Presented at the 11th International Conference on Chinese Philosophy, Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, July 26-31, 1999. Not to be quoted without author's expressed permission

A Brief Retrospective of Western Yogācāra Scholarship in the 20th Century

Dan Lusthaus Florida State University


The customary ritual for retrospectives of the sort being presented here is to provide a sort of annotated bibliography, offered more or less in chronological order, with occasional critical comments, brought to a conclusion by raising some issues or questions to be addressed in the future, capped by some encouraging remarks about where to go from here. I will reverse that order and begin with a series of questions, to be followed by the bibliographical overview. The questions should help us quickly gain an appreciation for what scholars have and have not accomplished to date. That, in turn, should provide some critical perspectives for our overview.

Questions: What is Yogācāra?

The first question that arises when thinking about scholarship on Yogācāra is: What is Yogācāra? The fact that no satisfactory answer, unanimously consented to by scholars, exists yet for this question says something about the state of present day Yogācāra scholarship. I am not even asking about doctrinal or philosophical issues yet, though there is no consensus among scholars on that either. Simply, what are the parameters of Yogācāra? What does the term include, and what does it exclude? Which Buddhists may we properly call Yogācārins?

Should Yogācāra be confined to the classical orthodox thinkers, namely Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, and their texts? But which are their texts? Scholars have debated that in several ways this century. Which of the texts attributed to Asaṅga were written by him? The Chinese and Tibetan traditions offer different enumerations. Which are properly attributed to him, and which to his mentor, Maitreyanātha, who, depending on which scholar you read, was either the Bodhisattva residing in Tuṣita heaven, or a human teacher, or a figment of Asaṅga's imagination, or a devious conceit employed by Asaṅga to lend authority to his works? Much scholarly energy has been spent differentiating Asaṅga from Maitreya, using close examination of the styles, terminology, etc., in his texts, but almost no consideration has been given to the relation between the thinking of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. Are Asaṅga and Vasubandhu - supposing we can satisfactorily identify which are indeed their works —in agreement on all or most doctrinal matters, or are there differences? This question has not even been entertained by scholars yet. Instead scholars muse about whether there were one or two Vasubandhus. (Have no doubts! There was only one.)

Putting aside the two half-brothers and the question of their works, who else should we include under the rubric of Yogācāra? Perhaps the classical commentators on Asaṅga and Vasubandhu's works, such as Sthiramati and Dharmapāla? Do their commentaries deviate or otherwise provide elements not found in the works they comment on? Who else might we include? What is the relation between the thought exhibited in Paramārtha's translations, or Xuanzang's translations, and the original thinking of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu? Have they deviated, and if so, how? How exactly do Xuanzang and Paramārtha differ from each other? Most would agree that all the names mentioned so far properly belong to Yogācāra (at least at certain stages of their thinking).

Let us rephrase this. Before asking how Yogācāra differs from non-Yogācāra schools (which we will return to in a moment), we might first inquire: How much variance exists within Yogācāra? What are the internal disputes between Yogācārins? How do Asaṅga and Vasubandhu differ? How do they both differ from Sthiramati and Dharmapāla, and how do these latter two differ from each other? What is at issue between the types of Yogācāra associated with Paramārtha and Xuanzang, and how do each of them differ from the founders? What did Bodhiruci and Ratnamati fight about when translating the Daśabhūmikasūtra-śāstra (Shih-ti-ching lun) at the beginning of the sixth century? If these questions seem trivial or arcane, consider how important being able to differentiate Bhāvaviveka's interpretation of Nāgārjuna from that of Candrakīrti is to 20th century Madhyamaka studies. When we wish to think about Madhyamaka in an authentic, traditional way, we have no choice but to enter the Svātantrika vs. Prāsaṅgika controversy; otherwise we are merely musing from our own contemporary vantage points. One might respond that this has become the case with Madhyamaka studies because Western scholars have been deeply influenced by and have adopted Tibetan doxographical attitudes. That controversy is a cornerstone of the Tibetan understanding of Madhyamaka. Perhaps. However the Chinese tradition preserves and expands on Yogācāra controversies, yet these have not been adequately explicated as yet, much less become cornerstones of our approach. One could argue that East Asian Buddhism developed largely out of Yogācāra controversies: the conflict between Bodhiruci and Ratnamati set the tone for 6th century Chinese Buddhism, which Chinese doxographers describe as a doctrinal battleground between northern and southern Dilun schools and the Shelun school — incidentally, a greatly oversimplified doxography. In the next century Xuanzang introduced his own version of Yogācāra as he acquired it in India. He was opposed by those who held to the earlier Yogācāra theories of Paramārtha, notably Zhiyan and Fazang, the putative Huayan patriarchs. The seminal text, Awakening of Faith, was initially taken as a Yogācāra work, judging from the earliest commentaries, and only later was employed for different ends. Chan Buddhism grew out of schools steeped in the Laṅkâvatāra sūtra, which has strong Yogācāra underpinnings. One could go so far as to argue that 7th and 8th century Chinese Buddhism consisted largely of conflicts between various types of quasi-orthodox Yogācāra schools and an increasing diversification of Yogācāra-tathāgatagarbha hybrids, until the latter eclipsed the former. Because of this, East Asian Buddhism, with only rare exceptions, is rooted in these tathāgatagarbha hybrids, and it is these anti-Yogācāra, pro-tathāgatagarbha attitudes that have entered Western scholarship virtually unchallenged until a few Japanese scholars in recent decades raised the specter of Critical Buddhism, for which they have been excoriated by their Japanese and many of their Western colleagues.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. We still need to define Yogācāra with more precision. Is it, as textbooks commonly claim, a philosophical school with three distinctive doctrines, namely vijñapti-mātra, trisvabhāva, and eight consciousnesses? Or is it something more than that?

