Vasubandhu

Encyclopedia of Religion
COPYRIGHT 2005 Thomson Gale
VASUBANDHU
VASUBANDHU (fifth or fourth century ce) was an eminent Indian Buddhist teacher. Said to be a
younger brother of the great Māhāyana teacher Asaṅga, Vasubandhu was first ordained in the
Hīnayāna Sarvāstivada school but later converted to the Mahāyāna. Like his brother Asaṅga,
Vasubandhu became a great exponent of the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda teachings. He is believed to be
the author of the Abhidharmakośa and many Māhāyana treatises.

Various problems continue to vex historians concerning the biography of Vasubandhu. The
Bosoupandou fashi zhuan (Biography of Master Vasubandhu, T.D. no. 2049), translated—or rather,
compiled—by Paramārtha (499–569), one of the main exponents of Yogācāra doctrine in China, is
preserved in the Chinese Tripiṭaka and is the only complete biography. Apart from this, fragmentary
information is found in various Chinese sources, the most important of which are the writings of the
great Chinese translator Xuanzang (600–664). Various histories of Buddhism written by Tibetan
historians also give accounts of Vasubandhu's life. But Chinese and Tibetan sources alike disagree
with the Biography of Master Vasubandhu (hereafter Biography ) in many places. Moreover, two or
three persons in Buddhist history bear the name Vasubandhu: According to some texts, a
Vasubandhu is the twenty-first patriarch in the transmission of the Buddha's Dharma; elsewhere,
Puguang (one of the direct disciples of Xuanzang) refers to an "ancient Vasubandhu" who belonged
to the Sarvastivada school; and both Puguang and Yaśomitra, a commentator on the
Abhidharmakośa, refer to a third, known as Sthavira-Vasubandhu. The identification of and
relationship between these three persons is still unclear.

Biography
Vasubandhu's Biography can be divided into three sections. The first section is introductory. It
begins with a legend of Puruṣapura (modern Peshawar), the native city of Vasubandhu, and then
introduces his family: his father, the brahman Kauśika, and the latter's three sons, Asaṅga,
Vasubandhu, and Viriñcivatsa. After a brief reference to Viriñcivatsa's life, an account is given of
Asaṅga's life, including the famous story of his meeting with the bodhisattva Maitreya in the Tusita
Heaven.

Vasubandhu's life comprises the second section. It begins by sketching the history of the
Sarvāstivāda school in Kashmir and tells of the composition of the Abhidharma treatises and the
great commentary on them, the Mahāvibhāṣā, there. Knowledge of the Mahāvibhāṣā 's contents was
jealously kept secret from outsiders, the account alleges, but somehow it became known in Ayodhyā
(near modern Faizābād), a city far removed from Kashmir. At the time, Vasubandhu was residing in
Ayodhyā, then the capital of the Gupta dynasty. Vindhyavāsin, a Sāṃkhya teacher and a disciple of
Vārṣaganya, came to Ayodhyā to challenge the Buddhists there to a debate while Vasubandhu and
his colleague Manoratha were absent. Their fellow teacher Buddha-mitra thus had to meet the
challenge alone, but because of his age he was defeated. This defeat deeply mortified Vasubandhu,
who wrote a treatise, Paramārthasaptatikā, in order to confute Vindhyavāsin. It was after this that
Vasubandhu composed his magnum opus, the Abhidharmakośa (hereafter Kośa ), in six hundred
verses (kārikā s). The Kośa was an eloquent summary of the purport of the Mahāvibhāṣā, and it is
reported that the Kashmiri Sarvāstivādins rejoiced to see in it all their doctrines so well propounded.
Accordingly, they requested a prose commentary (bhāṣya ), which Vasubandhu wrote. But the
Kashmiris soon realized, to their great disappointment, that the work in fact refuted many
Sarvāstivāda theories and upheld the doctrines of the Sautrāntika school. With the composition of
the Kośa, however, Vasubandhu came to enjoy the patronage and favor of two Gupta rulers,
Vikramāditya and his heir Bālāditya, who can be identified, respectively, as Skandagupta (r. about
455–467) and Narasiṃhagupta (r. about 467–473). Vasurāta, a grammarian and the husband of the
younger sister of Bālāditya, challenged him to a debate but was defeated. Then Saṃghabhadra, a
Sarvāstivada scholar from Kashmir, appeared to dispute the Kośa. He composed two treatises, one
consisting of 10,000 verses and another of 120,000 verses. (According to Xuanzang's report, it took
twelve years for Saṃghabhadra to finish the two works.) He challenged Vasubandhu to a debate,
but Vasubandhu refused, saying, "I am already old, so I will let you say what you wish. Long ago,
this work of mine destroyed the Vaibhāṣika (i.e., the Sarvāstivāda) doctrines. There is no need now
of confronting you.… Wise men will know which of us is right and which is wrong."

