Vasubandhu

1. Introduction

Vasubandhu (c. 4th–5th century CE) is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers in the history of Buddhism. Active under the Gupta empire in northern India, he is associated with both the scholastic Abhidharma traditions of early Buddhism and the Yogācāra (or Vijñānavāda) current of Mahāyāna thought. His works became foundational across India, Tibet, and East Asia, shaping later Buddhist metaphysics, psychology, and epistemology.

Two aspects of his corpus are especially influential. First, the Abhidharmakośa and its auto-commentary served for centuries as the standard reference on Abhidharma doctrine for multiple schools, including Sarvāstivāda, Sautrāntika, and later Mahāyāna communities. Second, his concise Yogācāra treatises, notably the Viṃśatikā and Triṃśikā, formulated the doctrines of vijñaptimātra (“representation-only”) and ālaya-vijñāna (storehouse consciousness) in a way that proved highly adaptable to diverse Buddhist cultures.

Modern scholarship typically distinguishes several phases in his intellectual development: an early Sarvāstivāda period, a critical Sautrāntika-leaning phase, and a mature Yogācāra–Mahāyāna period that reinterprets earlier analyses of dharmas through a philosophy of mind. Debates continue over the dating and authenticity of some texts, and over how sharply these phases should be separated, but the basic trajectory from Abhidharma realism to a more consciousness-centered perspective is widely accepted.

Vasubandhu’s thought is often discussed alongside that of his brother Asaṅga and, in later centuries, the logician Dignāga, with whom he is seen as laying the groundwork for Buddhist epistemology. His arguments about perception, personal identity, karma, and the constructed nature of experience have attracted substantial engagement from contemporary philosophers of mind and comparative theorists.

This entry surveys his life, historical milieu, major works, and central doctrines, and then traces his reception and continuing significance in Buddhist and modern philosophical contexts.

2. Life and Historical Context

2.1 Biographical Outline and Sources

Most information about Vasubandhu’s life derives from later biographies in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, notably Paramārtha’s 6th-century account and Xuanzang’s 7th-century reports. These sources mix historical reminiscence with hagiographical elements, so modern reconstructions are cautious and often divergent.

A commonly cited chronology places his birth around 316 CE in Puruṣapura (Gandhāra) into a Brāhmaṇa family. He is traditionally said to be the younger brother of Asaṅga, though some scholars question whether the two were in fact contemporaries or whether “Vasubandhu” might refer to more than one author. His floruit is generally situated between c. 350 and 410 CE.

2.2 Regional and Political Setting

Vasubandhu lived during the Gupta period, often portrayed as a “classical age” of Indian culture. Northern India at this time was marked by:

• Political consolidation under Gupta rulers
• A vibrant urban and monastic network
• Flourishing Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Jaina scholasticism

The region of Gandhāra, where he was born, was a crossroads of Indian, Central Asian, and Hellenistic influences. It hosted multiple Buddhist schools, including Sarvāstivāda and emerging Mahāyāna currents.

2.3 Doctrinal and Institutional Context

Vasubandhu’s career unfolded amid intense intra-Buddhist debate:

• Within Abhidharma, tensions existed between Kashmiri Vaibhāṣika Sarvāstivādins and more critical Sautrāntikas.
• Mahāyāna sūtras, especially those associated with Yogācāra, were gaining prominence and seeking scholastic articulation.
• Cross-school polemics with non-Buddhist (Brahmanical) traditions over self, language, and metaphysics were widespread.

Vasubandhu’s works can be read as responses to, and syntheses of, these overlapping contexts, moving from participation in Sarvāstivāda scholasticism to a central role in shaping Yogācāra-oriented Mahāyāna discourse.

3. Early Sarvāstivāda Training and Abhidharma Background

3.1 Sarvāstivāda and Vaibhāṣika Setting

Vasubandhu’s formative training was within the Sarvāstivāda school, especially its Vaibhāṣika branch centered in Kashmir. Sarvāstivāda doctrine is characterized by the thesis that all dharmas exist in past, present, and future (sarva-asti), developed to secure a robust account of karmic continuity and causal efficacy.

The Kashmiri Vaibhāṣikas produced a massive Abhidharma commentary, the Mahāvibhāṣā, which systematized ontological and psychological analyses of dharmas. Traditional sources state that Vasubandhu studied and mastered this system in Kashmir before composing his own summary.

