Yìbù zōnglún lùn shù shù jì 異部宗輪論疏述記
Recorded Notes on the Commentary to the Treatise on the Wheel of the Tenets of the Diverse Schools
composed by 窺基 (Kuījī, 632–682, 記)
About the work
The standard East Asian scholastic commentary on Xuánzàng’s translation of Vasumitra’s Yìbù zōnglún lùn (KR6r0007), composed by Xuánzàng’s senior disciple 窺基 (Kuījī, 632–682), founder of the Cí’ēn 慈恩 (Fǎxiàng / Yogācāra) school. Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing (X53 no. 844). Without this commentary much of the philosophical substance of Vasumitra’s catalog of school-positions would be inaccessible to Chinese readers.
Abstract
The commentary parses the Xuánzàng translation phrase by phrase. Kuījī supplies, for each of the eighteen schools and their distinctive theses, a fuller explanation of the doctrinal point at issue, drawing on the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma corpus he had received from Xuánzàng (especially the Mahāvibhāṣā) and on the Yogācāra commentarial tradition. He also clarifies questions of school history — for instance, why the Sthavira and Mahāsāṃghika factions split, the date of the schism in relation to Aśoka, and the relation among the various sub-schools.
The commentary was composed after Xuánzàng’s translation of 662 and before Kuījī’s own death in 682, giving a tight twenty-year window. It is the chief source from which East Asian scholastics have understood the Hīnayāna sectarian disputes; later Japanese Hossō scholarship continues to rely on it.
Translations and research
- Jiryō Masuda, “Origin and Doctrines of Early Indian Buddhist Schools” (1925) — Masuda’s translation of KR6r0007 also draws extensively on Kuījī’s commentary for its annotations, and is in effect the Western reader’s only sustained access to Kuījī’s exposition.
- No dedicated Western-language translation of the commentary itself located.
Links
- CBETA: X53n0844