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瑜伽師地論釋

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Text ID
KR6n0002
Date
654–654
Dynasty
唐

Yúqié shī dì lùn shì 瑜伽師地論釋

Exposition of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra (Yogācāryabhūmiśāstra-vyākhyā) by 最勝子 (Zuìshèngzǐ / Jinaputra, 等造) and 玄奘 (Xuánzàng, 譯)

About the work

A short single-fascicle introductory commentary on the Yúqié shī dì lùn (KR6n0001, T30n1579) by the Indian Yogācāra master Jinaputra (最勝子 / 最勝子) “and others” (等造), translated into Chinese by 玄奘. The text serves as the canonical vyākhyā — a prefatory exposition explaining the title of the parent treatise, the doctrinal grouping of its five major sections, the seventeen bhūmi of the Běndì fēn 本地分, and the textual lineage from Maitreya 彌勒菩薩 through Asaṅga 無著菩薩 down to its Indian reception. It is the principal canonical authority for the Cí’ēnzōng / Fǎxiàng tradition’s understanding of how the Yogācārabhūmi is to be read as a unified treatise rather than a collection of independent bhūmi.

Structural Division

CANWWW (T30N1580) lists KR6n0001 Yúqié shī dì lùn 瑜伽師地論 (T30n1579) as the principal related text. The single fascicle contains no formal subdivisions but is conventionally divided in the Cí’ēn commentaries into three parts: (1) the title-exposition, (2) the elucidation of the five-fold structure, and (3) the elucidation of the seventeen bhūmi.

Abstract

Translated by 玄奘 in 654 CE (Yǒnghuī 永徽 5) at the Dà Cí’ēnsì 大慈恩寺 according to the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù 開元釋教錄 (T2154), as part of the cluster of supporting Yogācāra translations Xuánzàng undertook in the years following the completion of the master treatise itself in 648. The Sanskrit original is lost; the Tibetan canon preserves a related Vivaraṇasaṃgrahaṇī (Tōh. 4042) ascribed to “rGyal-bas-byin” (Jinaputra) which may or may not correspond to T1580.

The text is the canonical Indian source for the now-standard interpretation of the title 瑜伽 yúqié (Skt. yoga) as covering “境 jìng (object), 行 xíng (practice), 果 guǒ (fruit), 教 jiào (teaching), 理 lǐ (principle)” — the five-fold understanding of yoga that became foundational for Cí’ēn doctrinal classification. It also fixes the canonical East-Asian attribution of the Yogācārabhūmi to Maitreya as revealer and Asaṅga as transmitter — an attribution that, as noted under KR6n0001, differs from the Tibetan tradition.

窺基 explicitly cites this text as the doctrinal preface to his commentary on the Yogācārabhūmi in KR6n0008 Yúqié shī dì lùn lüèzuǎn 瑜伽師地論略纂 (T43n1829), and it functions in the Cí’ēn curriculum as the standard introductory reading.

Translations and research

  • Lamotte, Étienne. La Somme du Grand Véhicule d’Asaṅga (Mahāyānasaṃgraha). Louvain: Bureaux du Muséon, 1938–1939. (Includes important comparative material on the early Yogācāra commentarial tradition.)
  • Schmithausen, Lambert. Ālayavijñāna. Tokyo, 1987. (Discusses Jinaputra’s place in the Yogācāra commentarial tradition.)
  • Aramaki Noritoshi 荒牧典俊, “Sōkanya: Yogācārabhūmi-vyākhyā ni okeru kyōri-tetsugaku” 倉間野：瑜伽師地論釋に於ける教理哲学. Bukkyōgaku Seminā 仏教学セミナー 35 (1982): 1–25. (Standard study of the doctrinal content of T1580.)

Other points of interest

The “et al.” (等) in the attribution 最勝子等造 reflects the canonical understanding that the vyākhyā is the work not of Jinaputra alone but of a subsequent Yogācāra group — a feature shared with several other commentarial works of the late Indian Yogācāra. The Cí’ēn tradition (in KR6n0008, KR6n0026) sometimes lists his collaborators as Sthiramati (安慧, 安慧菩薩) and Bandhuśrī (親勝, 親勝).

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