Bā shí guījǔ tōngshuō 八識規矩通說
Comprehensive Exposition of the Eight-Consciousnesses Verses by 德清 (Hānshān Déqīng, 述)
About the work
A single-fascicle late-Míng commentary on the Bā shí guījǔ sòng 八識規矩頌 by 德清 Hānshān Déqīng (1546–1623). Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X55n0893. The companion piece on the eight-consciousness scheme to Hānshān’s KR6n0103 Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn lùnyì, presenting Hānshān’s distinctive ecumenical reading of the late-Míng Cí’ēn synthesis.
Prefaces
Authorship line: “Táng sānzàng fǎshī Xuánzàng jí 唐三藏法師玄奘集 (compiled by Tripiṭaka Master Xuánzàng of the Táng) / Míng Hānshān shāmén Déqīng shù 明憨山沙門德清述 (recounted by the Míng Hānshān monk Déqīng).” Hānshān opens with a programmatic prologue establishing the historical setting of the Bā shí guījǔ sòng: when 玄奘 compiled the Chéng wéishí lùn 成唯識論 (T31n1585), 窺基 saw that the parent text was 10 fascicles long with broad prose and profound meaning, and asked Xuánzàng to compile the essentials. Xuánzàng accordingly divided the eight consciousnesses into four chapters, with each chapter as a 12-line verse, and distributed the 51 xīnsuǒ (mental factors) across the eight consciousnesses according to their doctrinal placement — “ordered without confusion, hence called guījǔ (standards / regulations).” Although the parent treatise is 10 fascicles, “its doctrine is exhausted by these forty-eight lines, encompassing without remainder, and may be called the most concise and most essential — the key to the entire canonical teaching.” This is the standard Chinese tradition’s account of the verse-text’s origin and is the source of the common modern attribution of the guījǔ to Xuánzàng.
Abstract
The Tōngshuō is the canonical late-Míng integrative reading of the Bā shí guījǔ sòng. Hānshān reads each 12-line verse-block through the One Mind doctrine of the Qǐxìn lùn and the meditative practice of the Lèngyán jīng: the eight-consciousness analysis is treated as a propaedeutic articulation of the yīxīn (One Mind) for the purposes of practice. Together with the KR6n0103 Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn lùnyì and the KR6n0102 Xìngxiàng tōngshuō preface, this work constitutes Hānshān’s three principal Yogācāra writings.
The dating window 1597–1623 brackets Hānshān’s productive late period after his exile to Léizhōu through to his death.
Translations and research
- Sung-peng Hsu, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979.
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究.