Translation Principles

0.1 For whom we translate

This project translates the Yogācāra (唯識) treatise literature of the Chinese canon — beginning with the Hundred Dharmas (百法明門論) and the foundational śāstra of Vasubandhu and his successors as transmitted by Xuanzang (玄奘) — into English and Chinese for contemporary non-specialist readers, not primarily for academic Buddhologists.

The reader we write for:

• English version: a thoughtful Western adult with no Sanskrit, no Chinese, and no assumed Buddhist background, but with curiosity and patience.
• Chinese version: a college-educated reader from anywhere in the global Chinese-speaking world (世界華語讀者), comfortable with 白話文, without assumed 文言文 fluency or 佛教學 training.

Neither reader should have to put the book down to consult a dictionary of Sanskrit or a concordance of Taishō numbers to follow the main thread. The technical apparatus supports the reading; it does not gatekeep it.

0.2 Each dharma reconnected to the whole

Every dharma (法) is read back into the Yogācāra system as a whole, never explained in isolation. A treatise's authority comes from the sūtra it rests on; we translate the treatise by reconnecting it to that sūtra. Where a teaching risks the "hidden pitfall of the wholesome" (善法隱患) — a wholesome factor mistaken or over-extended — we hold the middle-path correction rather than smooth it over.

0.3 Our object: the Han transmission as received

The object of this translation is the Han transmission itself — the text as Xuanzang rendered it, read the way the East Asian Faxiang (法相) lineage actually read it. Xuanzang carried his manuscripts back from India and studied under Śīlabhadra at Nālandā; the manuscripts behind his translations predate the surviving Sanskrit manuscripts by several centuries. His translation bureau worked under a documented, institutional procedure, and the commentaries of Kuiji (窺基), Woncheuk (圓測), and Dullyun (遁倫) preserve an understanding contemporaneous with the translator himself. We therefore take the Chinese text as our source of record and the ancient commentators as our cited authority. This is a definition of scope, not a judgment on other approaches.

Cited authority is limited to canonical scripture and the classical commentators. Modern scholarship is consulted privately as a sanity-check but does not appear as cited authority in the work; where a modern reading is needed, it is the translator's own, given under the translator's name. We do not derive phrasing or structure from any copyrighted modern translation. Our translation is an independent creative work licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

A reader comparing our rendering against English translations based on modern Sanskrit critical editions will occasionally find divergences. Most stem from this difference of base: those works translate a reconstructed Sanskrit text; we translate the Han text as Xuanzang transmitted it and as the lineage received it. The two are different objects, each valid on its own terms.

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Four red lines govern every entry.

1.1 Doctrinal layer (義理層)

• Each dharma is reconnected to the Yogācāra system as a whole, not explained in isolation.
• The middle-path correction is applied where a wholesome factor carries a hidden pitfall.
• Every claim is marked at one of three levels: ✅ doctrinally sound, ⚠️ heuristic analogy only, or ❌ doctrinally incorrect.
• We engage modern psychology (CBT / ACT / mindfulness) where it illuminates, without letting it overwrite the doctrine.

1.2 Language layer (語言層)

• Chinese: modern written Chinese — clean, not a 文白 mixture.
• English: reads as English, not as Chinese-inflected English.
• Bilingual parity: each language stands on its own; neither leans on the other as a crutch.

1.3 Annotation layer (註解層)

• Canonical citations are always self-translated and marked "translation mine."
• Sanskrit is given only as the ancient transmission attests it — Xuanzang's translations and the classical commentators' own transliterations and collation notes; where the ancient masters transmit nothing, we leave it blank rather than guess or supply from a modern critical edition.
• Pāli parallels serve as a reference frame, not a normative frame.
• Every note must be of real use to the reader; we do not pile up apparatus for its own sake.

1.4 Honesty layer (誠實層)

• What we do not understand is marked "in doubt" (存疑) and gathered for later resolution.
• Where the tradition diverges, we list the several positions rather than force a single one.
• Our own interpretation is kept visibly distinct from the doctrine of the source text.

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Sūtra (經) → śāstra (論) → the ancient commentators (古德) → modern interpretation (the translator's own).

A treatise's authority derives from the sūtra; a translated treatise must reconnect to its sūtra. A commentary's authority derives from the treatise. Cited authority stops with scripture and the ancient commentators: they are trusted because their understanding came from rigorous practice — Xuanzang, Kuiji, and Vasubandhu were practitioners, and their readings have been tested by more than a millennium of practice within the lineage. Modern interpretation is consulted last, appears only under the translator's own name, and never displaces the canonical anchor or borrows a modern authority's name for weight. Where the ancient commentators themselves disagree, we record the several positions without adjudicating among them.

