Chéng wéishí lùn xuéjì 成唯識論學記
Study Notes on the Demonstration of Consciousness-Only by 太賢 (Tàixián / Taehyŏn, 集)
About the work
A seven-fascicle commentary on KR6n0016 Chéng wéishí lùn by the Sillan-Korean Cí’ēn master 太賢 (Tàixián / Taehyŏn, fl. mid-eighth century) — also written 大賢 — known as the “sea-east Yoga patriarch” (Hǎidōng Yúgā zǔ 海東瑜伽祖). The “xuéjì” 學記 (“study notes”) title indicates a work of pedagogical compilation, drawing together the relevant Tang-Cí’ēn commentarial tradition for use in Sillan monastic instruction. Preserved in the Xuzangjing (X50n0818).
Structural Division
CANWWW does not assign internal structure for X50n0818.
Abstract
太賢 travelled to Tang China and studied at the Xīmíngsì 西明寺 under Dàozhèng 道證, a disciple of Xuánzàng. He thus inherits a stream of Cí’ēn tradition close to Yuáncè 圓測 rather than to 窺基 / 慧沼 / 智周 — the rival Korean / Xīmíngsì line of Tang Yogācāra rather than the orthodox Cí’ēnsì line. This affiliation is reflected in the xuéjì, which gives more sympathetic treatment than the Cí’ēnsì commentaries to certain doctrinal positions of Yuáncè and to the Paramārtha-related Shèlùn doctrines.
The work was composed in Silla after Tàixián’s return from Tang China, conventionally dated to the period of his greatest activity in the 740s–760s under King Jǐngdé 景德王 (r. 742–765). The dating bracket adopted (740–770) covers this window. After Tàixián’s return to Silla, he became the leading transmitter of Cí’ēn doctrine in Korea; the xuéjì is the principal Sillan exegetical witness to T1585.
The work is one of the foundational texts of Korean Yogācāra Buddhism and is studied as a key source for the formation of Sillan Buddhist scholasticism, alongside Tàixián’s many other commentaries (the Yàoshī jīng gǔjī T1770, the Fànwǎng jīng gǔjī jì T1815, etc.). It also has substantial value as evidence for what the Xīmíngsì rather than the Cí’ēnsì stream of Tang Yogācāra looked like, since Yuáncè’s own commentaries are largely lost.
Translations and research
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. (Important context on Korean Buddhist scholasticism.)
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.
- Eun-su Cho. “Tàixián’s Yogācāra Commentary.” In Korean Buddhism: A New Survey. Various references.
- Han’guk Pulgyo chŏnsŏ 韓國佛敎全書, vol. 3. Seoul: Tongguk University, 1979–1989. (Standard Korean canonical edition of Tàixián’s works.)
Other points of interest
The xuéjì is one of the few extant non-Cí’ēnsì Tang Yogācāra commentaries on T1585. Together with 太賢’s other works it forms the principal corpus by which the Xīmíngsì line of Yogācāra was transmitted to Korea and preserved when the rival Cí’ēnsì line declined in China. Modern scholarship (especially Yoshimura, 2013) treats Tàixián’s commentaries as a major source for reconstructing the doctrinal positions of Yuáncè 圓測 (Wŏnch’ŭk) — much of whose own œuvre survives only in Korean reception.