Reviews

Stephen Sestanovich (ed.), Rethinking Russia's National Interests. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 1994, xii + 115pp., $14.95 p/b.

Neil Malcolm, (ed.), Russia and Europe: An End to Confrontation? London and New York: Pinter Publishers, for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1994, xi + 240pp., £35.00.

Douglas W. Blum (ed.), Russia's Future: Consolidation or Disintegration? Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA & Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, 173pp., £33.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Lynn D. Nelson & Irina Y. Kuzes, Property to the People. The Struggle for Radical Economic Reform in Russia. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xi + 268 pp., £48.00 h/b, £16.00 p/b.

Richard F. Kaufman & John P. Hardt (eds) for the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, The Former Soviet Union in Transition. Armonk, NY, York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1993, xxiv + 1222pp.

Michael Jakobson, Origins of the Gulag. The Soviet Prison Camp System 1917–1934. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1993, xiv+ 176pp., $28.00.

Paul R. Gregory, Before Command: An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five‐Year Plan. Princeton; NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, viii + 188pp., £30.00.

Helene Seppain, Contrasting US and German Attitudes to Soviet Trade, 1917–91. Politics by Economic Means. New York & Basingstoke: St Martin's Press and Macmillan, 1992, xiv + 349pp.

Graham Smith (ed.), The Baltic States: The National Self‐determination of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. London: The MacMillan Press Ltd, 1994, xii + 214pp., £40.00.

Jan Zaprudnik, Belarus: At a Crossroads in History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, xxiii + 278pp., £11.95 p/b.

Dirk Kretzschmar, Die Sowjetische Kulturpolitik 1970–1985. Bochum: Universitatsverlag Dr N. Brockmeyer, 1993, xxvi + 873pp., DM89.80.

Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power; The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994, xiv + 322pp., £38.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

Ljerka Fulgosi & Vlasta Vince‐Ribaric (eds), Hundred Testimonies: The Moving Accounts of Croatian Displaced Persons and War Prisoners. Zagreb: Society of Croatian Professional Women and INA Consulting, 1994, 196pp., $20.00.

Theodor Bergman, Gert Schaefer & Mark Seldon (eds), Bukharin in Retrospect. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xxv +251pp.     

Reviews

Wing Thye Woo, Stephen Parker & Jeffrey D. Sachs (eds), Economies in Transition: Comparing Asia and Eastern Europe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997, xiv + 412 pp., £33.95 h/b, £16.95 p/b.

Guy Standing, Russian Unemployment and Enterprise Restructuring: Reviving Dead Souls. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xxix + 404 pp., £45.00.

Ellen Mickiewicz, Changing Channels: Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, xiii + 340 pp., $35.00.

Naum Nim (ed.), Dos'e na tsenzuru, No. 1. Moscow: Fond zashchity glasnosti, 1997, 208 pp.

Taras Kuzio, Ukraine under Kuchma: Political Reform, Economic Transformation and Security Policy in Independent Ukraine. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xxiii + 281 pp., £50.00.

Mary Buckley (ed.), Post‐Soviet Women: from the Baltic to Central Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xvii + 316 pp., £15.95.

Neil Hood, Robert Kilis & Jan‐Erik Vahlne (eds), Transition in the Baltic States: Micro‐level Studies. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xv + 299 pp., £50.00.

V. Stanley Vardis & Judith B. Sedaitis, Lithuania: The Rebel Nation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997, xi + 242 pp., £14.50.

Lonnie R. Johnson, Central Europe. Enemies, Neighbours, Friends. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, xii + 339 pp., £15.99.

Gale Stokes, Three Eras of Political Change in Eastern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, xvi + 240 pp., £13.99.

Kevin F. F. Quigley, For Democracy's Sake: Foundations and Democracy Assistance in Central Europe. Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997, xix + 190 pp., £13.00.

James Gow, Triumph of the Lack of Will. International Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War. London: C. Hurst and Co., 1997, 343 pp., £14.95.

Robert Chenciner, Daghestan: Tradition and Survival. Richmond: Curzon, 1997, xi + 307 pp., £25.00

William C. Wohlforth (ed.), Witnesses to the End of the Cold War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, xvi + 344 pp., $39.95.

Vladimir N. Brovkin (ed.), The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and the Civil Wars. London: Yale University Press, 1997, vi + 333 pp., £21.00.

Carl Van Dyke, The Soviet Invasion of Finland 1939–40. London: Frank Cass, 1997, xiv + 288 pp., £35.00.

