Vasubandhu
Encyclopedia
Vasubandhu (fl.
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
4th c.) was an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n Buddhist monk, and along with his half-brother Asanga
Asanga
Asaṅga was a major exponent of the Yogācāra tradition in India, also called Vijñānavāda. Traditionally, he and his half-brother Vasubandhu are regarded as the founders of this school...
, one of the main founders of the Indian Yogācāra
Yogacara
Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...
school. However, some scholars consider Vasubandhu to be two distinct people. Vasubandhu is one of the most influential figures in the entire history of Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. In the Jodo Shinshu
Jodo Shinshu
, also known as Shin Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism. It was founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran. Today, Shin Buddhism is considered the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan.-Shinran :...
branch of Buddhism, he is considered the Second Patriarch
Jodo Shinshu Patriarchs
The Seven Patriarchs of Jodo Shinshu were seven Buddhist monks who helped develop Pure Land Buddhism. Shinran, founder of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, established a lineage for Pure Land Buddhist thought that traced to the time of Shakyamuni Buddha...
. In Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
, he is the 21st Patriarch.
Biography
Born a brahminBrahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
Vasubandhu was said to have been the half brother of Asanga
Asanga
Asaṅga was a major exponent of the Yogācāra tradition in India, also called Vijñānavāda. Traditionally, he and his half-brother Vasubandhu are regarded as the founders of this school...
, another key personage in the founding of the Yogacara School. He was also, as well as his elder half brother Asanga, one of the ‘Six Ornaments’(i.e. six great commentators on the Buddha’s teachings). He resided at Kausambhi (near modern Allahabad
Allahabad
Allahabad , or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughals from the ancient name of Prayaga , and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,...
) where he was trained in the orthodox Sarvastivada
Sarvastivada
The Sarvāstivāda were an early school of Buddhism that held to 'the existence of all dharmas in the past, present and future, the 'three times'. Vasubandhu's states:-Name:...
Order of Buddhism, which had its seat at Kausambhi. He was contemporaneous with King Chandragupta I
Chandragupta I
The Gupta dynasty first seems to be in eminence with the accession of Chandra Gupta I, son of Ghatotkacha to the throne of the ancestral Gupta kingdom. While his two ancestors were given the title of Maharaja , Chandra Gupta I is described in his inscriptions as Maharajadhiraj signifying a rise in...
, the father of Samudragupta
Samudragupta
Samudragupta , ruler of the Gupta Empire , and successor to Chandragupta I, is considered to be one of the greatest military geniuses in Indian history according to Historian V. A. Smith. His name is taken to be a title acquired by his conquests...
. This information temporally places this Vasubandhu in the fourth century CE.
Vasubandhu is said to have trained in the Vaibhāṣika
Vaibhashika
The Vaibhāṣika was an early Buddhist subschool formed by adherents of the Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra, comprising the orthodox Kasmiri branch of the Sarvāstivāda school...
-Sarvāstivādin
Sarvastivada
The Sarvāstivāda were an early school of Buddhism that held to 'the existence of all dharmas in the past, present and future, the 'three times'. Vasubandhu's states:-Name:...
when he initially studied Vaibhashika-Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma
Abhidharma
Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...
, as presented in the Mahā-vibhāsa. Dissatisfied with those teachings, he wrote a summary of the Vaibhashika
Vaibhashika
The Vaibhāṣika was an early Buddhist subschool formed by adherents of the Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra, comprising the orthodox Kasmiri branch of the Sarvāstivāda school...
perspective in the Abhidharmakośa
Abhidharma-kosa
Abhidharma-kośa is a key text in verse written in Sanskrit by Vasubandhu. It summarizes Sarvāstivādin tenets in eight chapters with a total of around 600 verses...
in verse and an auto-commentary, the Abhidharmakośa-bhāsya, which summarised and critiqued the Mahāvibhāsa from the Sautrāntrika viewpoint.
