Wéishí lùn wénshū 唯識論聞書
Hearer’s Record of the Treatise on Consciousness-Only by 光胤 (Kōin, 記)
About the work
A twenty-seven-fascicle Muromachi-period Japanese Hossō 法相 lecture-record on the Chéng wéishí lùn (KR6n0016, T31n1585), compiled by 光胤 (Kōin, 1396–1468) of the Tōnan-in 東南院 (Kōfuku-ji 興福寺 Hossō lecturer-line). Preserved as T2264 (Taishō vol. 66). The genre name kikigaki / monsho 聞書 (“hearing-record”) denotes a student’s transcription of the kōshi 講師 (lecturer)‘s oral explication during the formal kōkō 講講 cycle, here read aloud and glossed in Sino-Japanese kanbun-yomi 漢文訓読 with substantial passages in Japanese (using katakana okurigana).
The opening fascicle preserves a striking note on the work’s scope: “自卷始至故同異性唯假施設下文不足依怱劇不記之” — “From the start of the first juǎn to the line ‘and so the identity-and-difference natures are only conventional designations,’ the lower portion is missing because in our haste it was not recorded.” This is one of the rare cases in the canonical Hossō literature where the scribe explicitly admits an incomplete record.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T66N2264) lists two related texts: KR6n0016 Chéng wéishí lùn 成唯識論 (T31n1585) and KR6n0021 Chéng wéishí lùn lüèshū 成唯識論略疏 (T68n2267). The 27 kan track the 10 juǎn of the master text in a roughly fascicle-by-fascicle order.
Abstract
The Yuishikiron monsho is one of two principal Hossō lecture-records by 光胤 preserved in the Taishō (the other being KR6n0020 Yuishiki kunron nikki 唯識訓論日記, T2265, 1 fasc.). Where the Kunron nikki is Kōin’s own personal study-notebook, the Monsho is the formal lecture-transcript of his teaching cycle at the Tōnan-in.
The kunten 訓点 style of the record — Sino-Japanese reading with katakana glosses such as “讀師云。本疏五門大槪講讃アリ” (“The reading master says: ‘In the Honsho (i.e. Kuījī’s KR6n0026 shùjì), there are five-gate general lectures…’“) — preserves the actual classroom register of Muromachi Hossō scholasticism and is a primary source for the history of Japanese Buddhist lecture-practice.
Kōin worked within the late-medieval Tōnan-in Hossō tradition, which continued the Kōfuku-ji “Northern Temple” 北寺 scholastic lineage; he was a recognised Yuima-e 維摩會 lecturer in his generation. The date-bracket adopted here (1430–1468) covers his mature productive period from age 35 to his death.
Translations and research
- No substantial dedicated secondary literature located. The work is referenced in modern Japanese surveys of Muromachi-Hossō scholasticism and in the apparatus to standard editions of the Chéng wéishí lùn.
Other points of interest
The 聞書 genre — student transcription of oral lecture — is a distinctive Japanese contribution to East-Asian Buddhist textuality with no full Chinese or Korean equivalent. The Kōin Monsho is one of the longer specimens preserved in the canon.