Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì jíchéng biān 成唯識論述記集成編
Comprehensive Compilation on the Cheng weishi lun shuji by 湛慧 (Tan’e, 撰)
About the work
A monumental forty-five-fascicle Edo-period (江戶時代) Japanese Hossō / Yogācāra compendium on Kuījī’s KR6n0026 Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì 成唯識論述記 (T1830), composed by 湛慧 (Tan’e, 1676–1747) of the Kakai-in 華開院 in Kyoto. Preserved as T2266 (Taishō vol. 67). The opening Kaiku setsuyō 開講説要 (“Outline for opening the lectures”) frames the work with ten introductory gates:
- The differences between the Vimśatikā (二十唯識) and Triṃśikā (三十唯識);
- That the Triṃśikā (本頌三十) has many bhāṣya-style commentaries;
- That there are separate-text and amalgamated-text versions of the two commentaries;
- The proper sequence of expounding the master treatise and its commentary;
- The quantitative breakdown of citations from Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna treatises;
- The differences in school-affiliation among the Cí’ēn commentators;
- The Cí’ēn-school’s particular reverence for this treatise;
- The Tang Tripiṭaka’s [Xuánzàng’s] motivation for going west, which was specifically for abhidharma (論藏);
- The high scholastic style of the Indian masters;
- The relative quality of the Chinese-period commentators on the shùjì.
After this prolegomenon, the body of the work proceeds in long biān 編 (“compilation”) sections that pair extensive citation of Kuījī’s shùjì — referred to throughout as 疏 shū — with citation of all the principal sub-commentaries: Huìzhāo’s KR6n0030 Liǎoyì dēng (T1832), Zhìzhōu’s KR6n0032 Yǎnmì (T1833), and especially Dàoyì 道邑’s KR6n0037 Yìyùn 義蘊 (X814), Rúlǐ 如理’s KR6n0038 Yǎnmì shī yǎn (X815), and the Korean Tàixián 太賢 KR6n0041 Xuéjì 學記 (X818).
Structural Division
CANWWW (T67N2266) lists KR6n0026 Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì 成唯識論述記 (T43n1830) as the sole related text. The 45 kan are structured to follow the juǎn-divisions of the parent shùjì (which is itself in 20 juǎn, with each in two halves), with each chapter providing a paragraph-by-paragraph comprehensive cross-commentary.
Abstract
The Jíchéng biān is the most ambitious single piece of Yogācāra scholarship produced in Tokugawa Japan and the largest single sub-commentary on Kuījī’s shùjì ever produced anywhere. Where Fujaku’s contemporary KR6n0021 Lüèshū (T2267) approaches the Chéng wéishí lùn directly as a Mahāyāna treatise, Tan’e’s Jíchéng biān approaches it through the entire sub-commentarial tradition, treating the Cí’ēn corpus as a single coherent body of Hossō learning to be synthesized as a whole.
Tan’e’s method is characteristically encyclopedic: each disputed lemma is followed by sequential citation of multiple sub-commentaries with critical evaluation, often introduced by 今謂 (“Now I say”) and 如前委解 (“as already explained in detail above”). The closing colophon “成唯識論述記集成編卷第四十五終” identifies this as the final fascicle and confirms the integral 45-fascicle compass.
The work belongs to the broader Edo abhidharma revival (Kusha-gaku 倶舎學) within which Tan’e also produced his thirty-fascicle Abhidharma-kośa-bhāṣya zhǐyào chāo KR6l0025 阿毘達磨倶舍論指要鈔 (T2250); the Jíchéng biān applies the same encyclopedic scholastic method to the Yogācāra commentarial tradition.
The date-bracket adopted here (1700–1747) covers Tan’e’s mature productive period from his arrival at the Kakai-in abbacy (age 25, 1700) through his death; a tighter dating is not securely available without an internal colophon.
Translations and research
- Wang Muti 王穆提. Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì jíchéng biān duìdú 成唯識論述記集成編對讀. A parallel-text Taiwanese edition.
- Ronald S. Green. Scholarship on Silla Yogācāra reception cites the Jíchéng biān as a witness to Tan’e’s reception of the Tang-Korean Yogācāra commentarial corpus.
- 木村宣彰. Edo-jidai Kushagaku no kenkyū 江戶時代倶舍學の研究. Kyōto: Hōzōkan, 1992. (Context for Tan’e’s broader scholastic programme.)
Other points of interest
The forty-five-fascicle compass deliberately matches the length of the parallel anonymous Kamakura-period KR6n0017 Jōyuishikiron honmon-shō 成唯識論本文抄 (T2262), making the Jíchéng biān the Edo-period topical-compilation counterpart to the medieval Kōfuku-ji honmon tradition.