Wéishí kāiméng wèndá 唯識開蒙問答
Question-and-Answer Primer to Consciousness-Only Doctrine by 雲峯 (Tōngjì Yúnfēng, 集)
About the work
A two-fascicle Yuán-period Yogācāra catechism in question-and-answer (wèndá 問答) form by 雲峯 Tōngjì Yúnfēng, abbot of Huáiyìlù Yìtáisì 懷益路義臺寺 in the Yuán Huáiyì circuit. Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X55n0888. One of the very few Yuán-period Yogācāra primers to survive and a key textual link in the transmission of Cí’ēn doctrine across the Sòng / Yuán boundary into the late-Míng Fǎxiàng revival.
Prefaces
The text is preceded by the Chóngkān Wéishí kāiméng báyǔ 重刻唯識開蒙跋語 (No. 888-A) — the Chóngzhēn 3 (gēngwǔ = 1630) re-cutting colophon by Dàzhēn 大真 of Gǔ Yánshòu Yuàn 古延壽院, who arranged the late-Míng re-publication of the work that had become rare in circulation. The colophon recounts the standard xìngxiàng synthesis history — Maitreya transmitted [the doctrine] to Vasubandhu, Xuánzàng received it from Śīlabhadra and Cí’ēn [Kuījī] gave it its full Chinese expression — and notes that “as the times shifted and errors entered, the old commentaries (gǔ shū 古疏) were lost; that a single thread did not break is owed to the Kāiméng in two fascicles, [though it too] had long ceased to circulate.” The re-cutting was undertaken by Xuěháng Jígōng 雪航楫公, with editorial help from Língyuán Huìxiōng 靈源惠兄 (sub-divisional outline) and Jìwǔ Chénjūn 際五陳君 (philological collation), with funding from Wáng Yuánjiàn, Wáng Rǔzhǐ, Yáng Cìbiàn, et al.
Abstract
The Wéishí kāiméng wèndá is the standard Yuán-period elementary primer to Yogācāra doctrine, organised as a sequence of student-questions and master-answers covering the core doctrinal apparatus: the eight consciousnesses, the sān xìng (three natures), the èr kōng (twofold emptiness), the sān liàng (three means of knowledge), the xīnsuǒ (mental factors), the path-stages, etc. Its survival is significant precisely because of the general scarcity of Yuán Yogācāra material — most of the Cí’ēn-school corpus from the Yuán was lost. The work was sufficiently authoritative that the late-Míng revivalists turned to it for elementary instruction, leading to the Chóngzhēn re-cutting that brought it back into general circulation.
The dating window 1280–1330 brackets the Yuán-period productive era during which Yúnfēng could have composed the work; he was abbot of Yìtáisì at the time of composition, which sets the upper bound. The catalog meta confirms 元 (Yuán) as the dynasty.
Translations and research
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013 — discusses the Yuán-Sòng Yogācāra textual transmission.
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究 — covers the late-Míng re-circulation of the work.