The third section of the biography describes Vasubandhu's conversion to Mahāyāna Buddhism.
According to this account, Vasubandhu, now proud of the fame he had acquired, clung faithfully to
the Hīnayāna doctrine in which he was well versed and, having no faith in the Mahāyāna, denied
that it was the teaching of the Buddha. His elder brother, Asaṅga, a Mahāyānist, feared that
Vasubandhu would use his great intellectual gifts to undermine the Mahāyāna. By feigning illness
he was able to summon his younger brother to Puruṣapura, where he lived. There Vasubandhu asked
Asaṅga to explain the Mahāyāna teaching to him, whereupon he immediately realized the
supremacy of Mahāyāna thought. After further study the depth of his realization came to equal that
of his brother. Deeply ashamed of his former abuse of the Mahāyāna, Vasubandhu wished to cut out
his tongue, but refrained from doing so when Asaṅga told him to use it for the cause of Mahāyāna.
After Asaṅga's death, Vasubandhu composed commentaries on various Mahāyāna sūtra s, including
the Avataṃsaka, Nirvāṇa, Saddharma-puṇḍarīka, Prajñāparamitā, Vimalakīrti, and Śrīmālādevī. He
himself composed a treatise (or treatises) on the "representation only" (vijñaptimātra) theory and
commented on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha, *Triratna-gotra, *Amṛta-mukha, and other Mahāyāna
treatises. He died in Ayodhyā at the age of eighty.
The Biography contains legendary or even mythical elements; the time sequence of events is
ambiguous and differs greatly in places from the accounts in Xuanzang's Xiyu ji. For example, the
Biography has Vasubandhu composing the Kośa at Ayodhyā and states that his conversion takes
place at Puruṣapura; the Xiyu ji places the composition of the Kośa in the suburbs of Puruṣapura,
and the conversion at Ayodhyā. According to the Biography, Vasubandhu's teacher was called
Buddhamitra, who, it relates, was defeated in a debate by Vindhyavāsin. The Xiyu ji, however, never
mentions Buddhamitra and names Manoratha as the teacher of Vasubandhu. In the Biography,
Vasubandhu engages in his literary activity on behalf of the Mahāyāna after Asaṅga's death.
Xuanzang, however, tells a strange story that suggests that Vasubandhu died before Asaṅga.
Paramārtha and Xuanzang are the two most credible authorities for Vasubandhu's life, but serious
discrepancies still exist between their accounts.

The Date of Vasubandhu

Vasubandhu's life has been variously dated at 900, 1,000, and 1,100 years after the Buddha's nirvāṇa.
The figure 900 appears in the Biography, but elsewhere Paramartha is also said to have given another
figure, 1,100. The figure 1,000 is found in Xuanzang's report, but the figure 900 seems also to have
been adopted by his disciples. Various theories concerning the date have been offered by scholars.
Noël Péri and Shiio Benkyō give as Vasubandhu's dates the years 270 to 350 ce. Ui Hakuju places
him in the fourth century (320–400). Takakusu Junjirō and Kimura Taiken give 420 to 500,
Wogihara Unrai gives 390 to 470, and Hikata Ryūshō gives 400 to 480, placing him in the fifth
century.

