Yīnmíng sìzhǒng xiāngwéi luè sījì 因明四種相違略私記
Brief Private Notes on the Four Kinds of Contradiction in Hetuvidyā by 眞興 (Zhēnxīng / Shinkō, 集)
About the work
A two-fascicle private gloss-collection (sījì 私記) on the Four Contradictions (四相違 sì xiāngwéi) section of KR6o0008 Yīnmíng rù zhèng lǐ lùn shū 因明入正理論疏 (T44n1840), by the Heian Kōfuku-ji Hossō scholar 眞興 (Shinkō, 935–1004). Preserved in Taishō vol. 69 (no. 2277). The Japanese title is Inmyō shi-shu sōi ryaku-shiki.
Prefaces
The work has no formal authorial preface. It opens in koto-by-koto topical form (“疏云。論相違有四。謂法自相相違至差別相違因等云云意何。答…”) and proceeds through the four contradictions in their conventional order. The signature reads “釋眞興集” (“compiled by the śramaṇa Shinkō”).
Abstract
Shinkō was the leading Kōfuku-ji Hossō scholar of his generation (active 970s–1000s) and the master from whom the great early-eleventh-century Hossō inmyō rongi (論義 debate) tradition derives. His Sìxiāngwéi sījì is one of his two surviving canonical inmyō works (the other is KR6o0017 Sìzhǒng xiāngwéi duànluè jì 四種相違斷略記), and the two together constitute a paired set: the present sījì is the broader exposition, while KR6o0017 is the focused decisional summary.
The work treats each of the four contradictions in turn — 法自相相違, 法差別相違, 有法自相相違, 有法差別相違 — under the conventional koto-question format (“疏云。… 意何。答。…”). Its principal source is Kuījī’s Dàshū KR6o0008, but Shinkō also draws extensively on the early-Heian Japanese commentary tradition: 善珠 (Zenju)‘s Myōtō shō KR6o0009 is cited by short title, as are the (now mostly lost) Nara-period commentaries of 玄昉 (Genbō) and the early Kōfuku-ji teachers.
Date: undated. Shinkō’s scholarly activity is conventionally placed in his middle and late career, c. 970–1004; this is the standard composition window for his inmyō works.
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. — Treats Shinkō as the central late-Heian Hossō inmyō figure.
- Iida Yūei 飯田祐英, Hossō-shū inmyō-gaku no kenkyū 法相宗因明學の研究, Kyoto: Hyakkaen, 1975.
Other points of interest
Shinkō’s pairing of the broader sījì with the focused duànluè jì — the latter quite literally a “summary of conclusions” — anticipates the structural division characteristic of the later Kōfuku-ji rongi compendia: a teaching version for instructional use and a contracted version for examination preparation. The format proved enduringly influential.