Maurice Friedberg, Literary Translation in Russia: A Cultural History, University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1997, viii + 224 pp.     

Gubernatorial Politics in Sverdlovsk Oblast'

A Russian political scientist provides a detailed examination of politics in the Sverdlovsk oblast' of the Russian Federation. Focus includes Governor Eduard Rossel's efforts to increase the power of regions vis-à-vis Moscow, and Rossel's relations with the region's political and economic elites as well as with neighboring regional leaders. Analysis covers the politics of institutional reform, economic constraints, the politics of regional identity – including organized attempts to construct a Ural identity independent of an all-Russian identity – public attitudes, social protest, opposition politics, and clientelism.     

Reburying the treasure—maintaining the continuity: Two texts by Śākya Mchog Ldan on the Buddha-essence

The rich and interconnected universe of ?ākya Mchog Ldan’s views, including those on the buddha-essence, cannot be limited to or summarized in a few neat categories. Nevertheless, the following two interrelated ideas are crucial for understanding ?ākya Mchog Ldan’s interpretation of the buddha-essence: 1) only Mahāyāna āryas (’phags pa) have the buddha-essence characterized by the purity from adventitious stains (glo bur rnam dag); 2) the buddha-essence is inseparable from the positive qualities (yon tan, gu?a) of a buddha; In his writings, ?ākya Mchog Ldan argues against identifying the buddha-essence as a mere natural purity (rang bzhin rnam dag), i.e., the state of natural freedom from obscurations as it is taught in the Middle or Second Wheel of Doctrine (chos ’khor, dharmacakra) and its commentaries. The buddha-essence has to be posited as inseparability from positive qualities of a buddha. ?ākya Mchog Ldan approaches the buddha-essence inseparable from positive qualities of a buddha in two ways. In some texts, such as the Essence of Sūtras and Tantras, he argues that it has to be identified only as purity from adventitious stains, i.e., the removal of all or some negative qualities that prevent one from directly seeing the buddha-essence. In other texts, such as The Sun Unseen Before, he interprets it as the purity from adventitious stains and the natural purity as it is taught in some sūtras of the Third Wheel of Doctrine and their commentaries. That type of natural purity is understood as the state of natural freedom from all obscurations inseparable from positive qualities of a buddha. Thereby, in this second type of texts, ?ākya Mchog Ldan arrives at positing two types of the buddha-essence: relative (kun rdzob, sa?v?ti) and ultimate (don dam, paramārtha). Despite different interpretations of the natural purity, the identification of the buddha-essence as the purity from adventitious stains is present in both. In his interpretation of the buddha-essence, ?ākya Mchog Ldan utilizes the categories of the three levels found in the Sublime Continuum: the impure (ma dag, a?uddha), impure-pure (ma dag dag pa, a?uddha?uddha, i.e. partially pure) and very pure (shin tu rnam dag, suvi?uddha) levels that correspond respectively to the categories of sentient beings, bodhisattvas (understood as ārya bodhisattvas in this context), and tathāgatas. ?ākya Mchog Ldan argues that one becomes a possessor of the buddha-essence free from adventitious stains only on the impure-pure level. In other words, when bodhisattvas enter the Mahāyāna Path of Seeing (mthong lam, dar?anamārga) simultaneously with the attainment of the first boddhisattva ground (byang chub sems pa’i sa, bodhisattavabhūmi)of Utmost Joy (rab tu dga’ ba, pramuditā), they become āryas, i.e. ‘exalted’ or ‘superior’, bodhisattvas, directly realize the ultimate truth (don dam bden pa, paramārthasatya), and thereby for the first time generate an antidote to obscurations of knowables (shes bya’i sgrib pa, jñeyāvara?a). They start gradually removing them, and thereby actually see at least a partial purification of stains ‘covering’ the buddha-essence, and its inseparability from at least some positive qualities. Such is not possible for anyone below that level, even for the non-Mahāyāna arhats (i.e., ?rāvakas and pratyekabuddhas). Thus, only Mahāyāna āryas have the buddha-essence characterized by the purity from adventitious stains; ārya bodhisattvas have only a part of it, while buddhas have it completely.     

Shakya Chokden’s Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga: “Contemplative” or “Dialectical”?

Journal of Indian Philosophy - This reconciliation of the dialectical and contemplative approaches to the buddha-essence is related to and closely resembles Shakchok’s reconciliation of the...