Life
Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist scholar of roughly the fourth or fifth century CE. Tradition places his origins in Gandhara and describes study in Kashmir and a later turn toward Mahayana under Asanga’s influence. The chronology and interpretation of this career have been debated, including whether every work traditionally attributed to him belongs to one author.
Contribution
His writing spans Abhidharma analysis and Yogacara arguments about experience. He examines the idea of a person, the structure of mental events and the status of what appears as an external object. Rather than simply asserting a doctrine, he develops objections to competing models and asks whether their explanatory assumptions hold together.
Key works
- Abhidharmakośa and its Bhāṣya
- A systematic presentation of Buddhist categories, accompanied by critical discussion.
- Viṃśatikā and Triṃśikā
- Concise works associated with Yogacara’s analysis of cognition.
Legacy
His influence crosses Buddhist school boundaries and languages. That breadth makes him especially valuable for understanding intellectual change within a tradition. His writings can be read as evidence of argument and revision, rather than forced into a story in which a philosopher must always have held one unchanging position.
When an experience seems to reveal an object, what exactly does it establish about the object’s existence?
Sources
- Reference
Vasubandhu — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (opens in a new tab)
plato.stanford.edu
- Reference
Yogācāra — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (opens in a new tab)
plato.stanford.edu
- TranslationEnglish with parallel Pali available
SN 22.59 — The characteristic of not-self (opens in a new tab)
SuttaCentral · nonprofit textual repository
How to read itTranslation by Bhikkhu Sujato. Select the root-text view to read Pali. A foundational early Buddhist argument about the five aggregates.