Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn shū 大乘百法明門論疏
Commentary on the Mahāyāna Treatise on the Bright Door of the Hundred Dharmas by 大乘光 (Dàshèngguāng = Pǔguāng, 撰)
About the work
A two-fascicle Tang Cí’ēn-school commentary on KR6n0096 Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn 大乘百法明門論 (T31n1614) — Vasubandhu’s hundred-dharma catalog. Composed by 大乘光 (Dàshèngguāng / Pǔguāng), one of 玄奘’s direct disciples and a major Cí’ēn-school commentator, at the Dà cí’ēnsì 大慈恩寺.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not preserve a structural division for T44N1837. The opening of the source text outlines the standard three-part exegetical method (“略以三門分別: 第一、明造論意, 第二、釋題目, 第三、隨文解釋” — “for brief analysis I divide [the work] into three sections: first, illuminating the rationale for the composition; second, interpreting the title; third, exposition following the text”), and the body of the commentary follows this structure.
Abstract
大乘光 (Pǔguāng) is one of the most important early-Tang Cí’ēn-school commentators on the Yogācāra abhidharma, alongside 窺基. His authorship of this Bǎifǎ commentary is attested by the source colophon “大慈恩寺沙門大乘光撰” (“composed by the Cí’ēnsì monk Dàshèngguāng”). The work systematically expounds Vasubandhu’s hundred-dharma classification through Pǔguāng’s standard three-part exegetical method — first establishing the rationale and pedagogical purpose of the work, then explicating the title, and finally proceeding through the body of the text.
The dating window adopted (660–700) covers Pǔguāng’s productive teaching period at Cí’ēnsì, from his establishment as a senior scholar there during the last years of 玄奘’s life through to his presumed retirement or death in the late seventh century. The commentary survived in the Tang and was eventually transmitted via Korean and Japanese routes, but became scarce in continental China; the Taishō text is reconstructed from East Asian manuscript sources.
The text is one of the principal Tang Cí’ēn commentaries on the hundred-dharma classification, complementing 窺基’s now-mostly-lost full commentary and providing one of the earliest sustained Chinese expositions of the Yogācāra abhidharma analysis of mind. Pǔguāng’s mature Jùshè lùn jì (T1821), his commentary on the Abhidharmakośa, is the authoritative Tang Cí’ēn-school treatment of the SarvāstivādaYogācāra abhidharma; the present Bǎifǎ commentary serves as its Yogācāra-specific counterpart.
Translations and research
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.
- Tagawa Shun’ei 田川俊英. Living Yogācāra. Boston: Wisdom, 2009.