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3.1 Pāli as a reference frame, not a normative frame

The Pāli Abhidhamma's fifty-two cetasika are one early root of the hundred-dharma system's fifty-one mental factors, but the two diverge structurally — the Pāli system has no counterpart to manas (末那識) or the ālaya (阿賴耶識). So for each dharma we:

• note the Pāli correspondent;
• assess the degree of correspondence (close / partial / none);
• explain the Yogācāra-specific development;
• and where there is no correspondence, we do not manufacture one.

3.2 Sanskrit: the ancient transmission, as an aid to the ear

The Yogācāra treatises are originally a Sanskrit system — composed by Vasubandhu, translated by Xuanzang from a Sanskrit base. Marking the Sanskrit terms lets the reader hear the original sound of a term and see how it is built. But the textual authority for that Sanskrit is the ancient transmission alone: Xuanzang's translations, and the classical commentators' own transliterations and manuscript-collation notes (Kuiji, for example, records 瞬若多 for śūnyatā). Modern critical editions reconstructed from late manuscripts are not used as the authority for the scripture's wording. IAST is a romanization aid — an alphabet, not a source; the standard Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit dictionaries are used for word meaning, not as textual authority. Where the ancient masters transmit no attestation for a term, we leave the gap rather than fill it.

3.3 Sūtra as the doctrinal anchor

Each dharma is traced to the sūtra it rests on, not left at the level of the commentators' word. For example, ālayavijñāna is traced to the Saṃdhinirmocana, Laṅkāvatāra, and the "Ten Stages" chapter of the Avataṃsaka.

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• Sanskrit: IAST transliteration (sūtra, śāstra, dharma, ālaya, Yogācāra, ālayavijñāna, kliṣṭamanas, svabhāva …).
• Pāli: IAST transliteration (saddhā, hiri, ottappa, cetasika …).
• On first occurrence a Chinese gloss is given; thereafter the IAST term is used directly, without quotation marks.
• No plural -s on transliterated terms (one sūtra, many sūtra), following Chinese scholarly convention.
• Personal names: pinyin plus characters — e.g. Xuanzang (玄奘), Shi Huijing (釋慧鏡).
• Punctuation: full-width in Chinese text, half-width in English text.
• Citations: CBETA reference numbers (e.g. T31n1614, 0855b24).

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5.1 Primary source: CBETA Taishō for Chinese

The base text is the CBETA (Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association) edition of the Taishō Tripiṭaka — Xuanzang's translations and the related Yogācāra śāstra. CBETA reference numbers form the citation backbone.

5.2 Sanskrit terms: per the ancient transmission

Where Sanskrit terms enter the apparatus, they are given per the ancient transmission (§3.2): Xuanzang's translations and the classical commentators' transliterations and collation notes. Comparative readings of translated terms stand on the ancient Chinese witnesses themselves (Xuanzang, Paramārtha, Dharmagupta, and others). Attestation is given only where the ancient transmission supports it; where it does not, the entry is left blank rather than filled from a modern edition or by conjecture. Texts surviving only in modern Sanskrit editions are named with the note "no transmitted Han witness," and their content is not used.

5.3 Pāli Abhidhamma cross-reference

The Pāli Abhidhamma is consulted as a reference frame for each dharma (§3.1), recording the correspondent and the degree of correspondence. It is not used as a base text and does not enter the Chinese source line.

5.4 Self-translation

All canonical citations are self-translated and marked "translation mine." We do not copy phrasing or structure from any copyrighted modern translation.

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Each text versions independently. The version string lives in the text's README:

• v0.x — draft, used internally; not publicly advertised.
• v1.0 — first public release.
• v1.x — corrections, no interpretive change.
• v2.0 — substantive revision or reinterpretation.

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This methodology is a living document. Revisions are tracked in git history. Substantive changes trigger a methodology-version bump and a pass over prior texts for consistency.

v0.2 (2026-07-01): the citation policy made explicit — cited authority limited to scripture and the ancient commentators; Sanskrit given per the ancient transmission only, with modern critical editions not used as textual authority; the order of doctrinal authority now names the ancient commentators as a distinct link.

釋慧鏡 · 指月 · 漢傳 (Han-Canon) Translations · 2026-07-01 · v0.2