Wéishí sānshí lùn yuēyì 唯識三十論約意
Concise Meaning of the Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only by 明昱 (Míngyù, 約意)
About the work
A short single-fascicle commentary by the late-Míng Yogācāra revivalist 明昱 on KR6n0022 Wéishí sānshí lùn sòng 唯識三十論頌 (T31n1586) — Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā. The “yuēyì” 約意 (“compressed meaning”) title indicates a concise verse-by-verse exposition designed for pedagogical use. Preserved in the Xuzangjing (X51n0827).
Structural Division
CANWWW does not assign internal structure for X51n0827.
Abstract
The work is one of 明昱’s several Yogācāra commentaries (alongside KR6n0043 súquán on KR6n0016, KR6n0105 zhuìyán on the Mahāyāna-śatadharma KR6n0096, KR6n0114 huìshì and KR6n0116 shì jì on the Ālambana-parīkṣā, etc.). Together these constitute one of the principal late-Míng monuments of Yogācāra scholarship.
The yuēyì differs from the standard Cí’ēn approach to the Triṃśikā in that it treats the verses as an independent text rather than as the verse-base of KR6n0016 Chéng wéishí lùn: Míngyù provides a stand-alone exegesis of each kārikā, drawing on his own reading of the Triṃśikā tradition rather than simply paraphrasing the Chéng wéishí lùn commentary. This is a methodological innovation of some interest — it is one of the very few late-imperial Chinese commentaries on the Triṃśikā as such, rather than as the kārikā-base of the longer treatise.
The dating bracket adopted (1582–1620) covers Míngyù’s mature commentarial period.
Translations and research
- Lin Chen-kuo 林鎮國. Kongxing yu xiandai xing. Taipei: Lìxù wénhuà, 1999.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.