Shè dàshèng lùn shì lùn 攝大乘論釋論

Treatise of the Commentary on the Compendium of the Mahāyāna (Vasubandhu, Mahāyāna-saṅgraha-bhāṣya) by 世親菩薩 (Shìqīn púsà = Vasubandhu, 造) and 笈多 (Jíduō = Dharmagupta, 等譯) with 行矩 (Xíngjǔ, 等譯)

About the work

The Suí-period ten-fascicle translation of Vasubandhu’s Mahāyāna-saṅgraha-bhāṣya by 笈多 (Dharmagupta, d. 619) and 行矩 (Xíngjǔ) at the Cháng’ān translation bureau, c. 605–610. This is the second of three Chinese versions of Vasubandhu’s bhāṣya on Asaṅga’s Mahāyāna-saṅgraha: the others are KR6n0061 (T31n1595, 真諦, 陳, 563–564) at fifteen juǎn, and KR6n0064 (T31n1597, 玄奘, 唐, 648–649) at ten juǎn. Although less celebrated than either Paramārtha’s expanded version or Xuánzàng’s revised one, it is a valuable comparative witness to the early-seventh-century state of the Indian text.

Structural Division

CANWWW (T31N1596) does not preserve a per-fascicle internal table. The ten juǎn track Vasubandhu’s commentary on the ten chapters of the Mahāyāna-saṅgraha, with chapter headings preserved in the source (“應知依止勝相勝語第一” — “First Section, Sublime Saying on the Recognition of the Basis of Knowledge”).

Abstract

Dharmagupta — a south-Indian translator who arrived at Cháng’ān in Kāihuáng 開皇 10 (590) — produced this version with the assistance of Xíngjǔ, who is named in the colophon (隋天竺三藏笈多共行矩等譯). The dating window (605–610) reflects the Dàyè 大業 reign (605–618) translation activity, narrowed to the period before Yángdì’s last campaigns disrupted the Cháng’ān bureau. The Lìdài sānbǎo jì and Kāiyuán shìjiào lù j. 7 list the work in Dharmagupta’s productive Cháng’ān phase.

The translation is generally regarded as a competent but unspectacular rendering — closer to the Tibetan version than Paramārtha’s expansive redaction, but lacking the systematic doctrinal precision of Xuánzàng’s later translation. Its chief value lies in its preservation of an Indian textual recension intermediate between the sixth- and seventh-century forms of the bhāṣya, and in the witness it provides to Suí-period Chinese assimilation of Yogācāra doctrine prior to Xuánzàng. The text was largely supplanted by KR6n0064 in seventh-century Yogācāra study but remained available and is occasionally cited in the Cí’ēn commentaries.

Translations and research

  • Lamotte, Étienne. La somme du Grand Véhicule d’Asaṅga. Louvain, 1938.
  • Nagao Gadjin 長尾雅人. Shōdaijōron — wayaku to chūkai. Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1982–1987.
  • Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Shintai sanzō kenkyū ronshū. Kyoto, 2012.