Bā shí guījǔ zhíjiě 八識規矩直解
Direct Explanation of the Eight-Consciousnesses Verses by 智旭 (Ǒuyì Zhìxù, 解)
About the work
A single-fascicle late-Míng commentary on the Bā shí guījǔ sòng 八識規矩頌 by 智旭 Ǒuyì Zhìxù (1599–1655). Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X55n0895. Part of Zhìxù’s zhíjiě set of compact direct expositions of the late-Míng Yogācāra core curriculum, alongside KR6n0106 Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn zhíjiě, KR6n0115 Guān suǒyuányuán lùn zhíjiě, KR6n0117 Guān suǒyuányuán lùn shì zhíjiě, and KR6n0145 Xiàngzōng bā yào zhíjiě.
Prefaces
Authorship line: “Sānzàng fǎshī Xuánzàng zuò 三藏法師玄奘作 (composed by Tripiṭaka Master Xuánzàng) / Ǒuyì shāmén Zhìxù jiě 蕅益沙門智旭解 (explicated by the Ǒuyì monk Zhìxù).” No separate preface; the text opens directly with the first verse (“xìngjìng xiànliàng tōng sān xìng 性境現量通三性”) and the running commentary.
Abstract
The Zhíjiě is the most concise and pedagogically polished of the late-Míng guījǔ commentaries — designed for direct use in teaching. Zhìxù reads each verse with a brief, doctrinally precise gloss, with the broader integrative xìngxiàng synthesis kept in the background and the foreground occupied by clear definition and example. Where Hānshān’s KR6n0135 Tōngshuō opens the text out into the yīxīn doctrine and Pǔtài’s KR6n0131 Bǔzhù loads the verses with the full Cí’ēn-school technical apparatus, Zhìxù’s Zhíjiě finds the middle path: each verse is glossed precisely enough for the doctrine to be unambiguous, but compactly enough for the student to retain the verse as a mnemonic. This is the guījǔ commentary most frequently used in modern Chinese Buddhist seminaries.
The dating window 1630–1655 brackets Zhìxù’s productive period after his major doctrinal turn around 1631.
Translations and research
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究.
- Beverley Foulks McGuire, Living Karma: The Religious Practices of Ouyi Zhixu (1599–1655). Columbia University Press, 2014.