3.2 Abhidharma as Intellectual Framework

Abhidharma provided the conceptual and methodological framework for Vasubandhu’s early work:

• Taxonomy of dharmas: classification of mental and physical constituents, wholesome and unwholesome factors, and causal relations.
• Momentariness: a theory of rapidly arising and ceasing events, interpreted in various ways within the school.
• Karmic theory: detailed accounts of how volitions condition future experiences and rebirths.

In this context, analysis proceeds by dissecting composite entities (persons, objects) into more fundamental events, and by mapping these onto soteriological paths.

3.3 Vasubandhu’s Role as Expositor

The verse treatise Abhidharmakośa-kārikā, generally viewed as an early work, presents Sarvāstivāda doctrine in an elegant and compressed form. While later accompanied by a critical commentary, the root verses themselves largely reflect the orthodox Vaibhāṣika presentation.

Scholars have debated whether the Kośa-kārikā is purely descriptive or already subtly critical. Some hold that it was composed as a neutral compendium for a wide audience, including rival schools; others detect hints of later Sautrāntika concerns in the selection and phrasing of topics.

Despite such debates, there is broad agreement that Vasubandhu’s early intellectual identity was that of an Abhidharma specialist whose thinking was deeply shaped by Sarvāstivāda categories, even as he would later transform and contest them.

4. Transition to Sautrāntika Critique

4.1 From Vaibhāṣika to Sautrāntika Orientation

The Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya (auto-commentary on the Kośa verses) marks a significant shift in Vasubandhu’s stance. While still organized around Sarvāstivāda categories, the commentary often endorses positions associated with Sautrāntika, a movement that prioritized the canonical sūtras over later Abhidharma treatises and espoused a more empirically oriented realism and strict presentism.

Key Sautrāntika theses taken up by Vasubandhu include:

• Rejection of the real existence of past and future dharmas, affirming only present dharmas.
• A more cautious attitude toward unobservable entities, grounding ontology in what is inferable from experience.
• Reinterpretations of perception and inference that foreshadow later epistemological developments.

4.2 Main Targets of Critique

In the Bhāṣya, Vasubandhu systematically criticizes central Vaibhāṣika doctrines:

He also revisits issues such as the nature of nirvāṇa, the status of unconditioned dharmas, and the mechanics of karmic fruition, often siding with interpretations that reduce ontological commitments.

4.3 Interpretive Debates

Scholars disagree on how to understand this transition:

• One view presents a biographical narrative: Vasubandhu first wrote orthodox verses, then experienced a conversion to Sautrāntika thinking while composing the commentary.
• Another treats the Kośa and Bhāṣya as parts of a single, deliberately dialectical project, with the verses already anticipating critical engagement.
• A further approach emphasizes continuities, arguing that even his Sautrāntika positions remain within an Abhidharma realist framework, rather than abandoning it.

Despite divergent interpretations, the Bhāṣya is widely seen as a key document in the internal critique and transformation of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma.

5. Conversion to Mahāyāna and Yogācāra

5.1 Traditional Accounts

Later biographies relate a dramatic conversion of Vasubandhu from non-Mahāyāna Abhidharma to Mahāyāna Yogācāra, often attributing this shift to the influence of his elder brother Asaṅga. Stories describe Vasubandhu as initially skeptical or even critical of Mahāyāna, then persuaded by Asaṅga’s arguments and visions associated with the bodhisattva Maitreya.

According to these narratives, after his change of heart Vasubandhu composed Yogācāra treatises and even expressed regret over prior critiques of Mahāyāna scriptures.

5.2 Historical and Philological Assessments

Modern scholars approach this “conversion” narrative with caution:

• Some accept a two-phase intellectual development—Abhidharma/Sautrāntika followed by Yogācāra–Mahāyāna—as broadly historical, even if legendary details are embellished.
• Others see the boundary as porous, noting Mahāyāna elements already present in works like the Karmasiddhi-prakaraṇa and questioning a sharp dichotomy.
• A minority view questions whether a single historical Vasubandhu authored all the attributed Yogācāra texts, raising the possibility of multiple Vasubandhus.

Text-critical work on Sanskrit fragments, Chinese and Tibetan translations, and later commentarial traditions continues to shape these debates.

