Xiǎnshí lùn 顯識論
Treatise on the Manifestation of Consciousness by 真諦 (Zhēndì / Paramārtha, 譯)
About the work
A short single-fascicle Yogācāra treatise translated by 真諦 in his late-life Guǎngzhōu period (557–569). Closely related in subject and translator to the KR6n0024 Zhuǎn shí lùn 轉識論, the Xiǎnshí lùn expounds the Yogācāra doctrine of the xiǎn shì 顯識 (“manifest” or “appearing” consciousness) — i.e. the eight consciousnesses considered as the manifest products of the ālaya-storehouse rather than as independent entities. The Sanskrit original is not preserved.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not assign internal structural division. The single fascicle has no formal subdivisions.
Abstract
真諦 arrived in Guǎngzhōu in 557 after a complicated career across the Liáng-Chén transition, and during the dozen-odd years before his death in 569 he produced what is commonly considered the most important corpus of pre-Xuánzàng Yogācāra translations: the KR6n0006 Juédìngzàng lùn 決定藏論, the KR6n0024 Zhuǎn shí lùn 轉識論, the present KR6n0025 Xiǎnshí lùn 顯識論, the KR6n0054 Dàshèng wéishí lùn 大乘唯識論, the KR6n0059 Shè dàshèng lùn 攝大乘論, and the KR6n0061 Shè dàshèng lùn shì 攝大乘論釋. Together they constitute the textual basis of the Shèlùnzōng 攝論宗 — the principal Chinese Yogācāra school of the late sixth and early seventh century, before its supersession by the Cí’ēnzōng / Fǎxiàng of 玄奘 and 窺基.
The Xiǎnshí lùn is doctrinally closer to T1587 than to T1585: it presents Yogācāra in Paramārtha’s distinctive idiom — using amala-vijñāna 阿摩羅識, the zhuǎn yī 轉依, and the doctrine of the eight consciousnesses as cyclic transformations of an underlying immaculate ninth consciousness. The text is one of the principal sources for the doctrinal reading of Paramārtha that was preserved in the Tiāntái and Huáyán traditions even after the Cí’ēn supersession.
The dynasty tag in the catalog is 陳 (Chén dynasty, 557–589), reflecting the political situation in Guǎngzhōu during Paramārtha’s late translation work.
Translations and research
- Paul, Diana Y. Philosophy of Mind in Sixth-Century China: Paramārtha’s “Evolution of Consciousness”. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹, ed. Shintai sanzō kenkyū ronshū. Kyoto: Kyoto University Institute for Research in Humanities, 2012.
Links
- CBETA online text
- Dazangthings date evidence (565): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. Dazangthings source
- 真諦 Zhēndì DILA
- Kanseki DB