Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn kāizōng yìjì 大乘百法明門論開宗義記
Notes on the Founding Doctrine of the Mahāyāna Hundred-Dharmas Treatise by 曇曠 (Tánkuàng, 撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle Cí’ēn-school commentary on Vasubandhu’s KR6n0096 Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn 大乘百法明門論 (T31n1614) by the late-Táng Dūnhuáng-school monk 曇曠 Tánkuàng of the Chángān Xīmíngsì 京西明道場 (= Xīmíngsì 西明寺). One of the principal Yogācāra commentaries recovered from the Dūnhuáng cache rather than transmitted via the standard Sino-Japanese canonical line; preserved only in the Taishō supplement (vol. 85) drawn from Stein/Pelliot manuscripts. Companion to its sub-commentary KR6n0108 Kāizōng yìjì xùshì 開宗義記序釋 and to its zhuāngyán (decisional supplement) KR6n0109 Kāizōng yìjué 開宗義決, all by the same author.
Structural Division
CANWWW preserves a related-text relation linking T85N2810 ↔ KR6n0108 (T85N2811) and KR6n0109 (T85N2812) — the three works form an integrated commentary set. The text itself opens with a single literary preface (xùwén) followed by the running commentary; there is no internal kēpàn division beyond the standard Cí’ēn three-part scheme of (1) preface (xùyì 序意), (2) explication of title (shìtí 釋題), (3) running exposition (shìwén 釋文).
Prefaces
The opening xù is a substantial literary essay arguing the doctrinal complementarity of the xìng and xiàng schools: “the Bodhisattva-elect [Maitreya] greatly expounded the Yújiā doctrine, blocking the gates of the two extreme views and opening the single true path”; Vasubandhu (named here in his zhèng form as a “third-stage bodhisattva neighbouring the ten holy ones”) then “extracted the essence from the broad sections, gathered the doctrinal essentials in concise text, drew on the rude beginners and compiled this small treatise” — so that the Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn is to be read as a propaedeutic distillation of the Yújiā shīdì lùn designed to lead the unprepared student up through the Mahāyāna path.
Abstract
The Kāizōng yìjì is the most substantial late-Táng commentary on the Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn to survive, and the principal vehicle by which the post-Kuījī Xīmíngsì Yogācāra reading of the text was transmitted. Tánkuàng was active in Chángān at Xīmíngsì (the great imperial Buddhist monastic centre and home of the Cí’ēn-school after the Huìchāng persecution had not yet displaced it), and represents the strand of Cí’ēn doctrine that descends through Yuáncè 圓測 rather than through Kuījī’s main line. The text was lost in the standard transmission and survives only via Dūnhuáng manuscripts; it was first restored to circulation by the early-twentieth-century editors of the Taishō supplement.
The dating window 760–790 reflects Tánkuàng’s productive period: he is known to have been active in Chángān during the Tiānbǎo / Dàlì / Jiànzhōng eras (mid-eighth century), and the companion KR6n0109 Kāizōng yìjué is precisely datable to Dàlì 9 = 774 by its own colophon. The Kāizōng yìjì was composed slightly earlier, since the Yìjué was written specifically as a xùshì (sequel-explanation) to clarify obscure points in the Yìjì.
Translations and research
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū 中国唯識思想史研究. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.
- Sakurabe Hajime 桜部建, “Tonkō shutsudo Yuishiki bunken no kenkyū” 敦煌出土唯識文献の研究. Various studies on the Dūnhuáng Yogācāra commentaries.
- Ueyama Daishun 上山大峻, Tonkō Bukkyō no kenkyū 敦煌仏教の研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1990 — extensive coverage of Tán-kuàng and the Dūnhuáng-Cháng-ān Yogācāra material.