The school of Buddhist thought called Huayan (Hua-yen; Kor. Hwaŏm, Hwaeom, Jap. Kegon) originated in China in the wake of translations of an extensive collection of Sanskrit Mahāyāna texts usually referred to as Avataṁsaka-sūtra (‘garland of discourses’) and sometimes also as Buddhāvataṁsaka-sūtra (‘garland’ or ‘legion of Buddhas’). It contains, among others, two very important sūtras outlining the Bodhisattva Path, Daśabhūmika and Gaṇḍavyūha, which had circulated as independent texts in India and have survived in their Sanskrit originals. The still unresolved question is whether the individul texts were assembled into one ‘garland’ in Central Asia or at least started being put together already in India. The founder or first patriarch of the school, usually named Dushun (Du Shun, Tu-shun, 557/8–640), gave it a philosophical foundation: he combined Nāgarjuna's thesis about interdependence of phenomena and non-differentiation between nirvāṇa and saṁsāra on the basis of their emptiness with the ancient Chinese concept of li (ritual order, moral principle, law), virtually equating it with Buddha nature present in all phenomena. The school never had a formal organisational basis in China, but its philosophy and stress on meditation and discipline has had a lasting influence. In Korea it even became the basis for ‘official’ Buddhism; its tenet about the Buddha nature present in all was understood as enabling the practice of the Bodhisattva Path while carrying on with worldly duties in the state system and in family life. Its teachings were recommended to the king by the famous monk Ŭisang (Euisang, 625–702), who had studied them in China for eleven years. The school still exists as the second largest Korean sect and its head office is in the monastic complex Hwaŏmsa. It was introduced into Japan in 736 by the Chinese monk Dŏsen. The avataṁsaka vision of the multiple universe as a thousand-petalled lotus, with the Buddha Vairocana on top presiding over a ‘legion’ of cosmic Buddhas on the petals, each of which represents myriads of worlds, was seen in Japan as a model for the hierarchical structure of Japanese society. It inspired Emperor Shōmu (724–749) to start construction (747) of the giant statue of Vairocana (Jap. Rōshana) in Tōdaiji, which is still widely worshipped, and to proclaim him the highest protector of the nation.

The book is a collection of academic papers presented in their initial versions at a conference which took place in a university in Budapest in May 2004. Sixteen participants from seven countries (USA, France, Slovakia, Hungary, Japan, Korea and China) prepared their papers for publication, although some of them admit that theirs is only an interim account of their topic. Why is there so much attention focussed on the Huayan school of thought? Maybe the reason is that the source of it is the most voluminous of all Mahāyāna sūtras and that it became so very influential in the Far East. Relatively little is known, however, about the movement itself and its origin. As one learns from one paper in the first chapter, ‘State of the Field’, Western studies have not reached a consensus about the nature of the Huayan teaching: is it ‘holistic’ or ‘totalistic’? Was it ‘apophatic and kataphatic’ (whatever that may mean)? Did it provide ‘ontological basis and philosophical rationale’ for Chan (Ch'an, Zen) practice? How far did it reflect ‘sinification’ of its Indian roots?

The further three papers look at the scholarship in the three Far Eastern countries. In China Buddhist studies were for quite some time subdued and took off seriously only in the past ten years. Huayan has been studied with respect to its ‘basic philosophy’ and in the context of its diversification, how it was applied within Chan and how it influenced literature and aesthetics. Connection to politics and ‘social consciousness’ was also discovered. Korea is a special case (perhaps because of the towering figure of Wŏnhyo [Weonhyo]). Enormous scholarly output on Hwaŏm in Korean is little known in the West, but in the last few years studies in English have become more numerous. Kegon studies in Japan benefited from European influence and are newly turning to philosophical exploration of the school's thought, but the resulting vast output is in Japanese. Chapter Two explores the origin and early development of the sūtra - its Indian antecedents, a possible link to Sarvāstivāda and the possibility of a ‘Proto-Buddhāvataṁsaka’ in India.

But what about the philosophy of Huayan? The editor relates, in his Introduction, the legend from which is derived the name of the book. The story goes that the third Huayan patriarch, Fazang (Fa-tsang, 684–712), built a mirror hall for Empress Wu (684–705) to illustrate the philosophical basis of the teaching. It had mirrors placed in eight directions of the compass, in nadir and zenith; a Buddha statue with a lamp placed in the middle would thus be reflected in infinite numbers in all directions. Maybe this graphic representation gave the Empress a better insight into the message of Huayan than a verbal explanation would do. But scholarship has to aim at conceptual grasp. Chapter Three, containing six papers about Huayan in China, tries to do just that. But even here we find the close link of the text of the sūtra with imagery - more solid and enduring than are reflections in mirrors but equally telling, as can still be witnessed in some sets of caves with ‘one thousand Buddha images’ presided over by Vairocana. Their aim? To facilitate the attainment of huayan samādhi. One paper explains this as ‘perfect interfusion’ and complete equality of phenomena as ‘representations of the wisdom of Buddha’ equal to ‘pure mind of the original nature’, the ‘one mind’. The basis for understanding it is the interpretation of the early Buddhist teaching of pratītyasamutpāda (‘conditioned co-production’ or ‘dependent origination’) in terms not of formation, but of mutual inter-penetrative co-existence. That virtually amounts to non-duality: buddhahood and phenomenality are not separate. Another paper asserts the same under the terms of ‘inseparability (or unity) of essence and its function’.

Chapter Four on ‘Hwaŏm/Kegon in Korea and Japan’ presents two Hwaŏm papers, one on a short poem hailed as one of the most influential works of Silla Buddhism and the problem of its authorship. Was it by the great Ŭisang or did he just write the philosophical commentary on it, with a diagram? The next one assesses Wŏnhyo's work in relation to some elements of the Yogācāra system. Of the three Kegon papers one is on the so far neglected mythological aspects of the teaching, one on its state during the early Kamakura period and the last one explores the relation between Kegon philosophy and nationalism in modern Japan; it shows that it was not spared the misuse of its inter-penetration concept in the service of totalitarianism. The book concludes in Chapter Five with a single paper on Huayan art and singles out paintings in East Asia inspired by the story of Sudhodana's search for enlightenment in Gaṇḍavyūha as found in the Dunhuang caves in China and in the Kamakura period in Japan. Only some fragments of older Korean paintings survived the destruction brought about by Hideyoshi's invasion in the 1590s, but there are some eighteenth century ones in a few Buddhist temples.

Stemming from a conference of specialised experts, the book is obviously meant for experts as a starting point and stimulus for further research. No attempt is made to summarise the results for their utilisation by a wider academic readership. Moreover, extensive references in individual papers and biographies attached to them are predominantly in Chinese and Japanese. Nevertheless, a determined scholar intent on extracting useful information for a chapter in a book on history of religions would not remain unrewarded by his efforts.