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Vasubandhu

Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, traditionally from Gandhāra, who wrote one of the great summaries of Abhidharma thought and later became, with his…

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वसुबन्धु

c. 4th – 5th century CE · Gandhāra (Puruṣapura), Kashmir, Ayodhyā

Traditions: Buddhist

Schools: Yogacara

Vasubandhu was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, traditionally from Gandhāra, who wrote one of the great summaries of Abhidharma thought and later became, with his half-brother Asaṅga, a founding figure of Yogācāra. Whether all the works under his name are by one author has been debated. His Abhidharmakośa defends the momentariness of all conditioned things, so that what looks like persistence is a series of resembling moments inferred as one thing. His Yogācāra works argue that the world as experienced is a construction of consciousness.

Key ideas

  • Every conditioned thing exists only for a moment; persistence is a series of resembling moments.
  • A person is a stream of aggregates, with no enduring self behind them.
  • Experience of an external world can be explained without external objects, as in dreams.
  • Things as experienced have three natures: imagined, dependent and perfected.

Major works

  • Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Abhidharma, with auto-commentary)
  • Viṃśatikā (Twenty Verses)
  • Triṃśikā (Thirty Verses)
  • Trisvabhāvanirdeśa (Treatise on the Three Natures)

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