Rúshí lùn 如實論
Treatise on Reality (Tarkaśāstra) — Surviving Section: Fǎnzhìnán pǐn 反質難品 (Counter-Questioning Chapter) by 真諦 (Zhēndì / Paramārtha, 譯)
About the work
A short fragment of one juǎn preserving a single chapter of a once-larger Indian treatise on debate, translated by 真諦 (Paramārtha, 499–569). The Taishō title in full is Rúshí lùn — fǎn-zhì-nán pǐn 如實論反質難品, “Tarkaśāstra — Chapter on Refutational Counter-Questioning”; the original was clearly much longer, and what survives in Chinese is only one section, devoted to the analysis of jāti (futile rejoinders) and nigrahasthāna (points-of-defeat) in formal debate. The text is reconstructed in modern scholarship as fragments of a Tarkaśāstra (perhaps by Vasubandhu, on the testimony of Bú-ston and the Tibetan tradition, though this attribution is disputed). The work belongs to the same proto-pramāṇa stratum as the Fāngbiàn xīn lùn KR6o0005 but represents a more developed Yogācāra-tinged treatment of the dialectic. The surviving section systematically analyses sixteen species of “no-reason” objections (無道理難) and their answers, followed by parallel treatments of “with-reason” objections (道理難) and “points-of-defeat” (墮負處), preserving a vocabulary that was largely superseded by Dignāgan terminology in later texts.
Structural Division
CANWWW (T32N1633) records three sections within the surviving Counter-Questioning Chapter:
- Wú dàolǐ nán pǐn 無道理難品 — Section on Without-Reason Objections (futile rejoinders, jāti)
- Dàolǐ nán pǐn 道理難品 — Section on Reasoned Objections
- Duò fùchù pǐn 墮負處品 — Section on Points-of-Defeat (nigrahasthāna)
CANWWW lists no related-text cross-references for this title.
Abstract
The Taishō text opens “陳天竺三藏真諦譯”, crediting 真諦 (Paramārtha) as translator under the Chén 陳 dynasty. Paramārtha arrived in China in Tàiqīng 太清 2 (548), worked through the Liáng 梁 collapse and the Chén foundation, and died in 569; the translation of the Rúshí lùn is normally placed in the second half of his career, c. 550–569, alongside his other Yogācāra translations. Modern scholars (Frauwallner, Wayman) have treated it together with the Sanskrit-fragment Vāda-vidhi attributed to Vasubandhu, suggesting that the Rúshí lùn may derive from a Tarkaśāstra of that author or his school; the Tibetan tradition (Bú-ston, Chos-‘byung) credits a Tarkaśāstra to Vasubandhu but the relation to the Chinese fragment is unclear. The Chinese text seems to translate a somewhat awkward Sanskrit, with rough syntax and occasional inconsistencies — typical of Paramārtha’s other translations done under difficult circumstances during the political turmoil of the Liáng-Chén transition. The Taishō uses the Korean canon as base text, collated against Sòng, Yuán, Míng, palace, and Korean (麗) editions. The text was little studied in China and Japan; the Cí’ēn school of Xuánzàng’s followers concentrated entirely on the Dignāgan corpus KR6o0001, KR6o0003 and effectively superseded the older yīnmíng tradition that the Rúshí lùn represents.
Translations and research
- Tucci, Giuseppe. Pre-Diṅnāga Buddhist Texts on Logic from Chinese Sources. Gaekwad’s Oriental Series 49. Baroda, 1929. — Translates and analyses this text together with KR6o0005.
- Frauwallner, Erich. “Vasubandhu’s Vādavidhiḥ.” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd- und Ostasiens 1 (1957): 104–146. — Reconstructs an underlying Vasubandhu treatise.
- Yīnshùn 印順. Yìndù fójiào sīxiǎngshǐ 印度佛教思想史. Taipei, 1988. — Treats the Rúshí lùn in its broader Indian Buddhist debate-tradition context.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. Shintai sanzō no kenkyū 真諦三藏の研究 [Studies on the Tripiṭaka master Paramārtha]. Kyoto: Rinsen, 2012. — On Paramārtha’s translation activity, with treatment of this text.
Other points of interest
The Rúshí lùn is the only Paramārtha translation in KR6o, and the only major non-Dignāgan logic text from the southern translation tradition. Its survival as a single chapter from a larger work means it is largely a fragment, but together with KR6o0005 it is invaluable for reconstructing the pre-Dignāgan Buddhist debate tradition.
Links
- CBETA
- 真諦 Zhēndì (Paramārtha) DILA
- Dazangthings date evidence (565): T = CBETA, Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經, ed. Takakusu Junjirō 高楠順次郎 and Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡邊海旭 (Tokyo: Taishō shinshū daizōkyō kankōkai / Daizō shuppan, 1924–1932); CBReader v 5.0, 2014. Dazangthings source
- Kanseki DB