In order to resolve these issues, Erich Frauwallner (1951) proposed a new theory whereby two
Vasubandhus, Vasubandhu the elder and Vasubandhu the younger, are distinguished. The elder
would be the younger brother of Asaṅga. It is his activity that, according to this theory, is described
in the first and third sections of the Biography and may be dated at around 320 to 380. The younger
would be the author of the Kośa. His activity constitutes the second section of the Biography. Since
he was associated with the two Gupta rulers, he may be dated around 400 to 480. Frauwallner
supposes that Paramārtha confused the two Vasubandhus and conflated them into a single person.
This mistake, he maintains, was inherited by later historians, including Xuanzang.

Frauwallner's lucid and revolutionary theory has been endorsed by many scholars. But it does not
seem to convince all. Especially doubtful is his treatment of early Chinese documents, many of
which have been claimed by scholars to be spurious. Japanese scholars, who opposed the theory of
dating in the fourth century by negating the evidence employed in its support, would reject
Vasubandhu the elder for almost the same reasons. At any rate, Frauwallner's theory and the issues
it raises remain a hypothesis.
Literary Activity
Vasubandhu is renowned as the author of one thousand works, five hundred in the Hīnayāna
tradition and five hundred Mahāyāna treatises. However, only some forty-seven are extant, nine of
which survive in the Sanskrit original, twenty-seven in Chinese translation, and thirty-three in
Tibetan translation.

Among the independent expositions of Vasubandhu's own philosophy and doctrines, the
Abhidharmakośa is the most voluminous. In the countries of "northern" Buddhism, including Tibet,
it came to be regarded as a fundamental text to be studied by all students of the tradition. The
Karmasiddhi (Demonstration of Karma) is a short, quasi-Hīnayāna treatise colored, as is the
Abhidharmakośa, by Sautrāntika leanings. From the Yogācāra point of view the most important of
Vasubandhu's works are the Viṃśatikā (Twenty verses), Triṃśikā (Thirty verses), and
Trisvabhāvanirdeśa (Exposition on the three natures). Although these three texts are all very brief
(and the last was totally unknown in China), they form a sort of trinity and represent Vasubandhu's
final accomplishment as a Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda teacher. The Triṃśikā is especially important in
that it became the basic text of the Faxiang (Jpn., Hossō) school. The Foxing lun (Treatise on Buddha
nature), although thought to be apocryphal by not a few scholars, exerted great influence on Sino-
Japanese Buddhism by advocating the concept of tathāgata-garbha, or Buddha nature. Vasubandhu's
works also include books on logic, polemics, and other sciences.

Vasubandhu's commentaries on sūtras and śāstra s are by no means less important than the above-
mentioned independent treatises. He wrote commentaries on three treatises: the Madhyāntavibhāga
(Discrimination between the middle and the extremes), Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra (Ornament of the
Mahāyāna Sutras), and Dharmadharmatāvibhāga (also, -vibhaṅga ; Discrimination between
existence and essence). These three treatises are all ascribed to Asaṅga's teacher Maitreya and are
therefore fundamental texts for the Yogācāra school. Vasabandhu also composed a commentary on
Asaṅga's Mahāyānasaṃgraha (Compendium of Mahāyāna), the first systematic presentation of the
Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda doctrines. His commentary (upadeśa ) on the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra is
important in that it became a basic treatise of the Pure Land faith in China and Japan. The Indian
Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda is represented in China by three schools, all of which developed around
Vasubandhu's works. The first to appear, the Dilun school (established in the first half of the sixth
century), took his commentary on the Daśabhūmika Sūtra as its central text. The second, the Shelun
school, emerged in the second half of the same century organized around a Paramārtha's translation
of the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha. The last to appear, the Faxiang school, founded by Xuanzang and his
disciple Kuiji in the seventh century, took the Triṃśikā as its basic text.

