Yīnmíng rù zhèng lǐ lùn zhí shū 因明入正理論直疏
Direct Commentary on the Treatise on Entering Correct Reasoning of Hetuvidyā by 明昱 (Míngyù, 疏)
About the work
A late-Míng one-juǎn commentary on the Rù lùn KR6o0003 by 明昱 (Míngyù, c. 1527–1616), the Cháng-jiāng-region Yogācāra revivalist who composed a parallel “direct commentary” (直疏 zhí shū) series on the major Yogācāra treatises (Chéng-wéishí lùn, Yīnmíng-rù-lùn, Triṃśikā). The “direct” in the title indicates a presentation deliberately stripped of accumulated medieval gloss: Míngyù aims to expound the Rù lùn in a way intelligible to a contemporary reader without requiring access to the lost Cí’ēn commentarial apparatus.
Structural Division
The Xuzangjing recension is not in CANWWW. The work comments on the Rù lùn KR6o0003.
Abstract
The author’s preface 因明入正理論直疏敘 lays out the threefold logical machinery of Buddhist syllogistic — the “three characteristics defining the reason” (三相立因), the “five sounds settling the principle” (五聲定理 — i.e. the canonical five members of the syllogism in pre-Dignāgan form), and the “three branches without fault” (三支無過 — i.e. the Dignāgan three-membered form properly executed) — and argues that mastery of this technique enables the Buddhist controversialist to refute non-Buddhist opponents and to win the trust of the imperial powers. Composition is normally placed in Míngyù’s late period, c. 1610–1616. The Xuzangjing prints from a late-Míng or early-Qīng edition. The work has limited textual originality but considerable pedagogical clarity, and was much used in early-Qīng Buddhist seminaries.
Translations and research
- Shen Jianying 沈剣英. Mìng-Qīng yīnmíng yánjiū 明清因明研究. Shanghai, 2003.
Other points of interest
Together with KR6o0029 this represents the second wave of late-Míng yīnmíng commentary, distinguished from the earlier wave KR6o0026, KR6o0027 by its closer engagement with the Yogācāra philosophical context — Míngyù treats yīnmíng explicitly as a tool of Yogācāra epistemology rather than as an independent dialectical art.