Asaṅga spent many years in serious meditation and study under various teachers but the narrative of the 6th century monk Paramārtha states that he was unsatisfied with his understanding. Paramārtha then recounts how he used his meditative powers (siddhis) to travel to Tuṣita Heaven to receive teachings from Maitreya Bodhisattva on emptiness, and how he continued to travel to receive teachings from Maitreya on the Mahayana sutras.[12][13]
In the great mango grove five or six Iṣṭa-devatā) as well as numerous other Yogacara masters, a point noted by the 6th century Indian monk
Sthiramati.
[15] Whatever the case, Asaṅga's experiences led him to travel around India and propagate the
Mahayana teachings. According to
Taranatha's History of Buddhism in India, he founded 25 Mahayana monasteries in India.
[16]
Among the most famed monasteries that he established was Veluvana in Magadha region of what is now Bihar. [17] It was here that he hand-picked eight chosen disciples who would all become famed in their own right and spread the Mahayana. [18]
Works
Asaṅga went on to write some key treatises (shastras) of the
Yogācāra school. Over time, many different works were attributed to him (or to Maitreya, with Asaṅga as transmitter), although there are discrepancies between the Chinese and Tibetan traditions concerning which works are attributed to him.
[19] Modern scholars have also problematized and questioned these attributions after critical textual study of the sources. The many works attributed to this figure can be divided into the three following groups.
The first are three works which are widely agreed by ancient and modern scholars to be by Asaṅga:[9][5]
magnum opus
, survives in one Tibetan and four Chinese translations.
- Xianyang shengjiao lun, variously retranslated into Sanskrit as Āryadeśanāvikhyāpana, Āryapravacanabhāṣya, Prakaraṇāryaśāsanaśāstra, Śāsanodbhāvana, and Śāsanasphūrti. A work strongly based on the
Yogācārabhūmi
. Only available in Xuanzang's Chinese translation, but parallel Sanskrit passages can be found in the Yogācārabhūmi.
The Maitreya Corpus
The next group of texts are those that Tibetan
Dharmas of Maitreya" in
Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism. According to D.S. Ruegg, the "five works of Maitreya" are mentioned in Sanskrit sources from only the 11th century onwards.
[23] As noted by
S.K. Hookham, their attribution to a single author has been questioned by modern scholars.
[24]
According to the Tibetan tradition, the so called Asanga-Maitreya is:
- Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra-kārikā, ("The Adornment of Mahayana sutras", Tib. theg-pa chen-po'i mdo-sde'i rgyan), which presents the Mahāyāna path from the Yogācāra perspective and shows structural similarities with the Bodhisattvabhumi. There is a closely related commentary on this text, the Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra-bhāṣya. Some scholars, like Mario D'amato, have questioned the attribution of this text to Asanga-Maitreya. Instead, D'amato places this text (together with the commentary, which he considers the work of one author) after the Bodhisattvabhumi, but before the composition of Asanga's Mahāyānasaṃgraha (which quotes the Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra as an authoritative text).[25]
- Madhyāntavibhāga-kārikā ("Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes", Tib. dbus-dang mtha' rnam-par 'byed-pa), 112 verses that are a key work in Yogācāra philosophy. D'amato also places this text in the second phase of Yogacara scholarship, i.e. after the Bodhisattvabhumi, but before the classic works of Asanga and Vasubandhu.[25]
- Dharmadharmatāvibhāga ("Distinguishing Phenomena and Pure Being", Tib. chos-dang chos-nyid rnam-par 'byed-pa), a short Yogācāra work discussing the distinction and correlation (vibhāga) between phenomena (dharma) and reality (dharmatā).
- Abhisamayalankara ( "Ornament for clear realization", Tib. mngon-par rtogs-pa'i rgyan), a verse text which attempts a synthesis of Prajñaparamita doctrine and Yogacara thought. There are differing scholarly opinions on authorship, John Makransky writes that it is possible the author was actually Arya Vimuktisena, the 6th century author of the first surviving commentary on this work.[26] Makransky also notes that it is only the later 8th century commentator Haribhadra who attributes this text to Maitreya, but that this may have been a means to ascribe greater authority to the text.[27] As Brunnholzl notes, this text is also completely unknown in the Chinese Buddhist tradition.[28]
Peter Harvey concurs, finding the Tibetan attribution less plausible.
