Source: Sakuma 2006

• Texts: T1585; 成唯識論

Sakuma accepts the idea that the compiler of the Cheng weishi lun 成唯識論 T1585, Xuanzang, sought to attribute the “correct doctrines”正義 found in the text to Dharmapāla, who is assumed by traditional authorities to be the primary author of the text. Sakuma writes: “While we can accept that the Cheng weishi lun was compiled from a position that regarded Dharmapāla’s views as legitimate, there survives no commentary on the Triṃśikā by Dharmapāla himself in either the original Sanskrit or a Tibetan translation.” This lack of evidence makes it difficult to assess the accuracy of the views ascribed to Dharmapāla in T1585, against suggestions by some scholars that some of those views are in fact the views of Xuanzang himself. However, Dharmapāla’s Viṃśīkā commentary is extant in the Chinese translation of Yijing, the Bao sheng lun 寶生論, T1591. A commentary by Dharmapāla on the Ālambanaparīkṣā also survives, again in translation by Yijing, T1625. A commentary on the *Catuḥ-śataka-śāstra translated by Xuanzang is also ascribed to Dharmapāla, T1571. None of these three works seems to survive in Sanskrit or in Tibetan translation. Because these works are all “translations” and evince a understanding of the original Indic text that has been altered through the process of being rendered into Chinese, Sakuma contends that “there exist no sources by which we can ascertain Dharmapāla’s true intent.” In view of this dearth of independent evidence, Sakuma doubts that Dharmapāla really is the author of certain materials found in T1585. Setting aside the historical facts about the elusive figure of Dharmapāla, Sakuma marshals evidence to show that the materials found in T1585 bear a closer resemblance to Sthiramati’s and Śīlabhadra’s views, and the views of Xuanzang, the compiler, than previously recognized by traditional commentators and by modern secondary scholarship. As basic reference points for these three authors’ views, Sakuma looks to the following works: 1) the Triṃśikā commentary of Sthiramati, the only one of the ten fabled Triṃśikā commentaries upon which T1585 is based to survive in Sanskrit; 2) the Tibetan translation of the *Buddhabhūmy-upadeśa commentary of Śīlabhadra, D3997; and 3) for Xuanzang, the *Mahāyāna-saṃgraha T1594, and the *Buddhabhūmy-upadeśa T1530, two works rendered into Chinese by Xuanzang prior to the compilation of T1585 and cited heavily in T1585. In particular, Sakuma finds that the stance of T1585 on two important Yogācāra doctrines—the four forms of gnosis 四智, and the three Buddha bodies 三身—are more closely aligned to Sthiramati and Śīlabhadra than to Dharmapāla.

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