich ein Bild der damaligen Khanate auferstehen lassen, sind die Teile, die in Indien spielen, sehr repetitiv und haben Aufzählungscharakter: Es wird eben ein Ort nach dem anderen mit einer Anekdote aus Buddhas Leben aufgezählt. Sind die zentralasiatischen historischen Begebenheiten noch so geschildert, dass man Lust hat, sich das ganze nötige Hintergrundwissen zusätzlich anzulesen, wird man beim indischen Teil überflutet mit Orts- und Personennamen, die der normale Leser nicht einordnen kann. Hierfür ist schon ein gewisses Vorwissen erforderlich, um den Inhalt würdigen zu können.
Die Ausstattung ist auch zu spartanisch für ein Buch, das eine Reisebeschreibung beinhaltet: Eine einzige, dazu sehr dürftige Karte zeigt die Reiseroute; diese Karte enthält weder Grenzlinien noch Höhen- oder Klimainformationen. Einige Bilder, die hauptsächlich Reproduktionen von Kunstwerken sind, lockern den Inhalt auf.
Das Vorwort versucht, dem dichten Text etwas Unterbau zu geben und ist lesenswert. Die Übersetzung aus dem Französischen gibt den blumigen und verschachtelten Stil Groussets schön wieder.
Insgesamt ein lesenswertes Buch, wenn man gewisse Grundkenntnisse der Geschichte mitbringt. Für Anfänger kann dies Buch aber auch ein Startpunkt für weiterführende Lektüre sein. Man benötigt aber dringend zusätzliche Landkarten, und sollte sich diese beschaffen, bevor man mit der Lektüre beginnt. Dieser Mangel des Buches kostet einen Stern.
Wichtig ist zu erwähnen, dass dieses Buch nur sehr wenig mit dem klassischen chinesischen Roman "Reise nach Westen" zu tun hat, der auch nur am Rande hin und wieder erwähnt wird. Wer aber die historische Grundlage für diesen Klassiker sucht, wird hier sicher viel Interessantes finden.
June 21, 2016
The story of the Buddhist monk Hiuan Tsang is the one of the great travel epics of all time and is as famous in Asia as the adventures of Marco Polo are in the West. Briefly, the monk, feeling that the translations of the sacred Buddhist texts available in China were insufficient for a full understanding of Buddhist doctrines, determined to travel to India to study the originals. Even though he was forbidden to leave the country by the T'ang emperor, he nevertheless smuggled himself out of China in 629 and then "crossed the Gobi, the T'ien Shan, the Hindu Kush, the Indus, the Ganges and the Pamirs" to arrive in India where he met the greatest rulers and philosophers of the day before returning after many years to China where he was treated as a hero by the same T'ang emperor. The book is first and foremost a chronicle of this arduous journey whose hero faced almost unbelievable hazards and several times almost lost his life as he made his way through now vanished kingdoms for the sake of his faith. It is also a study of Asian politics, culture, art and lifestyle during this same period. At the end, there is even a discussion of the Mahayana Buddhist doctrines that Hiuan Tsang studied, translated and commented upon. Grousset is not only an eminent historian but also a master stylist who brings 7th century Asia vividly to life in this work. I first read it when the English translation became available in 1971 and thought so highly of it that I kept the book with me all these years. Rereading it now, I found it just as wondrous as I did so long ago.
Want to Read
July 16, 2009biography of Hsuan Tsang, ancient Buddhist monk and traveller, also portrayed in Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment by Richard Bernstein.
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