A study of Master Yinshun’s Weishixue tanyuan 唯識學探源: an intellectual prehistory of the Yogācāra

Rives, Turner Harrison

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124408 Copy

Description

Title

A study of Master Yinshun’s Weishixue tanyuan 唯識學探源: an intellectual prehistory of the Yogācāra

Author(s)

Rives, Turner Harrison

Issue Date

2024-05-02

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Mayer, Alexander L

Department of Study

Religion

Discipline

Religion

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Yinshun
• Yogācāra
• Humanistic Buddhism
• Idealism
• Buddhism
• Hermeneutic
• Chinese Buddhism
• Modern Chinese Buddhism
• Modern Buddhism
• Cittamatra
• Mind Only
• Consciousness Only
• Cognitive science
• Buddhism for the Human Realm
• Renjian Fojiao
• Twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism
• Science of the mind
• Ouyang Jingwu
• Taixu
• Buddhist psychology

Abstract

This study is an examination of Venerable Master Yinshun's Searching the Origins of Consciousness Only (Weishixue tanyuan 唯識學探源). The Weishixue Tanyuan is one of Yinshun's earlier works. In it he lays out an intellectual prehistory of the mature Yogācāra of Dharmapāla and Xuanzang. He constructs this history using canonical Chinese translations of Indian texts. In this study, I have two major aims. The first is to present the broad outline of Master Yinshun's history as faithfully and literally as possible to an English-speaking audience. The second is to examine the hermeneutics that Master Yinshun applied in reading his sources and constructing his history. In constructing his history, Yinshun applies a hermeneutic I call Indian Normativism. This way of reading views Indian texts and texts with a traceable line of transmission from India as more able to give an accurate account of the Buddhism of Shakyamuni. By constructing his history from sufficiently Indian texts, Master Yinshun was able to point out a continuous line of development from the earliest Buddhist sources to the mature Yogācāra. The purpose of this project is not to undermine Yinshun's project, but to reveal how a traditional Buddhist master in the modern period justified a form of Buddhism to itself using Buddhist criteria. Yinshun is successful in constructing a useful history in Weishixue tanyuan and this work is especially useful for students of the Yogācāra.

Graduation Semester

2024-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2024 Turner Harrison Rives

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