Yújiā shī dì lùn pī xún jì xù 《瑜伽師地論》披尋記敘
Preface to the Yogācārabhūmi Detailed Search-Record by 韓清淨 (著); critical edition by 程恭讓 (整理)
About the work
A short autobiographical preface (one fascicle) by Hán Qīngjìng 韓清淨 (1884–1949) to his magnum opus Yújiā shī dì lùn kējù pī xún jì 瑜伽師地論科句披尋記 (the Yogācārabhūmi Sectional-Outline and Detailed Search-Record), composed at the very end of his life in 1949. In it Hán traces his intellectual development from his early study of the Abhidharmakośa (with Pǔguāng’s Jì 光記 and Fǎbǎo’s Shū 寶疏) and Wéishí (Yogācāra) under Kuíjī’s Shùjì 述記, to his decision in 1924 to retire to Yúnjū sì 雲居寺 in Fáng-shān 房山 with his fellow jūshì 居士 Fú-huáng 芾煌 to undertake a comprehensive study of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra — undertaken because he felt that even the great Cí’ēn lineage Wéishí commentaries (centred on the Chéng wéishí lùn) “do not suffice to glimpse the full functional totality of the Mahāyāna.”
Abstract
Hán Qīngjìng was the most important Wéishí / Yogācāra revivalist in modern Northern China; alongside Ōuyáng Jìngwú 歐陽竟無 of the Nanjing Zhīnà nèixué yuàn 支那內學院, his Beijing Sānshí xuéhuì 三時學會 (founded 1927) constituted the “Nán Ōu Běi Hán” 南歐北韓 (“Southern Ouyang, Northern Han”) synthesis of modern Chinese Wéishí studies. From September 1937 to January 1943 — through the entire Japanese occupation of Beijing — Hán worked uninterruptedly on his two-part Kējù / Pī xún jì commentary on Xuánzàng’s translation of the Yogācārabhūmi (T30 no. 1579). The present Xù 敘 (preface) was written shortly before his death in 1949 and was discovered by his disciple Dǒng Shàomíng 董紹明 among Hán’s papers, written in cursive script on copies of the Shūpǔ 書譜 (Sūn Guòtíng’s calligraphy manual). Dǒng transcribed it into the Sānshí xuéhuì 三時學會 fair-copy at once. The original cursive draft was entrusted to Wáng Shǎoyì 王少逸; both originals were lost in the Cultural Revolution, but Dǒng’s clean copy survived to be edited here for the first time. The 1959 publication of Hán’s full Pī xún jì huìbiān 披尋記彙編 was rushed and did not include this Xù.
The Xù is significant for four reasons: (1) it is the most authoritative biographical source on Hán’s Wéishí career; (2) it documents the convergent methodological commitment to “tearing aside the conventional readings to recover the genuine sense” 弘揚真實佛教精義 that Hán shared with Ōuyáng Jìngwú; (3) it situates the Yogācārabhūmi — not the Chéng wéishí lùn — at the centre of the Wéishí tradition; (4) it offers Hán’s own assessments of the ten Indian commentators on the Triṃśikā and identifies copyist’s errors (cuòjiǎn 錯簡) in the received Yogācārabhūmi text.
Translations and research
- Aviv, Eyal, Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye: Ouyang Jingwu (1871–1943) and the Revival of Scholastic Buddhism (Leiden: Brill, 2020) — context on the parallel Nanjing Wéishí revival.
- Hammerstrom, Erik J., The Science of Chinese Buddhism: Early Twentieth-Century Engagements (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015) — modern Chinese Buddhist intellectual history.
- Lai Yonghai 賴永海, Zhōngguó fójiào tōng shǐ 中國佛教通史 vol. 14 (Nanjing: Jiāngsū rénmín, 2010) — biographical entry on Hán Qīngjìng.
- Chéng Gōngràng 程恭讓, “Yújiā shī dì lùn pī xún jì xù 整理本前言,” in Zàngwài fójiào wénxiàn vol. 2 (Beijing: Zōngjiào wénhuà, 1996).
Other points of interest
The 1959 Pī xún jì huìbiān of the Sānshí xuéhuì — the largest single Chinese commentary on the Yogācārabhūmi in any language — circulated in mimeographed form and is virtually unknown outside specialist circles. The recovery of Hán’s preface, with its insistence that the Yogācārabhūmi (not the Chéng wéishí lùn) is the proper centre of Wéishí study, is therefore a major event in modern Chinese Buddhist intellectual history.
Links
- CBETA
- Host text: T30n1579 (Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra)