About Ugra and his Friends: a Recent Contribution on Early Mahāyāna Buddhism. A review article.

Abstract

Research in Mahāyāna sūtras is a slow and painstaking process. Typically, it involves a careful study of multiple versions of individual texts, composed in different languages (Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan) as well as immersion in the voluminous but largely unchartered corpus of canonical literature preserved in the bKa' 'gyur and the Chinese ‘Tripiṭaka’. Years may easily go by without any noteworthy publication. Thus, when a new book appears, scholarly expectation tends to be high. Jan Nattier's study of the Ugrapariprcchā is no exception. Eagerly awaited among colleagues for its research on early Mahāyāna Buddhism – the Ugrapariprcchā is widely recognised to rank among the first Mahāyāna sūtras – Nattier's work promised to dispel at least some of the mist that continues to cloud this ill-understood period. Even though hers is not the first study and translation of the Ugrapariprcchā (Nancy Schuster wrote her PhD dissertation on this text, 1976), Nattier managed to produce a remarkable, original piece of scholarship that brims with thought-provoking ideas about the formation of the Mahāyāna, persuasive refutations of old-seated misconceptions, well-conceived approaches to textual interpretation and a competently crafted translation of the Chinese and Tibetan versions. In short, it is a book that needs to be taken seriously.