Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn jiě 大乘百法明門論解
Explanation of the Mahāyāna Treatise on the Bright Door of the Hundred Dharmas by 窺基 (Kuījī, 註解, Tang) and 普泰 (Pǔtài, 增修, Ming)
About the work
A two-fascicle commentary on KR6n0096 Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn 大乘百法明門論 (T31n1614). The dual attribution is significant: the Tang notes-and-explanation are attributed to 窺基 (Kuījī, 632–682), the founder of the Cí’ēn school, but the surviving text in its received form is the Ming-period zēngxiū 增修 (expansion-revision) by 普泰 (Pǔtài, fl. early sixteenth c.). The text is conventionally listed in catalogs under the Tang, as the underlying material is presumed to be Tang in origin, but the surviving redaction is in fact mid-Ming. Catalog-vs-external dating discrepancy: the catalog gives “Tang” as the dynasty, but the redaction is Ming; the dating window adopted (1500–1550) reflects the actual composition date of the surviving text.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T44N1836) lists KR6n0096 Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn (T31n1614) as the related text. The two juǎn track the structure of Vasubandhu’s hundred-dharma catalog, with extensive commentary on the categorisation of mental factors (caitasika) and the eight consciousnesses.
Abstract
The Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn jiě served as the principal Míng-period textbook of the Yogācāra abhidharma — replacing the lost or fragmentary Tang Cí’ēn-school commentaries on Vasubandhu’s hundred-dharma catalog. Pǔtài’s role as zēngxiū / “expander-and-reviser” is acknowledged by the Taishō editors and modern scholarship: while the work preserves what Pǔtài identified as Kuījī’s notes (probably surviving in some form via Hossō school manuscripts brought back from Japan, or via a partial Sòng-period transmission), the substantial body of the commentary is Pǔtài’s own.
The text is the principal source for late-imperial Chinese scholarly understanding of the hundred-dharma classification, and was the main source studied by 袾宏, 智旭, 明昱, and the other late-Míng Yogācāra revivalists. It was extensively reprinted in the Ming and early Qing canons.
The catalog dating designation as “Tang” is preserved here as in the catalog, with the actual dating window (1500–1550) indicating the composition of the surviving redaction. This is one of the rare cases in the Buddhist canon where a fundamental Chinese text is received in a substantial Ming-period revision but catalogued under its (partial) Tang ancestry.
Translations and research
- Lin Chen-kuo 林鎮國. Kōng-xìng yǔ xiàn-dài-xìng 空性與現代性. Taipei: Lìxù wénhuà, 1999.
- Tagawa Shun’ei 田川俊英. Living Yogācāra. Boston: Wisdom, 2009.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.