Shè dàshèng lùn shì 攝大乘論釋
Commentary on the Compendium of the Mahāyāna (Vasubandhu, Mahāyāna-saṅgraha-bhāṣya) by 世親菩薩 (Shìqīn púsà = Vasubandhu, 造) and 玄奘 (Xuánzàng, 譯)
About the work
玄奘’s ten-fascicle translation of Vasubandhu’s Mahāyāna-saṅgraha-bhāṣya — the standard Cí’ēn-school commentary on the Mahāyāna-saṅgraha root text translated as KR6n0060 Shè dàshèng lùn běn (T31n1594). Produced together with the root-text translation in 648–649 at Hóngfúsì 弘福寺. Of the three Chinese versions of the bhāṣya — KR6n0061 (T31n1595, Paramārtha), KR6n0063 (T31n1596, Dharmagupta and Xíngjǔ), and this — it is the doctrinally precise standard text for East Asian Yogācāra study.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T31N1597) does not preserve a per-fascicle internal table. The ten juǎn track Vasubandhu’s bhāṣya on the ten chapters of the Mahāyāna-saṅgraha. The work is paired with the parallel commentary by Asvabhāva, KR6n0065 Shè dàshèng lùn shì (T31n1598), also translated by Xuánzàng.
Abstract
The translation is firmly dated to Zhēnguān 22 (648) – Zhēnguān 23 (649), as recorded in the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù j. 8 and the Dà Táng dà cí’ēnsì sānzàng fǎshī zhuàn j. 7. It was carried out at Hóngfúsì 弘福寺 in Cháng’ān, with Xuánzàng’s standard team of Chinese assistants (Biànjī 辯機, Dàoxuān 道宣 and others). The translation differs from Paramārtha’s KR6n0061 in three principal respects:
- Length: ten juǎn against Paramārtha’s fifteen — closer to the surviving Tibetan version (D 4050).
- Vocabulary: Xuánzàng uses his standardised Yogācāra technical lexicon (ālayavijñāna = ālàiyē shí 阿賴耶識; manas = mònà shí 末那識; the eight consciousnesses; the three natures sānxìng 三性) that became the canonical Chinese vocabulary.
- Doctrine: the Xuánzàng version does not contain the amala-vijñāna doctrine that Paramārtha had introduced as a distinctive ninth consciousness — a major doctrinal difference that ensured the obsolescence of Paramārtha’s Shèlùn school after the Xuánzàng / Cí’ēn synthesis.
Together with KR6n0060 (root) and KR6n0065 (Asvabhāva commentary), this work constitutes Xuánzàng’s complete Mahāyāna-saṅgraha corpus, the foundational systematic Yogācāra textual base of the Cí’ēn / Hossō school.
Translations and research
- Keenan, John P. The Summary of the Great Vehicle. Berkeley: Numata Center, 1992 (rev. 2003). (Translation principally of T1593 with comparative use of T1597.)
- 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.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.
Links
- CBETA
- 世親菩薩 Shìqīn púsà DILA
- 玄奘 Xuánzàng DILA
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (655): [ T ] T = CBETA [Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association]. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭. Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai/Daizō shuppan, 1924-1932. CBReader v 5.0, 2014. https://dazangthings.nz/cbc/source/1/