Is it an Abhidharma school, and if so, what is its relation to the Abhidharma of other schools? What is the relation of Yogācāra to the Buddhist logic tradition? Specifically, should Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, and their followers be considered Yogācārins?

How completely and accurately is Yogācāra represented in the translations and doxographies of East Asian and Tibetan texts? This is an important question since many crucial Yogācāra works no longer survive in Sanskrit.

Philosophically, is or is not Yogācāra a form of idealism? If so, what type of idealism? If not, what is it?

Some of these questions have been raised by scholars, though few of them have been definitively answered. Many of these questions, all of which I would consider extremely basic, have not been discussed at all by Western scholars. This is where Yogācāra scholarship in the West finds itself at the end of the 20th century.

What Scholars have done

One can point to early in the 19th century as the starting point for Buddhist studies in Europe.[1] While Xuanzang's biography[2]] and travelogue[3] were translated by Stanislas Julien in 1853 and 1857-8,[4] respectively, at that time scholarly interest lay in the historical and ethnographic aspects of these texts, and not in Xuanzang's philosophical concerns. When did Yogācāra studies begin in the West? This brings us back to earlier questions, since the answer depends on what we define as Yogācāra. If, as was mentioned, The Awakening of Faith is taken as a Yogācāra text, then very likely the first text presenting a Yogācāra viewpoint to a Western audience was D.T. Suzuki's English translation of the Śikṣānanda version of this text published in 1900. However Suzuki did not present the text in a Yogācāra light; he evoked different contexts, so Western considerations of Yogācāra were not engendered.

Western Yogācāra studies begin with the 20th century. Sylvain Levi, who was not exclusively a Buddhologist, became interested in Aśvagho.sa, the author of the epic life of the Buddha, Buddhacaritam. In 1898 he traveled to Nepal searching for material on Aśvagho.sa, and discovered a Sanskrit manuscript of the Mahāyāna-sūtrâlaṃkāra, which he attributed to Aśvagho.sa, edited, translated into French, and published from 1907-11 in Journal Asiatique. On a subsequent trip to Nepal in 1922, he found Sanskrit manuscripts of two texts by Vasubandhu, Viṃśatikā and Triṃśikā, the latter with Sthiramati's -tīkā. These he published with translations in 1925[5] with a title that translates as "Materials for the Study of the Vijñaptimātra system," announcing finally that there was a Buddhist system of Vijñapti-mātra. >From 1934-37, in three volumes, his student, Yamaguchi Susumu, edited and published another of his discoveries, Sthiramati's -tīkā to the Madhyānta-vibhāga, a seminal Yogācāra text consisting of verses attributed to Maitreya (i.e., Asaṅga), a commentary by Vasubandhu, and a subcommentary by Sthiramati. [6] His subtitle promises a "systematic exposition of Yogācāra-vijñapti-vāda," offering a new name for this "vāda" or school, Yogācāra-vijñapti. Levi, following the title found on Sthiramati's commentary to the Triṃśikā, had only called it Vijñapti-mātra.

At this stage in Buddhist scholarship, driven by a philological Zeitgeist to recover or reconstruct the Ur-text, nothing was as exciting or important as discovering lost Sanskrit texts. While English scholars tended to focus on Theravāda and Pāli materials, and German scholars primarily looked to Tibetan materials to help fill the gaps, French scholars were the first to show any appreciation for Chinese materials in their reconstructive endeavors. Lévi's most famous student, the Belgian Louis de la Vallée Poussin, became a great student of many aspects of Buddhism, especially Abhidharma, and published a seven volume French translation of Vasubandhu's pre-Yogācāra masterpiece, Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya in 1931,[7] using Xuanzang's Chinese version. A Sanskrit text of the Kośa was later found, which differed at many points from Xuanzang's version. Vallée Poussin's major contribution to Yogācāra studies was his two volume translation of Xuanzang's Cheng wei-shih lun, ostensibly a compendium of ten Indian commentaries on Vasubandhu's Triṃśikā,[8] which he published in 1928. His title added a new term for the school, Vijñapti-mātra-tā, even though nothing in the Chinese title suggests the additional abstract noun suffix -tā.[9] Nonetheless, this name has stuck. Western scholars continue to refer to Xuanzang's text by Vallée Poussin's reconstructed title; they often also refer to Yogācāra in general, especially the Yogācāra associated with Xuanzang's materials, as Vijñaptimātratā. I propose that we return to the label used by Lévi and Sthiramati, simply Vijñapti-mātra, though I will not argue that any further here. That Vallée Poussin envisioned his project as a recovery or reconstruction of original Sanskrit materials rather than a presentation of Chinese materials is not only evident from his laborious attempts to render all key terms (and some not so key) into Sanskrit in his French translation, but also becomes clear from the 53 page index to his Vijñaptimātratā that was published separately in 1948 which indexes only Sanskrit terms and names, and does so in Sanskrit alphabetical order.[10]

His translation of the Cheng wei-shih lun was a milestone in many ways. The Yogācāra works introduced to the West up to that point were shorter pieces, with a more limited scope. Vallée Poussin's Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi abruptly introduced the densely rich, complex systematics and vast terminology of advanced Yogācāra thought, a richness which few Western scholars to this day have actually digested. What did have an immediate and lasting impact, however, were his extensive efforts to argue that Yogācāra represented a form of Idealism, an argument that begins on the first page of his translation in an extended note that interrupts the main text. His translation was more interpretation than strict translation, drawing on a variety of sources, from Kui-chi's commentaries to his vast knowledge of Tibetan sources. Some of these he confined to erudite notes, but often these explanatory materials crept into the actual translation. Wherever he could, he skewered the translation in an Idealist direction.[11] For many decades following, labeling Yogācāra as a form of Idealism remained unchallenged.

Vallée Poussin's most famous student, Étienne Lamotte, profoundly advanced Yogācāra studies, and his efforts remain unrivaled among Western scholars. In 1935 he translated the root Yogācāra sutra, Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, into French, using the Chinese and Tibetan versions, since the Sanskrit is not extant.[12] Like Vallée Poussin, he incorporated the Sanskrit equivalents for many terms in his translations. In 1935-36 he published a translation of Vasubandhu's Karmasiddhi-prakara.na, a proto-Yogācāra work steeped in Abhidharma categories.[13] In 1938-39 he published a two volume translation of Asaṅga's Mahāyānasaṃgraha, again using Chinese and Tibetan versions since this text, particularly pivotal in East Asia, is also not extant in the original Sanskrit.[14] In his later career he branched out into other areas of Buddhist studies,[15] leaving Yogācāra to other scholars.

In 1930 D.T. Suzuki published Studies in the Laṅkâvatāra Sūtra,[16] followed a few years later by his translation of the sutra itself.[17] Though he excoriates Yogācāra in his Studies, complaining of its shallowness compared with Zen's "Absolute Idealism," his exposition introduced Western readers to many important Yogācāra models contained in the sutra. Like Vallée Poussin, his account of Yogācāra became definitive for several generations of Buddhist scholars. For instance, Edward Conze's treatment of Yogācāra in his Buddhist Thought in India is a mere echo of Suzuki.[18] While exuding universalistic rhetoric, Suzuki's treatment is quite partisan, and given his famous disdain for historical context, he ignores the centuries of controversy between orthodox Yogācāras and the tathāgatagarbha hybrids which informed his prejudice.

Clarence Hamilton brought out a bilingual edition of Xuanzang's translation of Vasubandhu's Viṃśatikā along with Kui-chi's commentary, Chinese and English on facing pages, in 1938.[19]

The Madhyānta-vibhāga began to receive some serious attention in the 1930s. Theodor Stcherbatsky, better known for his works on Madhyamaka and Buddhist logic, loosely translated the first two chapters of the Madhyānta-vibhāga into English in 1936.[20] Freidman offered an horrendous rendition of the first two chapters with Sthiramati's -.tīkā in 1937.[21] Paul O'Brien translated another chapter that appeared in Monumenta Nipponica.[22] This work has yet to receive an adequate translation. Thomas Kochumuttom translated the first chapter in his Buddhist Doctrine of Experience,[23] and makes frequent reference to Sthiramati's subcommentary. After doing only a partial translation in his dissertation (along with two other texts),[24] Stefan Anacker rendered the entire Madhyānta-vibhāga, along with six other texts by Vasubandhu, in 1984.[25] J.W. de Jong offers this comment: "[Anacker's] translation of the Madhyānta-vibhāga bhāṣya is incredibly bad".[26] Since his is the only complete translation in a Western language, this is lamentable. Incidentally Sthiramati's subcommentary to this text is one of the most neglected jewels of Buddhist philosophical literature, rivaling Candrakīrti in its rhetorical and philosophical mastery. In fact, Sthiramati's style may have served as Candrakīrti's prototype for the Prasannapāda. This text desperately needs a judicious Western translation so that it can receive the serious attention it deserves.

Stcherbatsky's student, Eugène Obermiller, contributed to Yogācāra studies by presenting overviews of Tibetan doxography on Asaṅga especially in his translations and studies of Prajñapāramitā texts.[27] Giuseppe Tucci offered translations and analyses of Buddhist logic texts, using Chinese as well as Tibetan and Sanskrit materials,[28] a study of Maitreya and Asaṅga,[29] and an edition of Asaṅga's summary commentary on the Diamond Sutra.[30]

Yogācāra studies during the period between 1943-73 are summarized by de Jong this way:[31]

The Chinese Buddhist canon has preserved important materials for the early history of the Yogācāra school. These were studied by P. Demiéville (1954) in a long article on the Yogâcārabhūmi of Saṅgharakṣa.[32] The publication by V.V. Gokhale (1947)[33] of fragments of the Sanskrit text of Asaṅga's Abhidharmasamuccaya has led to further studies of this basic Abhidharma work of the Yogācāra school. Prahlad Pradhan reconstructed the Sanskrit text with the help of Xuanzang's Chinese version (1950),[34] and Walpola Rahula translated the entire work into French (1971).[35] Paul Demiéville translated a chapter of the Bodhisattvabhūmi from the Chinese (1957)[36] and Nalinaksha Dutt published a new edition of the text (1966).[37] Alex Wayman published Analysis of the Śrāvakabhūmi Manuscript (1961),[38] while Lambert Schmithausen made a very thorough study of a small section of the Yogâcārabhūmi on Nirvana (1969)[39] .... An excellent survey of the history and doctrines of the Yogācāra school was made by Jacques May (1971).[40]

Note that the title of May's "excellent survey" recommended by de Jong translates as 'Idealist Buddhist Philosophy.'

The translations by Anacker and Kochumuttom, mentioned above, of key works by Vasubandhu rekindled interest in Vasubandhu's philosophy in the 1980s. While a few voices in this period, such as Alex Wayman and Ueda Yoshifumi, had begun to challenge the labeling of Yogācāra as Idealism, Kochumuttom did so in the most sustained fashion. Drawing in part on his earlier study of Dignāga's epistemology, he argued that Vasubandhu would be better understood as a Critical Realist, meaning that while Vasubandhu's epistemology utilizes the types of critiques found in some forms of idealism, his underlying ontology was realist. Nonetheless, many scholars still have not liberated themselves from the idealistic readings.

Lull, or Underground?

Subsequently, Yogācāra studies, in a sense, went 'underground,' or to be more precise, fewer major books or articles appeared dealing with Yogācāra. However interest in Yogācāra remained high, as a number of excellent Ph.D. dissertations on Yogācāra have been written since the late 1970s. Very few, however, have been published. Perhaps because Buddhist studies in America has given Yogācāra such a low priority in recent decades, many graduate students who work on Yogācāra for their Ph.D.s turn to other aspects of Buddhism once they graduate. Sadly, those who stick with Yogācāra generally do not fare well in the Buddhist academic world. Specialists in Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, Korean Buddhism, and so on, occupy the highest rungs of departments with Buddhist studies programs or concentrations, but not Yogācārins. As academia has, in part, turned against what some term elitism and philosophical snobbery in favor of social science and history approaches increasingly concerned with more popular forms of religious and sociological expression, Yogācāra, which is a deeply complex, scholastic, philosophical form of Buddhism ñ that has no vibrant present manifestations, much less current or even recent 'popular' forms ñ has lost favor.

We should take note of some of the many dissertations dealing with Yogācāra. Anacker's book began as a dissertation. Schmithausen's Habilitationsschrift which dealt with Yogācāra has not been published, but his comprehensive overview of the classical literature on the Ālaya-vijñāna remains the most thorough discussion of this foundational Yogācāra notion.[41] John Powers translated the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra from Tibetan, and managed to produce several books from it: one for the translation itself, one for a Yogācāra bibliography, one for the analytic survey, and one for commentaries in Tibetan on the text.[42] Paul Griffiths' dissertation on nirodha-samāpatti was published in 1986.[43] A seminar conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, when Hakamaya Noriaki was a visiting professor, produced a translation of the tenth chapter of the Mahāyānasaṃgraha, with comparative translations of the Tibetan and Chinese versions, and some portions of the commentaries.[44]

Noteworthy dissertations that have not been published include John Keenan's A Study of the Buddhabhūmyupadeśa: The Doctrinal Development of the Notion of Wisdom in Yogācāra Thought, [45] translating the text from Xuanzang's Chinese. Keenan has gone on to publish other works on Yogācāra.[46] One of the finest surveys of the development of Yogācāra thought is Ronald Davidson's Buddhist Systems of Transformation: Āśraya-Parivṛtti/Paravṛtti among the Yogācāra.[47] Alan Sponberg's dissertation on Kui-chi offers a thorough examination of Kui-chi's life and works, and includes a translation of his "Essay on Vijñaptimātratā [sic]" (3rd chapter of T.1861).[48] Though Stanley Weinstein has published one of the only pieces on Kui-chi in English,[49] his Ph.D. translation of Ryōhen-Sozū's Kanjin Kakumushō, a seminal Japanese Yogācāra (Hossō) work, has never been published.[50] Leslie Kawamura translated Sthiramati's commentary on the Triṃśikā for his Master's thesis,[51] and Vinītadeva's commentary on the Triṃśikā for his Ph.D. thesis.[52] Kawamura has also made works of the great Japanese Yogācāra scholar, Nagao Gadjin, available in English.[53] Robert Gimello's dissertation on Chih-yen, the Hua-yen patriarch, is one of the best works in English (unfortunately unpublished) on Chinese Buddhist history of the 6th-7th centuries.[54] Although ostensibly about Hua-yen, this period, as mentioned earlier, was a hotbed of Yogācāra controversy, and Gimello covers this admirably. Similarly useful for such controversies in the Chinese context is Ming-wood Liu's dissertation on Fa-tsang, the next Hua-yen patriarch.[55] Chen-kuo Lin's study and partial translation of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, using the Chinese versions, raises important issues about Yogācāra hermeneutical thinking.[56] My own dissertation is the distant ancestor for my forthcoming book, Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Cheng Wei-shih lun (Curzon Press). The entry I wrote for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998) on 'Yogācāra' offers an alternate to the idealist interpretation.

Books not derived from dissertations in this period include Diana Paul's study and translation of Paramārtha's Chuan-shih lun, a translation of the Triṃśikā deeply embedded in commentarial glosses.[57] Her attempts at historical and philosophical context are seriously flawed, and she misidentifies portions of the Triṃśikā in her translation.[58] Kalupahana offered a treatment of Vasubandhu that sounded more like William James than Yogācāra.[59] A problematic translation of the Viṃśatikā and Triṃśikā was published by K. N. Chatterjee,[60] and a somewhat more careful but equally problematic translation of Viṃśatikā was published by T.R. Sharma.[61] Thomas Wood made a valiant if muddled effort to translate and analyze a collection of Yogācāra texts.[62] Finally, Swati Ganguly offered an abridged rendition of Cheng wei-shih lun, incorporating the comments Xuanzang included in his translation of the Triṃśikā.[63]

I have not discussed in any detail Western studies based primarily on Tibetan sources, such as those by Wayman,[64] Kajiyama,[65] Tatz,[66] Guenther,[67] and so on.[68] Gareth Sparham's Ocean of Eloquence, which translates Tsong kha pa's discussion of Yogācāra is useful,[69] and recently Jeffrey Hopkins released the first of two projected books comprehensively dealing with Tsong kha pa and the Tibetan interpretations of Yogācāra.[70] Now that Western scholars are beginning to look beyond the minority Gelugpa school toward other forms of Tibetan Buddhism, such as Nyingmapa and Dzog Chen -in which Yogācāra and Chinese Yogācāra influence is more prevalent - we may expect an increase in interest in Yogācāra.

Finally, three years ago I was a member of a panel at the American Academy of Religion devoted to Yogācāra. Response to our panel was so overwhelming, that, under the stewardship of Joe Wilson and Charles Muller, we formed a Yogācāra seminar, which will continue to convene at AAR meetings to discuss Yogācāra. The seminar has a web page on which papers have been posted,[71] and an email discussion list, which has so far operated fitfully, but still holds promise. What has amazed us is the number of people who have expressed great interest in participating in our seminar. What has also been interesting is that those young scholars now coming out of graduate schools specializing in the Buddhist logic tradition are embracing the Yogācāra identities of the people they are studying. On the perplexing side is the resistance demonstrated by some members of the seminar to Abhidharma. All told, we should be hopeful that Yogācāra studies will flourish in the 21st century.


[1] This is detailed in de Jong's A Brief History of Buddhist Studies in Europe and America (Tokyo: Kosei, 1997), though his first chapter is titled "The Early Period (300 B.C.-1877). I found de Jong's book very helpful in preparing this paper.

[2](Ta-T'ang) Hsi-yü chi *Ð]*÷jśś*Ð^*÷ËśÏśO , (Great T'ang) Record of Western Regions (T.51.2087).

[3] By Hui-li ºz¥ś (completed by Yen-ts'ung *Lū'U). Ta-t'ang ta-tz'u-en-ssu san-tsang fa-shih chuan *÷jśś*÷jśOÆ*÷*÷T¬śªkÆvś

[4] Both published by Imprimerie Impériale, Paris.

[5] Lévi, Sylvain. Matériaux pour l'étude du systeme Vijñaptimātra. Paris: Bibliothèque de l'école des Hautes études, 1925.

[6]Madhyāntavibhāga-tīkā de Sthiramati: Exposition systématique du Yogācāravijñaptivāda. Nagoya: Hajinkaku, rpt. Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation, 1966. There was some initial confusion among scholars as to which levels of the text were authored by whom, but this has been resolved.

[7]L'Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu, traduit et annoté par Louis de la Vallée Poussin. Paris: Paul Greuthner, 1931, 7 vols.

[8] Louis de la Vallée Poussin. Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi: La Siddhi de Hiuan-Tsang. 2 vols., Paris, 1928. Wei Tat rendered VP's translation into English in Cheng Wei-Shih Lun: The Doctrine of Mere Consciousness. [text and translation], Hong Kong, 1973, but eliminated VP's prolific and erudite notes. I argue in my forthcoming Buddhist Phenomenology (Curzon), that Xuanzang was more author than editor, and that the idea that there were exactly ten Indian commentaries from which he drew, rather than a much broader range of Indian texts, is misleading.

[9] At the end of the Chinese text, Xuanzang follows a Buddhist convention and offers several alternative titles, one of which could be rendered Vijñapti-mātra-tā, but why VP singled this one out for the title of his book is unclear.

[10]Vijñaptimātratā: Le Siddhi de Hiuan-tsang. Index. Paris: Librarie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1948.

[11] On VP's Idealism, see Andrew Tuck, Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship: On the Western Interpretation of Nāgārjuna (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), ch. 2, though in some ways Tuck overstates his case. I also deal with this in my forthcoming Buddhist Phenomenology.

[12]Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra: L'explication des Mystères. tr. by Étienne Lamotte, Louvain, 1935.

[13] LaMotte's French version has been rendered into English by Leo Pruden: Karmasiddhiprakara.na: the Treatise on Action by Vasubandhu. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1988

[14]La somme du Grand Vehicule d'Asaṅga (Mahāyānasaṃgraha) edited and translated by Étienne Lamotte. Louvain-la-Neuve: Universite de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste, Bureaux du Muséon, 1938. 2 vols.

[15] Most notably, his translations of Ta-chih-tu-lun (Le Traité de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse de Nāgārjuna, Mahāprajñā-pāramitāśāstra. 5 vols., vols. 1 & 2, Louvain: Burneux de Muséon, 1944, 1949; vols. 3-5, Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, 1970, 1976, 1980; these have all been republished by Institut Orientaliste), Vimalakīrti (1962, tr. into English by Sara Boin-Webb, The Teaching of Vimalakīrti. London, 1976) and Śūraṃgamasamādhi-sūtra (1965, rendered into English by Sara Boin-Webb, śūrangamasamādhisūtra: The Concentration of Heroic Progress. Surrey: Curzon Press, 1998).

[16] Suzuki, D.T. Studies in the Laṅkâvatāra Sūtra. Boulder: Prajñā Press, 1981 rpt.

[17]The Laṅkâvatāra Sūtra. Boulder: Prajñā Press, 1978, rpt.

[18] Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967.

[19]Wei Shih Er Shih Lun or The Treatise in Twenty Stanzas on Representation-Only by Vasubandhu. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1938.

[20] Th. Stcherbatsky, Madhyānta-Vibhaṅga. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1970 rpt.

[21] Friedman, D.L. Sthiramati Madhyāntavibhāga.tīkā. Utrecht: 1937.

[22] O'Brien, Paul Wilfred, S.J. "A Chapter on Reality from the Madhyāntavibhāgaśāstra." Monumenta Nipponica, 9 (1-2), 1953, 277-303.

[23]A Buddhist Doctrine of Experience: A New Translation of the Works of Vasubandhu the Yogācārin. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1982.

[24]Vasubandhu: Three Aspects, Madison, University of Wisconsin, 1970.

[25]Seven Works of Vasubandhu: the Buddhist Psychological Doctor. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984. [translation from Skt. or Tib. of Vādavidhi, Pañcaskandhaka prakara.na, Karmasiddhi prakara.na, Viṃśatikā kārikā [-vṛtti], Triṃśikā, Madhyānta Vibhāga bhāṣya, Trisvabhāvanirdeśa, + glossary and append. of Skt. text for Viṃśatikā, Triṃśikā, Madhyānta vibhāga, Trisvabhāvanirdeśa]

[26]Brief History..., p. 109.

[27] Obermiller, E. Prajñāpāramitā in Tibetan Buddhism. Harcharan Singh Sobti (ed.). Delhi: Classics India Publications, 1988 rpt.; The Doctrine of the Prajñā-pāramitā as Exposed in the Abhisamayālaṃkāra of Maitreya. Talent, OR: Canon Publications, 1984 (rpt. of Acta Orientalia XI, 1932); etc.

[28] Tucci, Giuseppe, The Nyāyamukha of Dignāga, Taiwan: Chinese Materials Center, 1978 rpt of 1930 Heidelberg ed. [based on Xuanzang's tr., T.1628, consulting Tibetan texts]; Minor Buddhist Texts I and Ī. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978 rpt.; "Is the Nyāyapraveśa by Di.nnaga?," 1923, JRAS: 7-13; "The Vādavidhi," 1928, Indian Historical Quarterly 4:630-36; Pre-Diṇnāga Buddhist Texts on Logic from Chinese Sources, Gaekward's Oriental Series, 1929; "Notes on the Nyāyapraveśa by Śaṃkarasvāmin," 1931, JRAS: 381-413.

[29]On Some Aspects of the Doctrines of Maitreya[natha] and Asaṅga a. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1975

[30]Vajracchedikā: the Triśatikāyāḥ prajñāpāramitāyāḥ kārikāsaptatiḥ, in Minor Buddhist Texts, ibid.

[31]Brief History... p. 62.

[32] "Le Yogâcārabhūmi de Sa.ng harakśa." 1954, BEFEO 44:339-436.

[33] "Fragments from the Abhidharmasamuccaya of Asaṅga," 1947, J. Bombay Br. RAS, 23:13-38.

[34]Abhidharmasamuccaya of Asaṅga, Viśva-Bharati Studies 12, śāntiniketan, 1950.

[35] Walpola Rahula. Le Compendium de la Super - Doctrine (Philosophie) [Abhidharmasamuccaya] d'Asaṅga, Paris: École Française d'Extrême - Orient, 1971.

[36] "Le chapitre de la Bodhisattvabhūmi sur la perfection du Dhyāna," Rocznik Orientalisticzny 21:109-28.

[37]Bodhisattvabhūmi, being the XVth section of Asaṅga's Yogâcārabhūmi. Nalinaksha Dutt, ed., Patna: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1978 rpt.

[38] Alex Wayman, Analysis of the Śrāvakabhūmi Manuscript, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961.

[39]Der Nirvā.na-Abschnitt in der Viniścaya-saṃgrāhaṇī der Yogācārabhūmiḥ. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1969.

[40] "La philosophie bouddhique idéaliste." 1971, Asiatische Studien 25:265-323.

[41] Schmithausen, Lambert. Ālayavijñāna: on the Origin and the Early Development of a Central Concept of Yogācāra Philosophy. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1987. De Jong (op. cit., pp. 86) incorrectly identifies this work as Schmithausen's Habilitationsschrift.

[42] Powers, John. Hermeneutics and Tradition in the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra. Leiden: EJ Brill, 1993;The Yogācāra School of Buddhism: a Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: American Theological Library Association; London: Scarecrow Press, 1991; Two Commentaries on the Saṃdhinirmocana- sūtra by Asaṅga and Jñānagarbha. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992; Wisdom of the Buddha: the Saṃdhinirmocana Mahāyāna Sūtra. Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1995

[43]On Being Mindless: Buddhist Meditation and the Mind-Body Problem, La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986.

[44]The Realm of Awakening: a Translation and Study of the Tenth Chapter of Asaṅga's Mahāyānasaṃgraha, translation and notes by Paul J. Griffiths, Hakamaya Noriaki, John Keenan, et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

[45] Unpub. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1980.

[46] For instance, Dharmapāla's Yogācāra Critique of Bhāvaviveka's Mādhyamika Explanation of Emptiness: the Tenth Chapter of Ta-ch'eng Kuang pai-lun shih, commenting on Āryadeva's Catuḥśataka chapter sixteen. tr. by John P. Keenan. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997; and The Summary of the Great Vehicle by Bodhisattva Asaṅga translated from the Chinese of Paramārtha. Berkeley, CA: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1992.

[47] Ronald Mark Davidson. Buddhist Systems of Transformation: Āśraya-Parivṛtti/Paravṛtti among the Yogācāra, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Berkeley, 1985.

[48]The Vijñaptimātratā Buddhism of the Chinese Buddhist monk Kui-chi (A.D. 632-682). Unpub. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia, 1979. Other works on Yogācāra by Sponberg include "Dynamic Liberation in Yogācāra Buddhism." JIABS, 2 (1), 1979, 44-64, and "Meditation in Fa-hsiang Buddhism." in Traditions of Meditation, Peter Gregory (ed.), 1986, 15-43.

[49] "A Biographical Study of Tz'u-en." Monumenta Nipponica, 15, 1-2 (1959) 119-49

[50]The Kanjin Kakumushō;, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Harvard, 1965.

[51]A Study of the Triṃśikā-Vijñapti-Bhāṣya. Unpub. M.A. Thesis, Kyoto University, 1964.

[52]Vinītadeva's Contribution to the Buddhist Mentalistic Trend, [comm. on Triṃśikā] Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Saskatchewan, 1975.

[53]Madhyamaka and Yogācāra: a Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies. Edited, collated, and translated by L.S. Kawamura in collaboration with G.M. Nagao. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

[54]Chih-yen (602-668), and the Foundation of Hua-yen Buddhism, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1972.

[55]The Teaching of Fa-tsang - An Examination of Buddhist Metaphysics. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, UCLA, 1979.

[56]The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra: a Liberating Hermeneutic. Unpub. Ph.D. Dissertation, Temple University, 1991.

[57]Philosophy of Mind in Sixth-Century China: Paramārtha's 'Evolution of Consciousness.' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984.

[58] See my Buddhist Phenomenology, which includes a translation of the sections of Chuan-shih lun directly derived from Vasubandhu's text.

[59] David Kalupahana, The Principles of Buddhist Psychology. Albany: SUNY Press, 1987.

[60] K. N. Chatterjee. Vijñaptimātratā-siddhi. Varanasi: Kishor Vidya Niketan, 1980 (includes Devanāgarī text).

[61]Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi (Viṃśatikā). Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1993 (includes Devanāgarī text).

[62]Mind Only: A Philosophical and Doctrinal Analysis of the Vijñānavāda. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1991.

[63]Treatise In Thirty Verses on Mere Consciousness. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992 (includes rpts. of the TaishōChinese text).

[64] Many of these have been collected in Alex Wayman, Buddhist Insight. George R. Elder (ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984.

[65] For instance, Kajiyama, Yūichi. "Bhāvaviveka, Sthiramati and Dharmapāla." Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Sud- und Ostasiens und Archiv für Indische Philosophie, #12, 13, 1958, 193-203; "Controversy between the sākāra- and nirākāra-vādins of the Yogācāra School - some materials." IBK, 14 (1), 1955-56, 429-418 (26-37); "The Atomic Theory of Vasubandhu, the Author of the Abhidharmakośa." IBK, XIX (2), March 1971, 1006-1001 (19-24).

[66]Asaṅga's Chapter on Ethics With the Commentary of Tsong-Kha-Pa, The Basic Path to Awakening, The Complete Bodhisattva. tr. Mark Tatz. Lewiston: Edwin Mellon Press, 1986.

[67] Herbert Guenther and Leslie Kawamura, Mind in Buddhist Psychology. Emeryville, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1975.

[68] More works, such as Lati Rinbochay and Elizabeth Napper, Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, Valois, NY: Snow Lion, 1980, could be mentioned.

[69]Ocean of Eloquence: Tsong kha pa's Commentary on the Yogācāra Doctrine of Mind. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.

[70] Jeffery Hopkins, Emptiness in the Mind-only School of Buddhism: Dynamic Responses to Dzong-ka-ba's The Essence of Eloquence: I. Berkeley: University of CA Press, 1999.

[71] http://www.uncwil.edu/iabs/yogacara/External-Objects/


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