Guān suǒyuányuán lùn huìshì 觀所緣緣論會釋
Synthetic Commentary on the Investigation into the Object-Condition by 明昱 (Gāoyuán Míngyù, 會釋)
About the work
A single-fascicle late-Míng commentary by 明昱 Gāoyuán Míngyù (the Wàn-lì-era Yogācāra revivalist) on Dignāga’s KR6n0112 Guān suǒyuányuán lùn 觀所緣緣論 (T31n1624, in 玄奘’s translation). Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X51n0830. The function-marker huìshì 會釋 (“synthetic explication”) indicates a commentary that gathers together (huì) and reconciles the various exegetical lines that had developed around the text — both in the Indian Yogācāra (Dharmapāla, etc.) and in the post-Kuījī Cí’ēn-school tradition.
Prefaces
Authorship line: “Chénnà púsà 陳那菩薩 造; Táng sānzàng fǎshī Xuánzàng 唐三藏法師玄奘 譯; Míng Shǔ shāmén Míngyù 明蜀沙門明昱 會釋.” No separate preface; opens directly with the running commentary on the title. Míngyù glosses the title term-by-term: guān 觀 = “investigation”; suǒyuán 所緣 = “having the meaning of an object” (yǒu jìng yì 有境義); yuán 緣 = “having the meaning of being able to draw forth a perception” (néng yǐnshēng shí yì 能引生識義). The hyphen between the two yuán (which Chinese readers sometimes obscure) is the entire substance of the work: only what fulfils both meanings — being a real cognitive object and causally producing the perception that takes it as object — is properly called the suǒyuányuán (object-condition).
Abstract
The Huìshì presents Dignāga’s argument as a binary diagnostic: any candidate for the role of suǒyuányuán must satisfy both the yǒujìng (being-an-object) condition and the yǐnshēng (causally-generating) condition; the paramāṇu satisfies the second but not the first; the aggregated cluster satisfies the first but not the second; therefore neither external candidate works, and the suǒyuányuán must be the inner xiāngfēn 相分 (image-portion) of consciousness itself — the canonical Yogācāra vijñapti-mātra conclusion. Míngyù’s commentary works through this symmetric refutation in detail and integrates the Cí’ēn-school treatment found in the Chéng wéishí lùn 成唯識論 (T31n1585) and in 窺基’s lost Shū on the Guān suǒyuányuán lùn.
The dating window 1590–1620 brackets Míngyù’s productive Wàn-lì-era period; this is one of his three commentaries on the Guānsuǒyuán corpus (alongside KR6n0116 Shìjì — his commentary on Dharmapāla’s vṛtti — and the Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn zhuìyán KR6n0105). Together they form Míngyù’s principal contribution to the late-Míng Yogācāra revival’s recovery of Dignāga’s pramāṇa corpus.
Translations and research
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究, ch. 5 on the late-Míng Yogācāra commentaries.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.
- Douglas Duckworth et al., Dignāga’s Investigation of the Percept. Oxford UP, 2016 — surveys the late-imperial Chinese commentary tradition.