1.Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination, by Reiko Ohnuma, New York, Oxford University Press, 2017, xix + 242 pp., US$35.00 (hardback), ISBN 9780190637545
2.Jens Schlieter University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
摘要
In line with her earlier book-length studies on self-sacrifice (2007) and maternal family relations in Indian Buddhism (2012), Reiko Ohnuma's most recent study presents a masterful treatment of animals and their relation to humans in early Buddhist discourse. Although not at the center of the study, the ongoing discussion of Buddhist animal ethics or, to be more precise, whether or not there is a Buddhist 'speciesism' that draws a hard, 'humanocentric' distinction between humans and animals - is an important backdrop of the study that understands itself as a close reading of central narratives. Before getting back to this discussion, the different parts of the study will be outlined. The book, succinct and well written, is divided into three parts and a short appendix that presents a register referencing the animals and the Jātaka stories in which these occur. Sources used are largely from Theravada Buddhist Pāli Nikayas, but also other Indian Buddhist traditions up to the 6th century.