5.3 Doctrinal Reorientation

Whatever the precise biographical sequence, Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra writings adopt new doctrinal frameworks:

• The thesis of vijñaptimātra (experience as “representation-only”).
• The model of ālaya-vijñāna (storehouse consciousness) as the basis of karmic continuity.
• The schema of three natures (trisvabhāva) to explain deluded and purified cognition.

These doctrines are presented not as a rejection of Abhidharma analysis but as its re-interpretation within a Mahāyāna context, emphasizing emptiness, non-duality, and the bodhisattva path.

5.4 Institutional and Social Dimensions

Traditional sources also connect Vasubandhu’s Mahāyāna orientation with:

• Teaching roles at Gupta courts and major monastic centers.
• Engagement with Mahāyāna sūtras, such as those later associated with the Yogācāra “Maitreya” corpus.
• Patterns of patronage favoring Mahāyāna institutions.

The historicity of specific episodes (such as debates before kings) is debated, but they illustrate how his Yogācāra identity was understood in later Buddhist memory.

6. Major Works: Abhidharmakośa and Commentaries

6.1 Abhidharmakośa-kārikā

The Abhidharmakośa-kārikā (“Verses on the Treasury of Abhidharma”) is a concise verse summary of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, composed in classical Sanskrit. It is typically divided into eight main chapters (and sometimes a ninth on refuting views of the person), covering:

1. Dharmas in general
2. The faculties
3. The world
4. Karma
5. The latent afflictions
6. The path
7. Knowledge
8. Meditative absorptions and attainments

The Kośa became the standard Abhidharma manual across multiple Buddhist traditions, including those that did not share Sarvāstivāda ontology.

6.2 Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya

Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya is an extensive prose commentary on the verses. It:

• Explains Sarvāstivāda doctrines in detail.
• Presents objections from rival schools (especially Sautrāntika).
• Often sides with these critics, thereby embedding polemical debate within a didactic framework.

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“What is called a ‘being’ is only a designation upon the aggregates. Ultimately there is no being there.”

— Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya

This work survives in complete form in Tibetan and in a nearly complete Chinese translation, with partial Sanskrit fragments. It is central for reconstructing classical Abhidharma debates.

6.3 Other Abhidharma-Related Treatises

Some smaller works are sometimes grouped with Vasubandhu’s Abhidharma phase:

Scholars differ on whether these should be considered genuinely early or reshaped in light of his later Yogācāra views.

6.4 Reception of the Kośa

The Abhidharmakośa quickly attracted commentaries from different schools, some defending Vaibhāṣika orthodoxy against Vasubandhu’s Sautrāntika leanings. Its structure and terminology informed:

• Tibetan scholastic curricula (as a core Abhidharma text).
• East Asian doctrinal classifications and meditation theory.
• Later cross-school syntheses that read the Kośa through Mahāyāna lenses.

Interpretive disagreements persist over whether the verses themselves are neutral or already polemical, but their influence as a reference work is undisputed.

7. Major Works: Yogācāra Treatises

7.1 Viṃśatikā-vijñaptimātratāsiddhi (“Twenty Verses”)

The Viṃśatikā is a short verse treatise with a prose autocommentary, devoted to defending vijñaptimātra (“representation-only”). It:

• Argues that what is taken as external objects is better explained as mental representations.
• Uses examples such as dreams, illusions, and shared hallucinations to show that coherent experience does not require independently existing external objects.
• Responds to objections about intersubjective agreement and karmic order.

The work survives in Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan, and is often treated as Vasubandhu’s most explicit defense of “consciousness-only” against realist critics.

7.2 Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā (“Thirty Verses”)

The Triṃśikā succinctly lays out the Yogācāra model of consciousness and transformation:

• Introduces ālaya-vijñāna as the basis for karmic seeds and continuity.
• Distinguishes different layers of consciousness, including afflictive and purified forms.
• Sketches the progression through three natures toward non-dual wisdom.

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“The storehouse consciousness is the support for all seeds; from it, the other consciousnesses arise like waves on water.”

— Vasubandhu, Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā (paraphrased)

Later Yogācāra scholasticism, especially in East Asia and Tibet, often centers on commentaries and sub-commentaries on this text.

