Chéng wéishí lùn súquán 成唯識論俗詮
Vernacular Exposition of the Demonstration of Consciousness-Only by 明昱 (Míngyù, 詮)
About the work
A ten-fascicle commentary on KR6n0016 Chéng wéishí lùn by the late-Míng Yogācāra revivalist 明昱 (Míngyù, zì Gāoyuán 高原). The “súquán” 俗詮 (“vernacular exposition”) title is doctrinally programmatic: it indicates a commentary aimed at a less specialised readership than the Tang-dynasty Cí’ēn commentaries, written in clearer late-Míng prose, and intended to make the Chéng wéishí lùn doctrinally accessible to monks and lay scholars who had not been trained in the technical Cí’ēn vocabulary. Preserved in the Xuzangjing (X50n0820).
(The catalog meta entry tags the author “明昱俗” and dynasty 唐, both of which are scribal corruptions: the “俗” belongs to the title, not the author’s name, and the dynasty is firmly Míng.)
Structural Division
CANWWW does not assign internal structure for X50n0820.
Abstract
The súquán is one of the principal late-Míng Yogācāra commentaries, alongside KR6n0044 jíjiě by 通潤, KR6n0045 zhèngyì by 王肯堂, KR6n0046 zìkǎo by 大惠, and KR6n0047 guānxīn fǎyào by 智旭. Together these works constitute the late-Míng Yogācāra revival — a doctrinal restoration project of extraordinary scope, given that Cí’ēn studies had been moribund in China for some six hundred years before this revival.
The work was composed during Míngyù’s mature teaching period; the dating bracket adopted (1582–1620) covers his most plausible activity window. Internal evidence (citations of late-Wàn-lì publications) places much of the composition in the 1600s and 1610s.
The text reflects Míngyù’s distinctive doctrinal program: a sympathetic synthesis of the Cí’ēnsì orthodox reading (drawing on 窺基’s KR6n0026 shùjì and Huìzhāo’s KR6n0030 liǎoyì dēng) with elements of Tiāntái and Huáyán Yogācāra-related doctrine, framed for a broader Buddhist readership.
Translations and research
- Lin Chen-kuo 林鎮國. Kongxing yu xiandai xing 空性與現代性. Taipei: Lìxù wénhuà, 1999. (Standard modern Chinese monograph on the late-Míng Yogācāra revival.)
- Lin Chen-kuo. “Late-Ming Reception of Yogācāra.” In Buddhism in the Modern World, various.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013. (Includes an important final chapter on the late-Míng revival.)
Other points of interest
The late-Míng Yogācāra revival of which the súquán is a major monument is closely tied to the broader late-Míng Buddhist revival of which 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng, 真可 Zǐbǎi Zhēnkě, 德清 Hānshān Déqīng, and 智旭 Ǒuyì Zhìxù were the “four great masters.” Míngyù is the principal Yogācāra-specialist of this group and his works substantially shaped the late-Míng and Qīng reception of T1585.