Yīnmíng rù zhèng lǐ lùn jiě 因明入正理論解
Explanation of the Treatise on Entering Correct Reasoning of Hetuvidyā by 真界 (Zhēnjiè, 集解)
About the work
A late-Míng one-juǎn exposition by 真界 (Zhēnjiè, also 楚石真界, fl. late 16th c.), opening the wave of Míng-dynasty yīnmíng studies that revived the Cí’ēn-school logic tradition after some seven hundred years of dormancy. The work comments on the Yīnmíng rù zhèng lǐ lùn KR6o0003 in a clear and concise style aimed at readers who lacked direct access to Kuījī’s Dàshū KR6o0008 (which had not been re-imported from Japan and was effectively lost in China at this date). Together with Wáng Kěntáng’s Jí jiě KR6o0027, Míngyù’s Zhí shū KR6o0028, and Zhìxù’s Zhí jiě KR6o0029 this constitutes the main body of late-Míng / early-Qīng yīnmíng scholarship in China.
Structural Division
The Xuzangjing recension is not in CANWWW. The work comments on the Rù lùn KR6o0003.
Abstract
The Xuzangjing prefixes a 解題辭 (preface to the explanation) of philosophical character: it expounds the title-words yīnmíng rù zhèng lǐ by analogy with the Cí’ēn / Yogācāra doctrine that “all dharmas have a fundamental cause [本因], and to penetrate this cause is correct reasoning [正理]; reasoning derives from cognition [智], and cognition is what enters [入] the principle”. This frame allows Zhēnjiè to present yīnmíng not as an external dialectical method but as a properly Buddhist epistemic art whose practice produces parārtha operations (true proof and refutation) and svārtha operations (direct perception and inference) that ultimately ground awakening. The composition is undatable precisely; Zhēnjiè was active in the Wànlì 萬曆 period (1573–1620), and the work is normally placed in the last decades of the sixteenth century. The Xuzangjing transmits the text from a late-Míng or early-Qīng print.
Translations and research
- Shen Jianying 沈剣英. Mìng yīnmíng yánjiū 明因明研究. Beijing, 1995. — Modern Chinese study of the late-Míng yīnmíng revival.
- Tang Yiqie 湯一介. “Wǎn-Míng yīnmíng zhī fùxīng” 晚明因明之復興. Beijing daxue xuebao (1992).
Other points of interest
The Míng yīnmíng revival had limited textual resources at its disposal — Kuījī’s Dàshū was not available, and the commentators worked largely from the Rù lùn alone, supplemented by indirect citations preserved in earlier sources. Zhēnjiè’s Jiě is, like the others, a relatively modest piece of scholarship by the Cí’ēn-period standard; it is most valuable as a witness to the Cháng-jiāng-region late-Míng Buddhist intellectual milieu (Zǐbǎi 紫柏, Hānshān 憨山) where yīnmíng studies were taken up alongside Yogācāra, Tiāntái, and Chán scholarship.