7.3 Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa and Commentaries on Yogācāra Sūtras

Other key Yogācāra-related works include:

These works show Vasubandhu (or the tradition under his name) engaging directly with the so-called Maitreya–Asaṅga corpus, integrating its ideas with his own analytic style.

7.4 Devotional and Soteriological Treatises

Several texts link Vasubandhu to Mahāyāna devotional practices:

• A commentary or treatise on the Sukhāvatīvyūha (Pure Land) that discusses rebirth in Amitābha’s realm.
• Short manuals on the path (mārga) aimed at guiding practice.

Their authorship is more contested, but East Asian traditions, especially Pure Land schools, frequently revere “Vasubandhu” as a key early exponent of Pure Land thought.

8. Core Philosophy: From Dharmas to Consciousness-Only

8.1 Continuity with Abhidharma Analysis

Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra phase does not abandon dharmic analysis; instead, it reinterprets Abhidharma categories through a new lens. He retains:

• The view that experience consists of rapidly arising and ceasing events.
• Detailed attention to mental factors, cognitive processes, and causal conditioning.

However, he questions the naive assumption that these events are straightforwardly external or that they instantiate intrinsic natures independent of cognition.

8.2 Vijñaptimātra: Representation-Only

In works like the Viṃśatikā and Triṃśikā, Vasubandhu develops the thesis of vijñaptimātra:

• What appears as an external world is, at the most fundamental explanatory level, only mental representation (vijñapti).
• Apparent subject–object duality is generated by latent dispositions and does not reflect two independently existing substances.

Proponents interpret this in different ways:

Vasubandhu’s own texts have been read to support each of these, and there is no consensus on a single definitive interpretation.

8.3 From Person-Denial to Subject–Object Critique

In the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, Vasubandhu already rejects a substantial self (pudgala) in favor of aggregates. Yogācāra extends this reductionism:

• Not only is there no self over and above aggregates; even the distinction between a subject and its objects is seen as a cognitive fabrication.
• The goal is to reveal how this fabrication arises and how it can be transformed so that experience is no longer structured by grasping and grasped.

8.4 Soteriological Orientation

While highly analytic, the shift to consciousness-only is framed as soteriological:

• By understanding that what is grasped as external and reified is in fact a projection of karmically conditioned mind, practitioners can loosen attachment and aversion.
• This prepares the way for the realization of non-dual wisdom, which is further elaborated through doctrines such as the three natures and ālaya-vijñāna (treated in subsequent sections).

9. Metaphysics of Dharmas and the Three Natures

9.1 Dharmas Reconsidered

In Abhidharma, dharmas are basic constituents with defining characteristics (svabhāva). Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra reinterpretation:

• Retains dharmas as analytic units of experience.
• Relocates them within a framework where their apparent intrinsic nature is seen as dependent on mental construction and causal conditioning.

Some scholars argue he thereby softens earlier realism about dharmas; others maintain that a form of realism remains, now referenced to structures of consciousness.

9.2 The Three Natures (Trisvabhāva)

The doctrine of three natures structures Vasubandhu’s metaphysics of appearance and reality:

• Parikalpita-svabhāva: The layer of conceptual imputation that reifies subject and object.
• Paratantra-svabhāva: The underlying causal flow of representations arising from seeds and conditions.
• Pariniṣpanna-svabhāva: The realization that the duality posited by the imagined nature does not in fact characterize the dependent flow.

9.3 Relation to Emptiness (Śūnyatā)

Vasubandhu aligns the perfected nature with emptiness:

• Emptiness is not a separate entity but the absence of the imagined duality in the flow of dependent phenomena.
• This connects Yogācāra with Madhyamaka-style critiques of intrinsic existence, though the exact relationship between the two schools is a subject of scholarly debate.

Some interpreters see the three natures as a positive ontological scheme that risks reifying consciousness; others treat them as a phenomenological-analytic tool for describing how delusion and insight differ, without positing a substantial mind.

9.4 Transformative Metaphysics

Rather than presenting a static map of what ultimately exists, the three natures articulate a process:

1. Ordinary cognition takes the imagined nature as real.
2. Analysis reveals the dependent nature as conditioned flow.
3. Insight realizes the perfected nature—the non-existence of duality in that flow.

In this way, metaphysics and soteriology are tightly interwoven in Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra framework.

