Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì xù shì 成唯識論述記序釋
Explication of the Preface to the Cheng weishi lun shuji by 善珠 (Zenju, 集)
About the work
A one-fascicle Nara-period Japanese Hossō 法相 commentary on the preface (xù 序) to Kuījī’s KR6n0026 Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì 成唯識論述記 (T1830), composed by 善珠 (724–797) of Akishino-dera 秋篠寺. Preserved as T2260 (Taishō vol. 65). The colophon signs the work 秋篠釋善珠集 — “compiled by Śākya Zenju of Akishino[-dera].”
The work is preserved alongside a long Genroku-period preface (“題辭”, dated 元祿九年冬十月 = winter 1696) by Tsūin Zuigen 通印瑞玄, who edited the Edo-period printed text from corrupt manuscripts collected during his Nara study-period. Zuigen explicitly notes the gap: “Even the Tang-period sub-commentaries of Línzhōu Púyáng 淄州樸揚 [i.e. Huìzhāo’s KR6n0030 liǎoyì dēng and Zhìzhōu’s KR6n0032 yǎnmì] did not gloss Kuījī’s preface. The early Hossō masters lamented this. Now in our country (本邦) the sōjō Zenju, deeply versed in the three natures and the eight-gate Hossō system, has produced over a dozen works, of which the present Xù shì is one.” The Genroku-period editorial care testifies to the work’s continued importance for Tokugawa Hossō study.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T65N2260) lists KR6n0026 Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì 成唯識論述記 (T43n1830) as the related text. The single kan is structured around a seven-fold division of Kuījī’s preface:
- 竊以六位…至湛幽章而海濬 — On the Buddha’s realized principle, of immeasurable depth;
- 匪屬具體…至歸眞上遷 — On Vasubandhu’s composition of the Triṃśikā explicating the consciousness-only doctrine;
- 義繁文約…至競響而已 — On the ten bodhisattva-commentators’ explication of the verse;
- 在昔周皇…至其詳可略 — On the preceding (Paramārtha-line) translations as incorrect;
- 惟我親教…至云爾而已 — On Xuánzàng’s translation as correct;
- 斯本彙聚…至依士釋 — On the title Chéng wéishí lùn as a whole;
- 基學慙融愷…至詳幽致爾 — On Kuījī’s authorial self-deprecation.
Abstract
The Shùjì xù shì is one of the early Nara Hossō school’s most influential works, and is distinguished within the East-Asian Yogācāra commentarial tradition by the fact that it is essentially the only surviving commentary on Kuījī’s preface — a lacuna in the Tang-period Cí’ēn commentaries that Zenju filled at Akishino-dera. Its method is densely encyclopedic: each phrase of Kuījī’s preface is unpacked with reference both to internal Hossō doctrine (the three natures 三性, the eight-gate scheme 八門) and to the wider classical-Chinese cultural-political reference field. In commenting on Kuījī’s opening reference to the liùwèi 六位 (six positions) of the Yi-jing hexagrams, for example, Zenju gives a detailed exposition of the four-sage authorship of the Zhōu Yi (Fúxī, King Wén, the Duke of Zhōu, Confucius) and a parallel exposition of the Lǎozi — making this also a witness to the breadth of Confucian and Daoist literacy maintained within Nara-era Hossō.
The date-bracket adopted here (760–797) covers Zenju’s mature productive period at Akishino-dera; a tighter dating is not securely available. Zenju was the principal early Heian Hossō scholar and Yuima-e 維摩會 lecturer of his generation; his other major surviving work in this division is KR6n0031 Yuishiki gitō zōmyō-ki 唯識義燈增明記 (T2261, 4 fasc.), and outside this division he is also the author of KR6m0034 / T2270 In’myōron-sho myōtōshō 因明論疏明燈鈔 (Hetuvidyā commentary).
Translations and research
- No substantial dedicated modern study located. Treated in standard Japanese surveys of Nara Hossō scholasticism (Yūki Reimon 結城令聞, Yuishikigaku tenseki-shi 唯識学典籍志; Bauer on the Yuima-e lecturer tradition).
Other points of interest
The Genroku 9 (1696) editorial preface by Tsūin Zuigen 通印瑞玄, written at his “Rakutō Zenrin” 洛東禪林 retreat in Kyoto, is an unusually informative early-modern colophon, explicitly outlining the text-critical method (collation of variant manuscripts, preserving philological cruxes rather than emending them: “間亦至魯魚難辨乃存舊文 一以不私” — “occasionally even when lǔ 魯 and yú 魚 cannot be distinguished, I have preserved the old reading, in order to not impose my private judgment”).