Pàn bǐ liàng lùn 判比量論
Treatise Adjudicating Inferences by 元曉 (Yuánxiǎo / Wǒnhyo, 撰)
About the work
A unique one-juǎn monograph by the great Korean Silla 新羅 master 元曉 (Wǒnhyo, 617–686) systematically reviewing and adjudicating between conflicting Buddhist syllogisms (比量 bǐ-liàng) drawn from rival Yogācāra and Madhyamaka treatises. Wǒnhyo, working in Silla but in close intellectual contact with the Chinese Cí’ēn 慈恩 school of Xuánzàng’s followers, here exhibits a fully internalized command of the Yīnmíng technical apparatus and applies it critically to disputed points across the major Indian Buddhist śāstras — covering, among others, the validity of Xuánzàng’s own famous Zhēn-wéishí liàng 真唯識量 (the syllogism with which he is said to have silenced opponents at the council of Kanyākubja KR6o0035, KR6o0036), the eight-fold division of consciousness, the Yogācārabhūmi doctrine of the ālayavijñāna, and the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra doctrine of buddhadhātu.
Structural Division
The Xuzangjing recension is not in CANWWW. The work is independent (not a commentary on a single text).
Abstract
The Pàn bǐ liàng lùn survives only as fragments. The Xuzangjing edition reconstructs the text from what was preserved in early Japanese manuscripts; the section numbering (“…量.” e.g. “二量”, “三量”, “五量”) in the colophons of each unit indicates that the original was a numbered series of disputed-question discussions, of which only some twenty or so survive. The opening (extant) section discusses the analysis of the four-divisions theory of consciousness (四分 sì-fēn: 相分 / 見分 / 自證分 / 證自證分) and proposes a refutation of the third (自證分) using a syllogism of the form “the svasaṃvitti must have a self-cognising element […] therefore the svasaṃvitti should not be classed as a citta-element”; the refutation is itself shown to fail because it commits the fallacy of anaikāntika (不定 indeterminacy). The section labelled “九” treats the Wúxìng shèlùn 無性攝論 (Asvabhāva’s Mahāyānasaṃgrahabhāṣya); section “十” treats the Chéng wéishí lùn 成唯識論 KR6n0008; sections “十一” and “十二” treat refutations of the Sound-school (聲論師) and the four-fold contradiction (四相違) respectively. The work’s brilliance lies in its combination of technical mastery with deep doctrinal understanding: Wǒnhyo is the only East Asian commentator before the Japanese Hossō tradition to use yīnmíng not as a school-bound exercise but as a tool for genuine philosophical critique. Composition is normally placed in the latter half of his career, c. 671–686.
Translations and research
- Kim Sǒngch’ǒl 金性喆. Wǒnhyo ŭi p’an piryang ron yŏn’gu 元曉의 判比量論 研究. Seoul, 1989. — The standard Korean monograph on the work.
- Cho Eun-su 趙恩秀. “Wǒnhyo’s Pan piryang non and the Logic of Mahāyāna.” Journal of Korean Religions 4.1 (2013): 87–112.
- Buswell, Robert E. Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wǒnhyo’s Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007. — Wider context on Wǒnhyo’s exegetical method.
- Funayama Tōru 船山徹. “Pan hiryō ron no isō” 判比量論の位相. Tōhō gakuhō (Kyoto) 79 (2006).
Other points of interest
The Pàn bǐ liàng lùn is the only Korean yīnmíng monograph in the Chinese-Buddhist canon, and stands as a remarkable witness to the high level of philosophical-logical sophistication achieved in seventh-century Silla Buddhism. Wǒnhyo’s correspondence with Chinese masters of the Cí’ēn school (some of whom — including Kuījī’s circle — knew his work) shows that Korean Buddhist scholarship was integrated into the East Asian intellectual mainstream rather than peripheral to it. Modern recovery of fragments of the work from Japanese manuscript collections in the twentieth century has substantially expanded the surviving text base.