10. Theory of Mind: Ālaya-vijñāna and Seeds

10.1 Motivation for Ālaya-vijñāna

Vasubandhu’s ālaya-vijñāna (“storehouse consciousness”) is proposed to account for:

• Continuity across momentary mental events and lifetimes.
• Karmic storage: how intentional actions yield results long after the original act.
• The background out of which active cognitive episodes (seeing, hearing, thinking) arise.

Earlier Abhidharma theories used notions such as latent factors and serial continuity; Yogācāra consolidates these into a single, deep-level consciousness.

10.2 Structure of Consciousness

The Triṃśikā outlines multiple layers:

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“Because of the force of latent tendencies, there appears a duality of grasper and grasped; when those tendencies cease, that dual appearance does not arise.”

— Vasubandhu, Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā (paraphrased)

The kliṣṭa-manas is particularly important as the locus of self-grasping, which mistakes the storehouse flow for an enduring subject.

10.3 Seeds (Bīja) and Latent Tendencies

Seeds (bīja) are defined as:

• Latent dispositions stored in the ālaya, produced by intentional actions (karma).
• Potentials that, when conditions are suitable, “mature” into experiences, habits, and further actions.

This allows Vasubandhu to explain:

• Memory and recognition: earlier impressions leave seeds that shape later cognition.
• Character traits and habits: repeated actions reinforce certain seeds.
• Rebirth: the continuity of a karmically structured stream without positing a self.

Scholars debate whether seeds are best understood as causal traces, dispositions, or subtle events, and to what extent Vasubandhu reifies them.

10.4 Transformation of the Basis

A central Yogācāra idea is the transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti):

• Through practice, the storehouse consciousness is purified of defiled seeds.
• The afflicted appropriation of ālaya as “self” ceases.
• The basis of cognition is transformed into a wisdom consciousness that no longer generates subject–object duality.

This transformation is not fully elaborated in Vasubandhu’s surviving works but is presupposed in his account of mind and adopted extensively by later Yogācārins.

11. Epistemology and the Role of Pramāṇa

11.1 Precursors to Pramāṇa Theory

Although later Buddhist epistemology is associated especially with Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, many scholars see Vasubandhu as an important forerunner:

• He distinguishes between perception (direct, non-conceptual awareness) and inference (conceptually mediated cognition).
• He uses these distinctions in both Abhidharma and Yogācāra contexts to discuss how we know dharmas, impermanence, and the non-existence of a self.

11.2 Perception and Representation

Within a vijñaptimātra framework:

• Perception is still treated as a form of pramāṇa (valid cognition) at the conventional level.
• However, what it reveals is not an independent external object but a representation arising from the mind-stream.

This prompts interpretive questions:

Vasubandhu’s texts offer arguments both about what perception discloses and about how it can be illusory.

11.3 Inference and Theoretical Knowledge

Vasubandhu employs inference (anumāna) to establish:

• The momentariness of dharmas.
• The non-existence of a permanent self.
• The existence of ālaya-vijñāna and karmic seeds, which are not directly perceptible.

This involves reasoning from observable effects (e.g., memory, continuity, moral retribution) to unobservable causes. Later epistemologists systematize and refine these arguments, but Vasubandhu’s use of inference anticipates such developments.

11.4 Validity and Soteriology

Epistemic analysis in Vasubandhu is closely linked to liberation:

• Valid cognition corrects erroneous superimpositions, such as belief in a self or in intrinsically real external objects.
• However, ultimate realization involves a non-conceptual wisdom that surpasses even inferential understanding.

Thus, while not presenting a formal pramāṇa theory, Vasubandhu situates perception and inference within a graded path from conventional understanding to non-dual insight.

12. Karma, Rebirth, and Personal Identity

12.1 Psychological Account of Karma

In texts like the Karmasiddhi-prakaraṇa, Vasubandhu offers a nuanced theory of karma:

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“Karma is nothing but intention; for it is intention that sets body, speech, and mind into motion.”

— Vasubandhu, Karmasiddhi-prakaraṇa (paraphrased)

Key features include:

• Primacy of mental intention (cetanā) over mere physical acts.
• Karma as forming seeds in the continuum of consciousness.
• Rejection of karma as a substantial “thing”; it is a pattern of causal conditioning.

