Bā shí guījǔ bǔzhù 八識規矩補註
Supplementary Annotations on the Verses on the Standards of the Eight Consciousnesses by 普泰 (Lǔān Pǔtài, 補註)
About the work
A two-fascicle Míng commentary by 普泰 Pǔtài (also called Lǔān 魯庵) on the famous Bā shí guījǔ sòng 八識規矩頌 — the Yogācāra didactic-verse text traditionally attributed to 玄奘’s compositional hand and to 窺基’s editorial impulse, summarising the doctrinal essentials of the Chéng wéishí lùn 成唯識論 (T31n1585) in four 12-line verse-blocks (one each for the front-five, the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth consciousnesses). Preserved in the Taishō at T45n1865. The single most important pre-Wàn-lì commentary on the Bā shí guījǔ sòng and the work that effectively re-established the guījǔ tradition in late-Míng China — Hānshān Déqīng’s KR6n0102 preface explicitly credits Lǔshān fǎshī (= Pǔtài) with the late-Míng restoration of the guījǔ commentary genre.
Prefaces
The text opens with the Bā shí guījǔ bǔzhù xù 八識規矩補註序 — Pǔtài’s own preface — explaining the compact verse-form: “The Bāshí sòng in total comprises eight chapters; the prose is brief but the doctrine is profound. [Vasubandhu / Xuánzàng] gathered up the verse-bodies (sòngtǐ 頌體) and provided the rhyme — so the doctrine derives from elsewhere [the Chéng wéishí lùn] and the prose from this. To unfold it fully is to leave nothing of the wéishí doctrine unexpressed. Anciently Vasubandhu, foreseeing that the mental energy of late-students would diminish and not endure…” — Pǔtài thus positions the guījǔ as a deliberately compact mnemonic for the Cí’ēn doctrinal corpus.
Abstract
The Bǔzhù is an interlinear commentary that goes verse-by-verse through all four 12-line guījǔ blocks, supplying the doctrinal exposition that the compact verses presuppose: the xìngjìng / dàizhì / dúyǐng tripartition of cognitive objects (sān lèi jìng 三類境), the sān liàng (xiàn liàng / bǐ liàng / fēi liàng — direct perception, inference, fallacious cognition), the sān xìng (good / bad / indeterminate moral character), the sānjiè jiǔdì schema, the xīnsuǒ analysis (the 51 caitta mental factors and their distribution across the eight consciousnesses), and the path-doctrine of when each consciousness undergoes its zhuǎnyī (transformation-of-basis). The work was the platform for the entire late-Míng Yogācāra revival of the guījǔ tradition: it is taken up and supplemented by 明昱’s KR6n0132 Zhèngyì, by 正誨’s KR6n0133 Lüèshuō, by 真可’s KR6n0134 Jiě, by 德清’s KR6n0135 Tōngshuō, by 廣益’s KR6n0136 Zuǎnshì, and by 智旭’s KR6n0137 Zhíjiě.
普泰 Pǔtài (DILA A001440 / zì Lǔān 魯庵) was active in the early-to-middle Jiājìng era (c. 1522–1566); the dating window 1530–1542 brackets his productive Cí’ēn-revival work in mid-Míng. He is the great pivot-figure between the long medieval lapse of Cí’ēn study (after the Sòng) and the late-Míng full revival under Hānshān, Míngyù, and Zhìxù. His commentary survived to enter the Taishō.
Translations and research
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究, ch. 5 (the late-Míng Yogācāra revival, with extensive treatment of Pǔ-tài).
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.