Silla-born Korean Yogācāra master, the senior of Xuánzàng’s 玄奘 (596–664) two principal Chinese disciples (the other being 窺基) and the founder of the so-called Xīmíng 西明 sub-school of Chinese Fǎxiàng / Cí’ēn Yogācāra. Born in Silla 新羅 in 613 (lay name Kim Munrya 金文雅, traditionally said to have come from a Silla royal collateral lineage of Mou-ryang 牟梁); travelled to Cháng’ān as a young monk, mastered Sanskrit and Chinese classical learning, and joined Xuánzàng’s translation bureau on the latter’s return from India in 645. Resident principally at Xīmíng Monastery 西明寺 in Cháng’ān, hence his common honorific 西明圓測.
Died in Wànsuìtōngtiān 1 (= Empress Wǔ Zétiān’s reign, 696), seventh month, twenty-second day, age 84. The DILA Buddhist Studies Person Authority places his birth in 613 and death in 696 (84 years).
Wǒnch’ǔk’s surviving works include the Jiě shēnmì jīng shū 解深密經疏 (10 juan, T1708, his magnum opus on the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra; partly preserved in Tibetan translation as Dgongs pa nges ‘grel gyi ‘grel pa — one of very few Chinese commentaries to enter the Tibetan canon), the Rényòng wángjīng shū 仁王經疏 (T1708A), and the present Bōrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng zàn 般若波羅蜜多心經贊 (T1711 = KR6c0138).
Doctrinally Wǒnch’ǔk diverged from Kuíjī on several points — most famously on the question of the third turning of the Dharma Wheel and on the reading of the icchantika (闡提) doctrine — which generated a sustained controversy in mid-Tang Yogācāra circles and underlies the bifurcation of the Cí’ēn 慈恩 (Kuíjī’s lineage) and Xīmíng 西明 (Wǒnch’ǔk’s lineage) sub-schools. His works were taken to Korea by his disciple Daoji 道證 and to Japan via the Hossō pilgrim transmissions; his Saṃdhinirmocana commentary was translated into Tibetan in the early ninth century by 法成 / Chos-grub at Dūnhuáng, an unusual case of a Chinese Buddhist commentary entering the Tibetan canonical tradition. He is considered the founding figure of the Korean Yogācāra (法相宗) tradition.