Lüèshù fǎxiāng yì 略述法相義
A Brief Exposition of Hossō Doctrine by 聞證 (撰)
About the work
A three-fascicle early Edo Hossō primer by Monshō 聞證, the cross-sectarian Kyōto-area monk who also authored the Sanron primer KR6m0030 Sān-lùn xuán-yì yòu-méng. Like that companion work, Lüè-shù fǎ-xiāng yì is an explicitly pedagogical text: as the 1686 reprint preface puts it, the work “extracts the essentials from the Chéng wéishí lùn and its commentaries (shū) and presents them in three volumes — useful not only to students of Hossō as a basket-trap for catching fish, but also as a tortoise-mirror for students of fǎ-xìng 法性 (the Mādhyamika ontology of nature).” The text covers the principal Yogācāra topics in the standard sequence: the eight consciousnesses (bā-shí dà-zhǐ 八識大旨), the three pramāṇa (xiàn-děng sān-liàng 現等三量), the four divisions of consciousness (xiàng-děng sì-fēn 相等四分), the zì-gòng èr-xiāng (self / shared characteristics), the three kinds of discrimination (sān-zhǒng fēn-bié 三種分別), the supports and conditions of the various consciousnesses, and the yǒu-fù wú-jì / wú-fù wú-jì (obscured-indeterminate / unobscured-indeterminate) classifications. The closing fascicle treats the five-fold consciousness-only (wǔ-zhòng wéi-shí 五重唯識) — a key Cí’ēn-school heuristic.
Abstract
Authorship and dating: The 1686 (貞享三季丙寅孟秋 = Jōkyō 3) preface by “the obtuse one of Buryō” (武陵 = Edo) — written for the 重刻 (re-engraving) of the work — credits the composition to one Ryōkō hōshō 良光和尚, who “personally extracted the outline from the Yuishikiron sho and arranged it in three fascicles, naming it Lüèshù fǎxiāng yì.” This Ryōkō appears to be Monshō’s clerical name in another lineage — DILA Buddhist Person Authority records the work under Monshō 聞證 (A001636), and the catalog meta and CANWWW concur, with no separate Ryōkō entry. The preface notes that “the previous block-edition had already circulated in the world; now the venerable Gizan Shō[u] 義山照公 has emended and re-cut it, and asked me to write a preface.” So the work existed in print before 1686; the original composition is most plausibly the second half of the 17th century, notBefore = 1650, notAfter = 1686 (date of the Jōkyō 3 reprint preface).
Doctrinal content: the work is closely modeled on the Chéng wéishí lùn shùjì of Kuījī (KR6n0026) — the principal Cí’ēn commentary on the Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi — but compressed and reorganised for the use of Edo-period Hossō students. The treatment of the wǔ-zhòng wéi-shí (the five layers of consciousness-only) is the work’s most distinctive contribution: it walks through the five layers (qiǎn-xū-cún-shí, shě-làn-liú-chún, shè-mò-guī-běn, yǐn-liè-xiǎn-shèng, qiǎn-xiàng-zhèng-xìng) with the standard apparatus but adapted to the explicit Hossō-Mādhyamika synthesis that the preface declares. The text is one of the principal Edo-period Hossō pedagogical works and a witness to the doctrinal accommodation between the Hossō and Sanron schools that Monshō himself embodied.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
- Mochizuki, Bukkyō daijiten, s.v. Monshō 聞證 (also Ryōkō 良光) and Ryaku-jutsu hossō gi 略述法相義.
- The text appears in the standard Edo Hossō kōsho and is briefly mentioned in Yūki Reimon 結城令聞, Yuishikigaku tenseki-shi.
Other points of interest
The text is — alongside Monshō’s companion Sanron primer KR6m0030 — a unique witness to the late-17th-century Kyōto-area cross-sectarian doctrinal pedagogy that integrated Yogācāra and Mādhyamika in a single curriculum. The two works should be read together as the principal canonical evidence for this Edo synthesis.
Links
- CBETA: T71n2315
- DILA authority: A001636 (聞證)
- Companion Sanron primer by the same author: KR6m0030 Sānlùn xuányì yòuméng 三論玄義誘蒙 (T70n2302).