[31]
According to Karl Brunnholzl, the Chinese tradition also speaks of five Maitreya-Asanga texts (first mentioned in Dunlun's Yujia lunji), "but considers them as consisting of the
While the in toto, but most modern scholars now consider the text to be a compilation of various works by numerous authors, and different textual strata can be discerned within its contents.
[32] However, Asaṅga may still have participated in the compilation of this work.
[9]
The third group of texts associated with Asaṅga comprises two commentaries: the Kārikāsaptati, a work on the Vajracchedikā, and the Āryasaṃdhinirmocana-bhāṣya (Commentary on the Saṃdhinirmocana). The attribution of both of these to Asaṅga is not widely accepted by modern scholars.[9]
References
Puruṣapura
, India), influential Buddhist philosopher who established the Yogācāra (“Practice of Yogā”) school of idealism."
- ^ a b Engle, Artemus (translator), Asanga, The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment: A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhumi, Shambhala Publications, 2016, Translator's introduction.
- ^ a b Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga, Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xiii.
- .
- ^ a b Hattori, Masaaki. “Asaṅga.” In Aaron–Attention. Vol. 1 of The Encyclopedia of Religion. 2d ed. Edited by Lindsay Jones, 516–517. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.
- .
Born into a brāhmana family in Puruṣapura (modern-day Peshawar, Pakistan), Asanga originally studied under Sarvāstivāda (possibly Māhiṣasaka) teachers but converted to the Mahāyāna later in life.
- .
Asanga, born in the Gandara region of present-day Pakistan in the city of Purusapura (the modern Peshawar) as the third son of Prasannasila (or Prakasila), was probably active around the fourth or fifth century.
- ^ Rama Karana Sarma (1993). Researches in Indian and Buddhist Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Alex Wayman. p. 5
- ^ a b c d Lugli, Ligeia, Asaṅga, oxfordbibliographies.com, LAST MODIFIED: 25 NOVEMBER 2014, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195393521-0205.
- ^ a b Rongxi, Li (1996). The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions., Numata Center, Berkeley, p. 153.
- ^ Rongxi, Li (1996). The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions., Numata Center, Berkeley, pp. 154-155.
- ^ Wayman, Alex (1997). Untying the Knots in Buddhism: Selected Essays. p. 213
- ^ Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga, Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xiv.
- ^ Being as Consciousness: Yogācāra Philosophy of Buddhism. Tola, Fernando and Carmen Dragonetti. Motilal Banarsidass: 2004 pg xv
- ^ Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga, Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xvii.
- ^ Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga, Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xviii.
- .
- .
- ^ Giuseppe Tucci (1930). On Some Aspects of the Doctrines of Maitreya (natha) and the Asanga, Calcutta.
-
- ^ Rahula, Walpola; Boin-Webb, Sara (translators); Asanga, Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching, Jain Publishing Company, 2015, p. xx.
- ^ Dan Lusthaus (2002). Buddhist Phenomenology. Routledge, p. 44, note 5. Lusthaus draws attention to Rahula's Zen and the Taming of the Bull.
- ^ Ruegg, D.S. La Theorie du Tathagatagarbha et du Gotra. Paris: Ecole d'Extreme Orient, 1969, p. 35.
- . Source; [3] (accessed: Tuesday May 5, 2009), p.325.
- ^ a b D’AMATO, M. “THREE NATURES, THREE STAGES: AN INTERPRETATION OF THE YOGĀCĀRA ‘TRISVABHĀVA’-THEORY.” Journal of Indian Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 2, 2005, pp. 185–207. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23497001. Accessed 16 Feb. 2024.
- ^ Makransky, John J. Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet SUNY Press, 1997, p. 187.
- ^ Makransky, John J. Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet SUNY Press, 1997, p. 17.
- ^ a b Brunnholzl, Karl, When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and Its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sutra and Tantra, Shambhala Publications, 2015, p. 81.
- ^ Williams, Paul, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations, Routledge, 1989, p. 103.
- . Source; [3] (accessed: Tuesday May 5, 2009), pp.165-166.
- ^ Peter Harvey (1993). "An Introduction to Buddhism." Cambridge University Press, page 114.
- ^ Delhey, Martin, Yogācārabhūmi, oxfordbibliographies.com, LAST MODIFIED: 26 JULY 2017, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195393521-0248.
Bibliography
External links