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觀總相論頌

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Text ID
KR6n0121
Date
700–711
Dynasty
唐

Guān zǒngxiàng lùn sòng 觀總相論頌

Verses of the Treatise on the Investigation of Universals (Sāmānya-lakṣaṇa-parīkṣā) by 陳那菩薩 (Dignāga, 造), translated by 義淨 (Yìjìng, 譯)

About the work

A very short single-fascicle verse treatise by 陳那菩薩 Dignāga (c. 480–540), translated by 義淨 Yìjìng in the early-eighth-century Táng. Preserved in the Taishō at T31n1623. Only the verses (sòng 頌) of the Sāmānya-lakṣaṇa-parīkṣā survive in this Chinese version; the auto-commentary that accompanied the verses in the Indian recension was not translated. One of the briefest pieces in the entire Indian Yogācāra-pramāṇa canon transmitted to China.

Structural Division

CANWWW does not record sub-parts or cross-references for T31N1623.

Prefaces

No separate preface; the work opens directly with the verses. The first stanza addresses the audience: “For those who love the brief, [the doctrine] is [already] manifest in outline / If there are those who love elaborate prose, [they should consult elsewhere]…” — i.e. an opening apologia for the very compact verse-only format.

Abstract

The Sāmānya-lakṣaṇa-parīkṣā is Dignāga’s compact treatment of universals (sāmānya / sāmānya-lakṣaṇa — what is shared in common across multiple particulars) within his pramāṇa framework. Dignāga’s settled position, developed at length in the Pramāṇa-samuccaya, is the canonical Buddhist apoha (exclusion) doctrine: there are no real universals over and above particulars, and the appearance of universal cognition arises through a process of apoha (exclusion of the contrary) operating on individual cognitions. The Guān zǒngxiàng lùn sòng is the most compact statement of this doctrine in the Chinese canon. Without the original Sanskrit auto-commentary it is difficult to read in isolation, but it serves as a witness to the verse-recension that circulated independently of the prose.

The translation is part of 義淨’s extensive Cháng-ān-period Dignāga campaign of c. 700–711, alongside KR6n0119 Zhǎngzhōng lùn and KR6n0120 Qǔyīn jiǎshè lùn.

Translations and research

  • Theodor Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic. 2 vols. Leningrad, 1932.
  • Hidenori Kitagawa 北川秀則, Indo koten ronrigaku no kenkyū: Jinna no taikei. Tokyo: Suzuki gakujutsu zaidan, 1965.
  • Mark Siderits, Tom Tillemans, and Arindam Chakrabarti (eds.), Apoha: Buddhist Nominalism and Human Cognition. Columbia University Press, 2011.

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