Chéng wéishí lùn shū yìyǎn 成唯識論疏義演
Compiled Elaboration of the Commentary on the Demonstration of Consciousness-Only by 如理 (Rúlǐ, 集)
About the work
A twelve-fascicle compilation by the late-Tang commentator 如理 (Rúlǐ) elaborating on 窺基’s KR6n0026 Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì (T43n1830) — i.e. a sub-commentary on Kuījī’s principal commentary, glossing the shùjì itself rather than the master text KR6n0016. The “jí” 集 (“compiled”) in the attribution indicates that Rúlǐ draws together multiple earlier sub-commentaries, including the second-generation Cí’ēn material of 慧沼 and 智周, to elucidate Kuījī’s text.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not assign internal structure for X49n0815.
Abstract
The work is an important late-Tang representative of the third-generation Cí’ēn commentarial tradition. Where the second generation (慧沼 and 智周) produced sub-commentaries on the master text itself, the third generation increasingly produced sub-commentaries on Kuījī’s shùjì, treating it as a quasi-canonical text in its own right. Rúlǐ’s yìyǎn is the most substantial extant example of this pattern; together with his shorter KR6n0039 yǎnmì shì, it constitutes the principal late-Tang Cí’ēn corpus on the Chéng wéishí lùn commentarial tradition.
The dating bracket adopted (750–850) reflects scholarly uncertainty: the work post-dates 智周 (whose yǎnmì it draws on systematically) and pre-dates the late-Tang collapse of Cí’ēn institutional infrastructure following the Huìchāng 會昌 persecution of 845. The work survived in the Xuzangjing line but not in the Taishō.
Translations and research
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.