He is later said to have converted to the Mahāyāna
Mahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
tradition under the influence of his brother, whereupon he composed a number of voluminous treatises, especially on Yogācāra
Yogacara
Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...
doctrines. Most influential in the East Asian Buddhist
East Asian Buddhism
East Asian Buddhism is a collective term for the schools of Mahayana Buddhism that developed in the East Asian region and follow the Chinese Buddhist canon...
tradition have been Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi
Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi
Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi has been rendered into English as "Twenty Verses on Consciousness Only" is an important work within Buddhadharma discourse. The work was composed by Vasubandhu Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi (IAST; Sanskrit Devanagari: विम्शतिकाविज्ञप्तिमात्रतासिद्धि) has been...
, the "Twenty Verses on Representation Only" and the Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā, the "Thirty Verses on Representation-only". These two texts are companions. Vasubandhu also wrote a large number of other works, including:
- Commentary to the Mahāyāna-samgrahaMahayana-samgraha' is a key work of the Yogācāra school of Buddhist philosophy, attributed to Asanga. It introduces various Yogacārā concepts such as the ālaya-vijñāna, the three natures , the fivefold path , and the fruits of enlightenment...
- Daśabhūmika-bhāṣya (Ten Stages Sutra)
- Catuhśataka-śāstra
- Mahāyāna śatadharmā-prakāśamukha śāstra
- Amitayus sutropadeśa
- Discourse on the Pure Land
- Vijnaptimatrata Sastra
- Karmasiddhiprakarana (A Treatise on Action)
And Buddhist logic
Vasubandhu contributed to Buddhist logicBuddhist logic
Buddhist Logic, the categorical nomenclature modern Western discourse has extended to Buddhadharma traditions of 'Hetuvidya' and 'Pramanavada' , which arose circa 500CE, is a particular development, application and lineage of continuity of 'Indian Logic', from which it seceded...
and is held to have been the origin of formal logic
Formal logic
Classical or traditional system of determining the validity or invalidity of a conclusion deduced from two or more statements...
in the Dharmic logico-epistemological tradition
Indian logic
The development of Indian logic dates back to the anviksiki of Medhatithi Gautama the Sanskrit grammar rules of Pāṇini ; the Vaisheshika school's analysis of atomism ; the analysis of inference by Gotama , founder of the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy; and the tetralemma of Nagarjuna...
. Vasubandhu was particularly interested in formal logic to fortify his contributions to the traditions of dialectic
Dialectic
Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
al contestability and debate
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
. Anacker (2005: p. 31) holds that:
A Method for Argumentation (Vāda-vidhi) is the only work on logic by Vasabandhu which has to any extent survived. It is the earliest of the treatises known to have been written by him on the subject. This is all the more interesting because Vāda-vidhi marks the dawn of Indian formal logic. The title, "Method for Argumentation", indicates that Vasabandhu's concern with logic was primarily motivated by the wish to mould formally flawless arguments, and is thus a result of his interest in philosophical debate.
Two Vasubandhus
Erich FrauwallnerErich Frauwallner
Erich Frauwallner was an Austrian professor, a pioneer in the field of Buddhist studies.-Career and life:...
, a mid-twentieth century Buddhologist, sought to distinguish two Vasubandhus, one the Yogācārin and the other a Sautrāntika, but this view has largely fallen from favour in part on the basis of the anonymous Abhidharma-dīpa, a critique of the Abhidharmakośa
Abhidharma-kosa
Abhidharma-kośa is a key text in verse written in Sanskrit by Vasubandhu. It summarizes Sarvāstivādin tenets in eight chapters with a total of around 600 verses...
which clearly identifies Vasubandhu as the sole author of both groups of writings. According to Dan Lusthaus
Dan Lusthaus
Dan Lusthaus, a graduate of Temple University's Department of Religion, is a specialist in Yogācāra Buddhism. The author of several articles and books on the topic, Lusthaus has taught at UCLA, Florida State University, the University of Missouri, and in the Spring of 2005 he was a professor at...
, "Since the progression and development of his thought ... is so strikingly evident in these works, and the similarity of vocabulary and style of argument so apparent across the texts, the theory of Two Vasubandhus has little merit." There is no scholarly consensus on this question at present.