12.2 Rebirth Without a Self

Vasubandhu endorses the classical Buddhist view that there is no enduring self (pudgala) yet maintains the reality of rebirth. He explains continuity as:

• A causal series of momentary dharmas linked by karma and seeds.
• The transmission of karmic potentials via ālaya-vijñāna rather than a soul.

Critics (e.g., proponents of a “person” doctrine) argued that this undermines moral responsibility; Vasubandhu responds that causal continuity is sufficient for ascription of responsibility, without requiring a substantial self.

12.3 Conventional Person and Moral Practice

While denying an ultimate self, Vasubandhu allows a conventional notion of a person:

• The term “person” refers to the aggregates functioning together.
• Moral discourse—praise, blame, vows, and commitments—operates at this conventional level.

This position is often summarized as a reductionist but not eliminativist account of persons.

12.4 Integration with Yogācāra

Yogācāra reinterprets karma and rebirth through:

• The model of ālaya-vijñāna and bīja.
• The idea that karmic conditioning also underlies the appearance of an external world, not just bodily rebirth.

Some scholars view this as a psychologization of karma; others see it as an expansion that integrates cosmological and psychological dimensions. In either case, Vasubandhu’s theory aims to preserve moral responsibility and rebirth without reintroducing a substantial self.

13. Ethics, Meditation, and Soteriology

13.1 Ethical Framework

Vasubandhu’s ethical thought is largely inferred from his analyses of wholesome and unwholesome dharmas, and from his treatment of karma:

• Ethical quality is determined by intention and associated mental factors (greed, hatred, delusion vs. generosity, compassion, wisdom).
• He classifies actions and mental states according to their karmic fruitfulness and their role in either perpetuating or weakening defilements.

Mahāyāna influences introduce the bodhisattva ideal, emphasizing:

• Compassion (karuṇā) for all beings.
• The vow to attain awakening for the benefit of others.
• The use of skillful means (upāya) within different “vehicles.”

13.2 Meditation and Mental Cultivation

In the Abhidharmakośa and later works, Vasubandhu outlines:

• Śamatha (calm) practices leading to concentration and absorption (dhyāna).
• Vipaśyanā (insight) practices analyzing dharmas, impermanence, and non-self.

Within Yogācāra, meditation also targets:

• Recognition of vijñaptimātra: seeing experiences as representations rather than external entities.
• Awareness of the three natures in the unfolding of cognition.
• Weakening of the kliṣṭa-manas that appropriates consciousness as “I.”

These practices prepare the transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti), whereby the storehouse consciousness is purified.

13.3 Stages of the Path

Vasubandhu participates in broader Buddhist discussions of path structure, including:

• Śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha paths leading to individual liberation.
• The bodhisattva path, elaborated in Yogācāra texts associated with him, which integrates six (or more) perfections and stages (bhūmis).

Mahāyāna-oriented works attributed to Vasubandhu often interpret these paths as nested within a single bodhisattva trajectory, in which lower vehicles are seen as provisional or skillful means.

13.4 Soteriological Goal

The ultimate aim is:

• Cessation of afflictions and karmic seeds that produce suffering.
• Realization of non-dual wisdom, understood as the perfected nature free from imagined dualities.
• Embodiment of Buddhahood, characterized by omniscient awareness and boundless compassion.

There is ongoing scholarly discussion on whether Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra implies a positively existing “pure consciousness” at the goal, or whether it preserves a more negatively defined emptiness, but all readings agree that soteriology is inseparable from his analyses of mind and representation.

14. Hermeneutics and Interpretation of Sūtras

14.1 Sūtra and Abhidharma

In the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya, Vasubandhu already negotiates the relationship between sūtra and Abhidharma:

• He often appeals to canonical sūtras to support or criticize Abhidharma doctrines.
• This aligns him with Sautrāntika tendencies that prioritize sūtra authority over later scholastic elaborations.

Thus, his hermeneutic stance is not simply to codify Abhidharma but to test it against earlier scriptural sources.

14.2 Interpreting Mahāyāna Sūtras

In his Mahāyāna phase, Vasubandhu (or the tradition under his name) produces commentaries on texts like the Madhyāntavibhāga and Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra. These works:

• Present systematic interpretations of Yogācāra-leaning sūtras and śāstras.
• Use Yogācāra concepts (three natures, ālaya-vijñāna, vijñaptimātra) as explanatory keys.
• Integrate narrative and visionary elements of sūtras into a scholastic framework.

