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因明正理門論本

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Text ID
KR6o0001
Date
649–650
Dynasty
唐

Yīnmíng zhèng lǐ mén lùn běn 因明正理門論本

Root Treatise on the Gate of Correct Reasoning of Hetuvidyā (Nyāyamukha) by 大域龍菩薩 (Dàyùlóng púsà / Dignāga, 造) and 玄奘 (Xuánzàng, 譯)

About the work

A short but extraordinarily influential treatise of one juǎn on Buddhist formal logic (hetuvidyā 因明) by Dignāga (陳那, c. 480–540), the founder of the Buddhist pramāṇa school. The Sanskrit original — Nyāyamukha “Gate of Reasoning” — does not survive; the work is preserved only in two Chinese translations and is the principal route by which Dignāga’s mature logical doctrine entered East Asia. The present version is the “root” (本) translation by 玄奘 (Xuánzàng), produced shortly after his return from India, conventionally dated to Yǒnghuī 永徽 1 (650) at the Dà Cí’ēn-sì 大慈恩寺. The text formulates the canonical “three-membered” syllogism (宗-因-喻 zōng-yīn-yù: thesis, reason, example) together with the doctrine of the “three characteristics of a valid reason” (因三相 yīn sān-xiàng) and a typology of fallacies (似宗 sì-zōng, 似因 sì-yīn, 似喻 sì-yù). It became the foundation document of the Cí’ēn / Fǎxiàng 法相 school’s logical exegesis and was glossed by Shéntài 神泰 KR6o0007 and KR6o0020 and by Wénguǐ 文軌 KR6o0021; the parallel translation by Yìjìng KR6o0002 differs in vocabulary and was used much less.

Structural Division

CANWWW (T32N1628) lists no internal sub-divisions for this single-juǎn treatise. Related-text pointers in CANWWW link to the parallel Yìjìng translation KR6o0002 (T32n1629) and to Shéntài’s Lǐmén lùn shùjì KR6o0007 (T44n1839).

Abstract

Dignāga’s Nyāyamukha is a compact and densely packed work that condenses the substance of his much larger Pramāṇasamuccaya into a single fascicle. It is the only one of his writings to enter the Chinese canon in two complete translations: the present 因明正理門論本 by Xuánzàng, and the slightly different 因明正理門論 by Yìjìng KR6o0002. Modern scholarship (Tucci 1930; Katsura 1977ff.) has noted that the Yìjìng version preserves verses where Xuánzàng’s version has prose, suggesting they translate slightly different recensions; on the basis of Tibetan and Chinese fragments together with the Jainas Mallavādin’s Dvādaśāra-naya-cakra citations, much of the Sanskrit can be reconstructed. The canonical Chinese text was produced at Dà Cí’ēn-sì in 永徽 1 (650), one of the early translations Xuánzàng undertook on the hetuvidyā corpus together with Śaṅkarasvāmin’s Nyāyapraveśa KR6o0003 (translated 647). The Taishō uses the Korean canon (高麗藏) as its base, collated against Sòng, Yuán, Míng, and palace (宮) editions. The text is the principal source for what is called “old” (古因明 gǔ-yīnmíng) Buddhist logic in East Asia — Dignāga’s mature system, but predating Dharmakīrti’s reform; the latter’s work was never translated into Chinese, leaving the Nyāyamukha and the Nyāyapraveśa as the canonical pair throughout the East Asian tradition.

Translations and research

  • Tucci, Giuseppe. The Nyāyamukha of Dignāga, the oldest Buddhist text on logic, after Chinese and Tibetan materials. Materialien zur Kunde des Buddhismus 15. Heidelberg: Harrassowitz, 1930. — The pioneering Western reconstruction and German translation.
  • Katsura Shōryū 桂紹隆. “Inmyō shōrimon ron kenkyū” 因明正理門論研究 [Studies on the Nyāyamukha]. Hiroshima Daigaku bungakubu kiyō 37–46 (1977–1987). — Multi-part annotated Japanese translation and study; the standard modern treatment.
  • Ueda Yoshifumi 上田義文. Inmyō nyū shōri ron / Inmyō shōrimon ron 因明入正理論・因明正理門論. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 1979.
  • Frauwallner, Erich. “Dignāga, sein Werk und seine Entwicklung.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 3 (1959): 83–164. — Foundational chronology of Dignāga’s writings.

Other points of interest

The Nyāyamukha is frequently cited together with KR6o0003 as “Dignāga’s gate-treatise and the disciple’s introduction-treatise” (門論・入論); much of the exegetical literature collected in the rest of KR6o consists of nested commentaries on the latter, and only Shéntài’s 述記 KR6o0007, KR6o0020 is a sustained commentary on the present Mūla text.

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