Yīnmíng zhèng lǐ mén lùn 因明正理門論
Treatise on the Gate of Correct Reasoning of Hetuvidyā (Nyāyamukha) by 大域龍菩薩 (Dàyùlóng púsà / Dignāga, 造) and 義淨 (Yìjìng, 譯)
About the work
The second Chinese rendering of Dignāga’s Nyāyamukha, in one juǎn, produced by 義淨 (Yìjìng, 635–713) some half-century after the parallel Xuánzàng version KR6o0001. Like the Mūla text it sets out the canonical three-membered syllogism (宗-因-喻), the doctrine of the three characteristics of a valid reason (因三相), and the typology of fallacies of thesis, reason, and example, but its phrasing differs in many places from Xuánzàng’s. Yìjìng worked from a manuscript brought back from his own twenty-five-year sojourn in India and Śrīvijaya (671–695), and his version retains more of Dignāga’s verses (頌) where Xuánzàng frequently smooths them into prose. The translation was carried out at the Dà Jiànfúsì 大薦福寺 in Cháng’ān after Yìjìng’s return; conventionally placed in the first decade of the eighth century, between his return in 695 and his death in 713, with the most likely window 700–711 when his translation bureau was active under imperial patronage.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1629) lists no internal sub-divisions. The related-text pointer in CANWWW links to the parallel Xuánzàng translation KR6o0001 (T32n1628).
Abstract
The Taishō notes at the head of the text “《因明正理門論》一〔卷〕－【宋】” — i.e. the Sòng edition omits the title’s juǎn enumeration — and credits “大域龍菩薩造，大唐三藏法師義淨奉 制譯”, marking the translation as imperially commissioned (奉制譯). The opening sentence “為欲簡持能立能破義中真實故造斯論” is identical to that of Xuánzàng’s version, but the divergences in the prose body are substantial enough that the East Asian yīnmíng tradition consistently treated the Xuánzàng version as the standard and the Yìjìng version as a witness for variant readings. Modern scholarship (Tucci 1930; Katsura 1977ff.) has used the Yìjìng version, the Xuánzàng version, and the Tibetan parallel together to reconstruct the Sanskrit Nyāyamukha. The Taishō base text is the Korean canon (高麗藏) collated against Sòng, Yuán, Míng, and palace editions; on a number of points the Yìjìng version’s verse-form preserves what is plausibly a more archaic recension of the Sanskrit. No commentaries on this version were composed in China — all the East Asian exegetical tradition takes Xuánzàng’s text as base.
Translations and research
- Tucci, Giuseppe. The Nyāyamukha of Dignāga. Heidelberg, 1930. — Uses both Chinese versions in his reconstruction.
- Katsura Shōryū 桂紹隆. “Inmyō shōrimon ron kenkyū” 因明正理門論研究. Hiroshima Daigaku bungakubu kiyō 37–46 (1977–1987). — Treats both translations comparatively.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. “Yìjìng’s Logical Translations.” In Buddhist Texts and Cultures, ed. T. Funayama. Kyoto, 2007.
Links
- CBETA
- 大域龍菩薩 Dà-yù-lóng púsà (Dignāga) DILA
- 義淨 Yìjìng DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (705): Katsura Shōryū 桂紹隆, “Inmyō shōri mon ron kenkyū [1] 因明正理門論研究 [一],” Hiroshima Daigaku bungakubu kiyō 広島大学文学部紀要 37 (1977): 106–126, at 107. Dazangthings source
- Kanseki DB