This hermeneutic approach emphasizes that scriptural teachings require philosophical articulation to be fully understood.

14.3 Doctrinal Reconciliation and Hierarchy

Vasubandhu engages in efforts to reconcile:

• Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna teachings, often by treating the former as provisional instructions suited to certain capacities.
• Different Mahāyāna scriptural strands (e.g., Prajñāpāramitā and Yogācāra sutras) by reading them as complementary expressions of emptiness and mind-only.

Interpretively, this yields a hierarchical but inclusive model, in which sūtras are graded according to their explicitness about non-duality and the bodhisattva ideal.

14.4 Hermeneutic Strategies

Several strategies appear across his works:

• Contextualization: Explaining apparently literal sūtra passages as metaphorical or as skillful means.
• Re-interpretation: Reading descriptions of external realms, deities, or cosmic events as expressions of mind or karmic imagery.
• Synthesis: Showing how different teachings converge when understood at the level of ultimate intent (artha).

Scholars debate the extent to which this constitutes a domestication of diverse scriptural voices under a Yogācāra system, versus a genuinely integrative hermeneutic that preserves plurality.

15. Influence on Buddhist Logic and Epistemology

15.1 Connection to Dignāga

Later tradition often presents Vasubandhu as a teacher or precursor to the logician Dignāga (c. 5th–6th century). While direct historical ties are not firmly documented, there are strong thematic continuities:

• Use of the perception–inference distinction.
• Attention to inference to unobservables (e.g., ālaya-vijñāna).
• Concern with criteria for valid knowledge about dharmas and selflessness.

Some scholars argue that Dignāga’s systematization of pramāṇa theory develops conceptual seeds already present in Vasubandhu’s work.

15.2 Logical and Dialectical Techniques

Within the Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya and Yogācāra treatises, Vasubandhu:

• Formulates reductio arguments against eternalist and person-theorist positions.
• Employs inference from effect to cause (e.g., from memory to underlying seeds).
• Uses thought experiments (dreams, illusions, mirages) to challenge naive realism.

These patterns anticipate later Buddhist use of formal logical structures, even if they are not yet cast in the technical vocabulary of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti.

15.3 Epistemic Themes Taken Up Later

Later epistemologists draw upon Vasubandhu in discussing:

• The status of non-conceptual perception in relation to conceptual construction.
• The nature of error and illusion in perception.
• The possibility of yogic direct perception of subtle or ultimate realities.

Vasubandhu’s analyses of representation and latent tendencies provide a background for later debates about how cognition is shaped by conceptual imposition and habitual patterns.

15.4 Scholarly Assessments

Interpretations of Vasubandhu’s role vary:

Despite differences, there is agreement that his work forms an important part of the background to the later Buddhist logical–epistemological tradition.

16. Reception in Tibet and East Asia

16.1 Tibetan Reception

In Tibet, Vasubandhu is revered as:

• A central Abhidharma authority, primarily through the Abhidharmakośa.
• An important but sometimes contested Yogācāra figure, read alongside Asaṅga and later commentators.

Tibetan schools use his works in different ways:

• Geluk scholastics incorporate the Kośa into monastic curricula while often interpreting Yogācāra positions through a Madhyamaka lens.
• Nyingma, Kagyu, and Sakya traditions engage with his Yogācāra texts in relation to their own doctrines of mind and buddha-nature.

Commentaries on the Triṃśikā and Viṃśatikā by Indian and Tibetan authors mediate much of his Yogācāra influence.

16.2 Chinese Reception

In China, Vasubandhu’s influence is multifaceted:

• Translations by Paramārtha and Xuanzang made many of his works accessible.
• The Faxiang (Yogācāra) school, associated with Xuanzang and Kuiji, takes Vasubandhu as a key authority alongside Asaṅga.
• His Abhidharma works contributed to earlier “Ten Schools” classifications and to scholastic discussions within Tiantai and other traditions.

Chinese debates arose over:

• The correct interpretation of vijñaptimātra (as ontology vs. epistemology).
• The relationship between Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra and buddha-nature doctrines.