With these works, Vasubandhu proved to be a highly influential Mahāyāna teacher. He is reverently
called a bodhisattva, or even "the second Buddha," in various traditions from India to China.
Vasubandhu brought to fruition doctrinal developments in the Mah ā yāna, especially in the
Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda tradition, that had been begun by Maitreya and Asaṅga and advanced by
other unknown teachers. He thus marks a culmination in Buddhist history. Before him, his school
concerned itself chiefly with Buddhist practice (hence the name Yogācāra ); after him, it emphasized
theoretical problems such as the analysis of consciousness (hence the name Vijñānavāda ), so that
various ontological, epistemological, and logical investigations became more and more conspicuous.
Compared with Asaṅga, who was gifted as a religious leader, Vasubandhu seems more scholarly,
abhidharmic, and theoretical.

See Also
Asaṅga; Buddhism, article on Buddhism in India; Buddhism, Schools of, articles on Chinese
Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhism; Maitreya; Yogācāra.

Bibliography
A bibliography appended to Erich Frauwallner's On the Date of the Buddhist Master of the Law,
Vasubandhu (Rome, 1951) is highly helpful in that it exhausts almost all discussions, hence almost
all evidences, relevant to Vasubandhu's date. After Frauwallner, there is no independent biographical
study on Vasubandhu, except a paper by Hikata Ryūshō, "A Reconsideration on the Date of
Vasubandhu," Bulletin of the Faculty of the Kyushu University 4 (1956): 53–74, which does not
refer to Frauwallner and a criticism of Frauwallner's theory by Padmanabh S. Jaini, "On the Theory
of Two Vasubandhus," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 21 (1958): 48–53.

Vasubandhu's thought is the subject of numerous studies. Among the most useful are Louis de La
Vallée Poussin's Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, la siddhi de Hiuan-tsang, 2 vols. (Paris, 1928–1929);
Sylvain Lévi's Un système de philosophie bouddhique: Materiaux pour l'étude du système
Vijñaptimātra (Paris, 1932); and Yuki Reimon's Seshin Yuishiki no kenkyū (Tokyo, 1955–1956).

There have been several publications of English translations of the French translations of
Vasubandhu's work. Among these are Abhidharmakośabhasyam, by Louis De La Vallée Poussin,
English translation by Leo Pruden (Berkeley, Calif., 1988–1990), and Karmasiddhiprakarana: The
Treatise on Action., by E. Lamotte, English translation by Leo Pruden (Berkeley, Calif., 1988).
Stefan Anacker's Seven Works of Vasubandhu (Delhi, 1984) includes translations of Vasubandhu's
Vādavidhī, Pañcaskandha-prakaraṇā, Karmasiddhi-praka-raṇa, Viṃ śatika, Triṃ śikā,
Madhyāntavibhāgabhāṣya, and Trisvabhāvanirdeśa; another important translation is Hermann
Jacobi's Triṃ śikāvijñapti des Vasubandhu, mit bhāṣya des ācārya Sthiramati (Stuttgart, 1932).
Louis de La Vallée Poussin translated the most influential work of Abhidharma as
L'Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu, 6 vols. (1923–1931; reprint, Brussels, 1971). My Chūkan to
yuishiki (Tokyo, 1978) contains articles discussing some philosophical ideas of the Vijñānavāda;
see also Seshin ronshū (Tokyo, 1976) by Kajiyama Yūichi, Aramaki Noritoshi, and me.

Nagao Gadjin (1987 and 2005)

Nagao, Gadjin. 2005. "Vasubandhu." Encyclopedia of Religion. ed. Lindsay Jones. 2nd edition, Vol.
14 (Detroit: Macmillian Reference USA) 9525-9528. Gale Virtual Reference Library.