Yīnmíng dàshū chāo 因明大疏抄
A Digest of the Great Commentary on the Hetuvidyā Treatise by 藏俊 (Zàngjùn / Zōshun, 撰)
About the work
A forty-one-fascicle topical encyclopaedia of yīnmíng 因明 (Buddhist logic) exegesis by the late-Heian Kōfuku-ji 興福寺 Hossō scholar 藏俊 (Zōshun, 1104–1180), organised around individual koto 事 (“topics” or “items”) that arise in KR6o0008 Yīnmíng rù zhèng lǐ lùn shū 因明入正理論疏 (T44n1840) by 窺基 (Kuījī, 632–682). The work is preserved in Taishō vol. 68 (no. 2271) and constitutes, together with KR6o0009 Míngdēng chāo by 善珠 (Zenju, 724–797), the standard Japanese sub-commentarial framework on Kuījī’s Dàshū.
Prefaces
The work has no formal authorial preface in the transmitted Taishō text. The first juǎn opens directly with the first lemmatic topic — 陳那菩薩之事 (“On the Bodhisattva Dignāga”) — and proceeds through 天主菩薩之事 (“On Śaṅkarasvāmin”) and onward through the koto 事 of the Dà-shū’s preface and body. Each lemma quotes the Dà-shū’s gloss (signalled “疏云”), follows it with parallel quotations from 明燈抄 (Zenju), 定賓疏 (Dìngbīn’s lost commentary), 西明 (Yuàncè’s school), and other authorities, and then provides Zōshun’s own arbitration. The bibliographic colophon of juǎn 1 reads “(第一帖)”, indicating that the work was originally transmitted in 帖 (fascicle-bundles) corresponding to its forty-one juǎn.
Abstract
Zōshun was the leading Kōfuku-ji Hossō scholar of his generation, abbot of the Yuima-e 維摩會 lecturer-tradition, and a major figure in the late-Heian Nara scholastic establishment. His other major compilation is the Chū-shin Hossōshū shōso 注進法相宗章疏 KR6q0001 (T55n2181), the standard medieval Japanese catalogue of Hossō commentarial literature; together with the present work, these two compilations effectively define the scope of late-Heian Hossō learning.
The Daishō shō is encyclopaedic in scale: at 41 juǎn it is the longest single yīnmíng commentary in the East-Asian tradition. Its compositional method differs from the lemmatic order followed by Zenju’s Myōtō shō KR6o0009. Where Zenju proceeded sentence by sentence through the Dàshū, Zōshun selected from each section of the Dàshū one or more koto (e.g. 陳那菩薩之事, 八轉聲事, 三十三過事, 四相違事) and constructed under each a comparative dossier of all the major Chinese and Japanese sub-commentarial interpretations. The work thus functions less as a reading-guide than as a topical reference: a student approaching a contested point in the Dàshū could consult the relevant koto and find arrayed before him the views of 文軌, 神泰, 慧沼, 智周, 定賓, 西明 and the Japanese tradition (Zenju, 基辧 Eihen).
The work is undated; on internal grounds (it quotes the principal Heian inmyō commentaries but cites no thirteenth-century material) it is generally placed in Zōshun’s mature period, c. 1140–1180. It is the principal vehicle through which lost Táng-era yīnmíng commentaries — particularly 定賓’s Shū and parts of 文軌’s Shū otherwise surviving only fragmentarily in KR6o0021 — were transmitted into Japanese scholastic circulation.
Translations and research
- Takemura Shōhō 武邑尚邦. Inmyōgaku — sono genri to tenkai 因明學――その原理と展開. Kyoto: Hyakkaen, 1986.
- Frankenhauser, Uwe. Die Einführung der buddhistischen Logik in China. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996.
- Ueyama Daishun 上山大峻 et al., Inmyō zuigen-ki no kenkyū 因明随源記の研究, Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1981 — studies the Hossō inmyō lineage in which Zōshun is the central figure.
Other points of interest
The encyclopaedic-comparative format of the Daishō shō — quoting fifteen or more named authorities under each koto — makes it the single most important East-Asian source for the lost Chinese yīnmíng commentaries by 定賓 and 西明 圓測 (Wŏnch’ŭk), as well as for Zenju’s Myōtō shō readings that have suffered textual corruption in the surviving Myōtō shō manuscripts. A critical use of the Daishō shō is therefore essential for any reconstruction of pre-Kuījī yīnmíng exegesis.