16.3 Pure Land and Devotional Uses

East Asian Pure Land traditions frequently attribute to Vasubandhu treatises praising Amitābha and expounding rebirth in Sukhāvatī. For example, the Wangsheng lun (Treatise on Rebirth) in Chinese is traditionally ascribed to him.

These texts:

• Present Vasubandhu as an early advocate of nembutsu-like practices and reliance on Amitābha’s vow.
• Interpret Pure Land rebirth in ways that can harmonize with Yogācāra notions of mind-generated realms.

Modern scholars question some of these attributions, but their historical impact within Pure Land communities is significant.

16.4 East Asian Yogācāra Diversification

In Japan and Korea, Vasubandhu’s works influenced:

• The Hossō (Japanese Yogācāra) school.
• Interpretations within Kegon (Huayan) and Zen, where his ideas on mind and representation are sometimes re-appropriated.

Different lineages emphasize different aspects: some focus on storehouse consciousness, others on three natures, others on ethical and devotional dimensions.

17. Modern Philosophical Engagements

17.1 Comparative Philosophy of Mind

Contemporary philosophers and cognitive scientists have engaged Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra ideas in relation to:

• Idealism and phenomenalism in Western philosophy (e.g., comparisons with Berkeley or Husserl).
• Theories of mental representation, constructivism, and predictive processing.
• Debates about selfhood, personal identity, and the “constructed self.”

Some authors read vijñaptimātra as akin to a radical anti-realist or idealist view; others see it as a precursor to phenomenological or enactivist accounts of experience.

17.2 Ethics and Moral Psychology

Vasubandhu’s account of karma as intention and of seeds as habitual dispositions has been used in:

• Cross-cultural moral psychology, comparing karmic conditioning to habit-formation and implicit bias.
• Dialogues on moral responsibility without a substantial self, engaging with Parfit and other reductionist theories of persons.

Interpretations vary on how literally one should take bīja and ālaya-vijñāna in contemporary discussions.

17.3 Metaphysics and Ontology

Philosophers of religion and metaphysicians have drawn on Vasubandhu to explore:

• Process ontology and momentariness as alternatives to substance metaphysics.
• The status of emptiness and how it compares to Western notions of nothingness or relational existence.
• The possibility of a non-theistic yet soteriological metaphysics centered on mind.

There is no consensus on whether his position is best classified as idealism, dual-aspect theory, or something sui generis.

17.4 Methodological and Hermeneutic Debates

Modern scholarship also debates how to interpret Vasubandhu:

These approaches sometimes yield divergent portraits of “Vasubandhu,” ranging from a rigorous logician to a mystical idealist to a proto-phenomenologist.

18. Legacy and Historical Significance

18.1 Bridging Abhidharma and Mahāyāna

Vasubandhu is historically significant for bridging two major phases of Buddhist thought:

• As an Abhidharma master, he systematized and critically assessed Sarvāstivāda doctrine in the Abhidharmakośa.
• As a Yogācārin, he recast this analysis within a framework of consciousness-only, ālaya-vijñāna, and the three natures.

This dual role made his works a common reference point for later scholastics across sectarian lines.

18.2 Canonical Status Across Traditions

His texts have functioned as:

• Core curriculum in Tibetan monastic education (especially the Kośa).
• Authoritative scriptures for East Asian Yogācāra and, in some traditions, Pure Land.
• Important sources for subsequent Indian philosophers, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, who engaged with his arguments on self, perception, and causality.

18.3 Influence on Later Doctrinal Developments

Vasubandhu’s analyses contributed to:

• The maturation of Buddhist logic and epistemology, via Dignāga and Dharmakīrti.
• The consolidation of Yogācāra as a major Mahāyāna school, influencing later debates on buddha-nature and tathāgatagarbha.
• Ongoing dialogues between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, as later thinkers attempted to reconcile or prioritize these perspectives.

18.4 Modern Reassessments

Contemporary scholarship continues to reassess his legacy:

• Some emphasize his role as a critical Abhidharmika, highlighting continuity with early Buddhist realism.
• Others stress his innovative idealism or constructivism, particularly in Yogācāra.
• Still others view him as a methodological pluralist, using different frameworks for different explanatory tasks.

Across these interpretations, Vasubandhu remains a central figure for understanding how Buddhism developed sophisticated accounts of mind, knowledge, and liberation, and how those accounts continue to interact with global philosophical conversations.