Bā shí guījǔ bǔzhù zhèngyì 八識規矩補註證義
Doctrinal Verification of the Supplementary Annotations on the Eight-Consciousnesses Verses by 明昱 (Gāoyuán Míngyù, 證義)
About the work
A single-fascicle late-Míng sub-commentary by 明昱 Gāoyuán Míngyù on Pǔtài’s KR6n0131 Bā shí guījǔ bǔzhù. Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X55n0890. The function-marker zhèngyì 證義 (“doctrinal verification”) indicates a sub-commentary that verifies (in both the assertive and the philological senses) Pǔtài’s doctrinal positions, citing supporting authority from the broader Cí’ēn-school corpus.
Prefaces
The text opens with a substantial preface — Bā shí guījǔ bǔzhù zhèngyì xù 八識規矩補註證義序 (No. 890-A) — that situates the entire xìngxiàng problematic in the historical narrative of Indian and Chinese Buddhist thought: from the Buddha’s juéhuáng 覺皇 (sovereign-of-awakening) original synthesis, through the post-parinirvāṇa Indian split between Mañjuśrī’s and Maitreya’s lineages (i.e. between xìng and xiàng), through Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu’s separate restorations, into the Chinese tradition where xìng and xiàng “share the cloud and the moon but each its own stream and mountain.” Vasubandhu’s Bāshí synthesis “extracts the Yújiā” doctrine and condenses it into the eight-consciousness scheme; Pǔtài’s Bǔzhù recovered this for late Míng practice; Míngyù’s Zhèngyì now verifies and corroborates Pǔtài’s exposition.
Abstract
The Zhèngyì tracks Pǔtài’s Bǔzhù verse by verse, supplying additional doctrinal authority from the Chéng wéishí lùn, the Yújiā shīdì lùn, and the standard Cí’ēn-school glossary. Where Pǔtài’s interpretation could be read in more than one way, Míngyù argues for the philologically more conservative and Cí’ēn-orthodox reading. The work is a key witness to Míngyù’s principal late-Míng Yogācāra philological project: re-establishing the strict Cí’ēn-school reading of the guījǔ tradition as against the more ecumenical readings being developed in parallel by Hānshān (KR6n0135) and Zhìxù (KR6n0137).
The dating window 1590–1620 brackets Míngyù’s productive Wànlì period.
Translations and research
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.