Yīnmíng zuǎnyào lüèjì 因明纂要略記
A Brief Record on the Compendium of the Hetuvidyā Essentials by 眞興 (Zhēnxīng / Shinkō, 集)
About the work
A one-fascicle exposition by the Heian Kōfuku-ji Hossō scholar 眞興 (Shinkō, 935–1004) of KR6o0019 Yīnmíng rù zhèng lǐ lùn yìzuǎnyào 因明入正理論義纂要 (T44n1842), the great late-seventh-century Cí’ēn-school compendium by 慧沼 (Huìzhǎo, 651–714). Preserved in Taishō vol. 69 (no. 2279). The Japanese title is Inmyō sanyō ryakuki.
Prefaces
The work has no formal authorial preface; it opens directly with a quotation from its parent text framed as a koto-question: “問。文云。解四相違中云。如大乘對他立聲無常。意許是識變無常。以八六耳三識同取故。據別違一識故。唯違意許。不失言顯。故成差別云云意何 答。是纂主引文軌師義也。古師意云。大乘師對少乘者。立聲無常…” — “Question: a passage in the Yìzuǎnyào on the four contradictions says, ‘When the Mahāyānists, contending against another school, posit “sound is impermanent”, the yìxǔ (intended sense) is the impermanence-of-consciousness-transformation, since the eighth, sixth, and ear-consciousnesses together apprehend; arguing on the basis of distinct contradiction-against-one-consciousness, only the yìxǔ is contradicted while the yánxiǎn (explicit statement) is not lost — and so the differentia-contradiction is established.’ What does this mean? Answer: this is the compiler’s citation of the position of Master Wénguǐ 文軌. The view of the gǔshī was: ‘When the Mahāyāna masters debate Hīnayāna…‘”
A transmission colophon dated Hōei 7 (寶永七年九月日, 1710) records that “the present Lüèjì is rarely held at this temple; it was borrowed from another temple and copied” — signed 寶掌院住教賀戒 (eighteen-year-old, age 30, of the Hōshō-in) and “transmission: Eika 營賀”. This indicates the work was largely lost from circulation by the early Edo period.
Abstract
Shinkō’s Lüèjì is the principal Heian Japanese commentary on 慧沼’s Yìzuǎnyào — the work that, together with the Yìduàn KR6o0018 and the Xùshū KR6o0022, constituted Huìzhǎo’s three-part completion of 窺基’s logic project. The Yìzuǎnyào is a tightly-argued and laconic compendium that requires substantial elucidation; Shinkō’s Lüèjì supplies it, working through the text koto by koto with cross-reference to the Dàshū KR6o0008 and to the early-Heian Hossō inmyō commentary tradition (notably the works of 善珠 Zenju and 明詮 Myōsen).
The work is undated; on internal grounds (it cites earlier Heian inmyō literature but no eleventh-century material) it falls within Shinkō’s mature period c. 970–1004.
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.
- 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
The Hōei 7 (1710) transmission colophon is one of the more striking pieces of evidence for the fragmentary mid-Edo state of Heian Hossō inmyō literature. The text had to be borrowed from another temple to be copied — a strong indicator that significant portions of Shinkō’s inmyō output had ceased to circulate by the early Edo period, and that the Taishō print depends on a single survival from the Hōei-era restoration campaign.