Included are a listing of Chinese terms, a glossary of various Buddhist terms, and indices of names and subjects. Finally, a selected bibliography is also provided. These are welcome items, as is Cheng's custom of providing the Chinese and Sanskrit terminology for terms that resist adequate translation. There are problems,however,with the presentation. Cheng does, however, discuss the works of the important San Lun masters such as Chi Tsang, Kumarajiva, Seng Chao, and others, but the casual reader would be apt to get the wrong impression if he were to scan the table of contents for a clue as to what the book were about.
More significant problems arise during the philosophical discussion, however.
Surely it can only be P.363 a source of confusion, perpetuating the traditional misunderstanding of this distinction. Rather than claiming the Mind is the only Reality, they would seem to be saying that the nature of the reality is determinable solely through consciousness or experience of reality, that the nature of reality is consciousness. Besides this carelessness, Cheng also gives too little attention to some very important considerations. Perhaps the most troubling phlosophical point in the text is the apparent contradiction between statements made by Nagarjuna in two P.364 different contexts. Since there would be no noble truth of suffering, there could be no noble truth of the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering.