Vasubandhu | |
|---|---|
 Vasubandhu as a founding master of theYogācāra school in a Chinese woodblock print collection "Portraits of the Buddha and Ancestral Masters" 佛祖正宗道影 (1880) by the Chinese monk Shouyi 守一. | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | c. 4/5th century CE |
| Died | c. 4/5th century CE |
| Education | |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Buddhism |
| School | |
Vasubandhu (traditional Chinese:世親; ; pinyin:Shìqīn; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་Wylie:dbyig gnyen;fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential IndianBuddhist monk and scholar.[1] He was a philosopher who wrote commentary on theAbhidharma, from the perspectives of theSarvastivada andSautrāntika schools. After his conversion toMahayana Buddhism, along with hishalf-[citation needed]brother,Asanga, he was also one of the main founders of theYogacara school.
Vasubandhu'sAbhidharmakośakārikā ("Commentary on the Treasury of the Abhidharma") is widely used in Tibetan and East Asian Buddhism, as the major source for non-Mahayana Abhidharma philosophy. His philosophical verse works set forth the standard for the Indian Yogacara metaphysics of "appearance only" (vijñapti-mātra), which has been described as a form of "epistemological idealism",phenomenology[2] and close toImmanuel Kant'stranscendental idealism.[3] Apart from this, he wrote several commentaries, works on logic, argumentation and devotional poetry.
Vasubandhu is one of the most influential thinkers in the Indian Buddhist philosophical tradition. Because of their association withNalanda university, Vasubandhu and Asanga are amongst the so-called Seventeen Nalanda Masters.[4][5] InJōdo Shinshū, he is considered theSecond Patriarch; inChan Buddhism, he is the 21st Patriarch.
Different sources provide different places for Vasubandhu's birthplace.Xuanzang states that Vasubandhu was born inGandhara howeverButon Rinchen Drup places Vasubandhu inCentral India.[1] Vasubandhu's name means "the Kinsman of Abundance."[6][7][8] Tibetan Buddhism sees the two brothers as part of the six great Indian commentators called the "Six Ornaments".[9] He was contemporaneous withChandragupta I, father ofSamudragupta. This information temporally places this Vasubandhu in the 4th century CE.[10] The earliest biography of Vasubandhu was translated into Chinese byParamärtha (499-569).[11]
Vasubandhu initially studied with the BuddhistSarvāstivāda (also calledVaibhāṣika, who upheld theMahavibhasa commentary) school which was dominant in Gandhara, and later moved toKashmir to study with the heads of the orthodox Sarvastivada branch there.[12] After returning home, he lectured on Abhidharma and composed theAbhidharmakośakārikā (Verses on the Treasury of the Abhidharma), a verse distillation of Sarvastivada Abhidharma teachings, which was an analysis of all factors of experience into its constituent dharmas (phenomenal events). However Vasubandhu had also begun to question Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika view for some time, and had studied with theSautrāntika teacher, Manoratha. Thus, his auto-commentary to his Abhidharma verses sometimes criticize the Vaibhāṣika system from a Sautrāntika viewpoint.[3] However, the work is not always critical of Vaibhāṣika, and in some cases, it also defends the orthodox Vaibhasika position.[13] TheAbhidharmakośa remains the main source for Abhidharma studies in both Tibetan Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism.[14]
Vasubandhu is later said to have converted toMahayana beliefs under the influence of his brotherAsanga, whereupon he composed a number ofYogacara treatises and Mahayana sutra commentaries. Some of his most influential Mahayana works have been theTwenty Verses on Consciousness Only (Vimśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi), with its commentary (Viṃśatikāvṛtti), theThirty Verses on Consciousness-only (Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā) and hisDiscourse on thePure Land (Jìngtǔ lùn 浄土論). TheThirty Verses is the basis forXuanzang'sCheng Wei Shi Lun, one of the most important sources inEast Asian Yogacara Buddhism. His Pure Land treatise was also very influential on East AsianPure Land Buddhism.
In India, Vasubandhu became known as a major Mahayana master, scholar and debater. He is reported to have defeatedSamkhya philosophers in debate in front of the Gupta king "Vikramaditya" (variously identified asChandragupta II[15] orSkandagupta)[16] atAyodhya, who is said to have rewarded him with 300,000 pieces of gold.[17] Vasubandhu used the money he made from royal patronage and debating victories to build Buddhist monasteries and hospitals.
As per traditional accounts, Vasubandhu died while visitingAyodhya at the age of 100.[18]
Vasubandhu was prolific author of Buddhist treatises and commentaries. A list of his key works includes:
Erich Frauwallner, a mid-20th-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 anonymousAbhidharma-dīpa, a critique of theAbhidharmakośakārikā which clearly identifies Vasubandhu as the sole author of both groups of writings.[25] According toDan Lusthaus, "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."[26] Scholarly consensus on this question has generally moved away from Frauwallner's "two-authors" position.[27][28]
Vasubandhu'sVerses on the Treasury of the Abhidharma contains a description of all 75 dharmas (phenomenal events), and then outlines the entire Sarvastivada doctrine including "meditation practices, cosmology, theories of perception, causal theories, the causes and elimination of moral problems, the theory of rebirth, and the qualities of a Buddha."[29] The Treasury and its commentary also expound all kinds of arguments relating to theSarvastivadaAbhidharma and critique those arguments from a Sautantrika perspective in the commentary. Major arguments include an extensive critique of the Self (Atman andPudgala) and a critique of the Sarvastivada theory of "the existence of thedharmas of the three time periods [past, present and future]". In the Treasury, Vasubadhu also argued against aCreator God (Ishvara) and against the Sarvastivada theory ofavijñaptirūpa ("unperceived physicality" or "invisible physicality").
Vasubandhu's critique of the self is a defence of BuddhistAnatman doctrine, and also a critique of theBuddhist Personalist School and Hindu view of the soul. It is intended to show the unreality of the self or person as over and above the fiveskandhas (heaps, aggregates which make up an individual). Vasubandhu begins by outlining thesoteriological motive for his argument, writing that any view which sees the self as having independent reality (e.g. the Hindu view) is not conducive toNirvana.
Vasubandhu then evaluates the idea of the Self from epistemic grounds (Pramana). Vasubandhu states that what is real can only be known fromperception (Pratyakṣa) orinference (Anumāṇa). Perception allows one to observe directly the objects of thesix sense spheres. Inference allows one to infer the existence of senseorgans. However, there is no such inference for a solid real Self apart from the stream of constantly changing sense perceptions and mental activity of the sense spheres.[3]
Vasubandhu also argues that because the Self is not causally efficient, it is mere convention (prajñapti) and a "conceptual construction" (parikalpita). This argument is mainly against the BuddhistPudgalavada school who held a view of a 'person' that was dependent on thefive aggregates, yet was also distinct, in order to account for the continuity of personality. Vasubandhu sees this as illogical: for him, the Self is made up of constantly changing sensory organs, sense impressions, ideas and mental processes. Any imagined unity of self-hood is a false projection.
Vasubandhu also uses this analysis of the stream of consciousness to attack non-Buddhist Hindu views of theAtman. Vasubandhu shows that the Hindu view of the Self as 'controller' is refuted by an analysis of the flux and disorder of mental events and the inability of the supposed Self to control our minds and thoughts in any way we would like. If the Self is truly an eternal un-caused agent, it should be unaffected by mere physical and mental causes, and it also seems difficult to explain how such a force existing independently outside of the mind could causally interact with it.[3] Vasubandhu also answers several common objections to the Buddhist not-self view such as how karma works without a Self and what exactly undergoes rebirth. Vasubandhu points to the causal continuum of aggregates/processes which undergoes various changes leading to future karmic events and rebirth.
During Vasubandhu's era, thephilosophy of space and time was an important issue inBuddhist philosophy. TheSarvāstivādin tradition which Vasubandhu studied held the view of the existence of dharmas (phenomenal events) in all three times (past, present, future). This was said to be their defining theoretical position, hence their name Sarvāstivāda is Sanskrit for "theory of all exists". In contrast to thiseternalist view, theSautrāntika, a rival offshoot, held the doctrine of "extreme momentariness", a form ofpresentism (only the present moment exists).
In theAbhidharmakośakārikā, Vasubandhu puts forth the Sarvāstivādin theory, and then in his commentary (bhasya) he critiques this theory and argues for the 'momentariness' of the Sautrāntika. He also later wrote theKarma-siddhi-prakaraṇa ("Exposition Establishing Karma") which also expounded the momentariness view (kṣanikavāda). Vasubandhu's view here is that each dharma comes into existence only for a moment in which it discharges its causal efficacy and then self-destructs, the stream of experience is then a causal series of momentary dharmas. The issue of continuity and transference ofkarma is explained in the latter text by an exposition of the "storehouse consciousness" (ālayavijñāna), which stores karmic seeds (bīja) and survives rebirth.
According to Dan Lusthaus, Vasubandhu's major ideas are:[12]
Vasubandhu's main Yogacara works (Viṃśatikā and Triṃśikā) put forth the theory of "vijñaptimātra" which has been rendered variously as 'representation-only', 'consciousness-only' and 'appearance-only'. While some scholars such as Lusthaus see Vasubandhu as expounding a phenomenology of experience, others (Sean Butler) see him as expounding some form ofIdealism similar toKant orGeorge Berkeley.[30]
TheTwenty verses begins by stating:
In Mahayana philosophy...[reality is] viewed as being consciousness-only...Mind (citta), thought (manas), consciousness (chit), and perception (pratyaksa) are synonyms. The word "mind" (citta) includes mental states and mental activities in its meaning. The word "only" is intended to deny the existence of any external objects of consciousness. We recognize, of course, that "mental representations seem to be correlated with external (non-mental) objects; but this may be no different from situations in which people with vision disorders 'see' hairs, moons, and other things that are 'not there.'"[3]
One of Vasubandhu's main arguments in the Twenty verses is theDream argument, which he uses to show that it is possible for mental representations toappear to be restricted by space and time. He uses the example ofmass hallucinations (inBuddhist hell) to defend against those who would doubt that mental appearances can be shared. To counter the argument that mere mental events have no causal efficacy, he uses the example of awet dream. Vasubandhu then turns to amereological critique of physical theories, such asBuddhist atomism and HinduMonism, showing that his appearance only view is much moreparsimonious and rational.[3]
TheThirty verses also outlines the Yogacara theory of theEight Consciousnesses and how each one can be overcome by the stages of enlightenment, turning consciousness (vijnana) into unmediated cognition (jnana) by cleansing the stream of consciousness from ‘contaminations' and ‘defilements.’ TheTreatise on Buddha Nature was extremely influential in East Asian Buddhism by propounding the concept oftathagatagarbha (Buddha Nature).
TheThirty verses and the "Three Natures Exposition" (Trisvabhavanirdesha) does not, like the Twenty verses, argue for appearance only, but assumes it and uses it to explain the nature of experience which is of "three natures" or "three modes". These are the fabricated nature (parikalpitasvabhāva), the dependent (paratantrasvabhāva) and the absolute (pariniṣpannasvabhāva). The fabricated nature is the world of everyday experience and mental appearances. Dependent nature is the causal process of the arising of the fabricated nature while the absolute nature is things as they are in themselves, with no subject object distinction.
According to Vasubandhu, the absolute, reality itself (dharmatā) isnon-dual, and the dichotomy of perception into perceiver and perceived is actually a conceptual fabrication. For Vasubandhu, to say that something is non-dual is that it is both conceptually non-dual and perceptually non-dual.[3] To say that "I" exist is to conceptually divide the causal flux of the world into self and other, a false construct. Just the same, to say that an observed object is separate from the observer is also to impute a false conception into the world as it really is - perception only. Vasubandhu uses the analogy of a magician who uses a magic spell (dependent nature, conceptual construction) to make a piece of wood (the absolute, non-duality) look like an elephant (fabricated nature, duality). The basic problem for living beings who suffer is that they are fooled by the illusion into thinking that it is real, that self and duality exists, true wisdom is seeing through this illusion.[3]
Vasubandhu contributed toBuddhist logic and is held to have been the origin offormal logic in theIndian logico-epistemological tradition. He was particularly interested in formal logic to fortify his contributions to the traditions ofdialectical contestability anddebate. 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 becauseVāda-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.[31]
This text also paved the way for the later developments ofDignaga andDharmakirti in the field of logic.
According to tradition Vasubandhu was born in Puruşapura, the capital of Gāndhāra (the modern Peshawar in Western Pakistan).
The principal founders of this school, the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu, were born in Puruṣapura, today Peshawar in Pakistan, and lived probably in the fourth century.
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