Studies on Early Vijñaptimātra Philosophy

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Studies on Early Vijñaptimātra Philosophy
Book


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Shinjō Suguro
author
Shunjūsha
publisher
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Topics
Texts:
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Description

Suguro's book presents a groundbreaking reexamination of early Yogācāra Buddhist philosophy, challenging the conventional understanding of how the school developed. Rather than accepting the traditional view that the Yogācāra school began with a unified set of teachings from Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu that later branched into different interpretations, Suguro argues that early Vijñaptimatra philosophy was inherently diverse and fluid from its inception. He contends that what scholars have attributed to these founding figures actually represents a collection of varied doctrinal strands that were brought together over time, rather than a coherent system created by individual authors. The book addresses the significant problem of uncertain authorship among the seven major treatises traditionally attributed to Maitreya, noting that different Buddhist traditions (Chinese and Tibetan) assign these works to different authors entirely. Suguro proposes that to truly understand the fundamental structure of Vijñaptimatra theory, scholars must abandon the assumption of early doctrinal fixity and instead recognize that this philosophical tradition was still developing and evolving during its formative period. His methodology involves analyzing the philosophical content of these disputed texts and making comparative studies of their teachings to reconstruct the actual historical development of early Yogācāra thought.
Citation
Suguro, Shinjō. Studies on Early Vijñaptimātra Philosophy. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1989.


Scholarship on

 
Yogācārabhūmaubodhisattvabhūmiḥ
The Bodhisattvabhūmi (literally "The Stage of a Bodhisattva") stands as one of the most comprehensive and systematic expositions of the Mahāyāna Buddhist path from classical India. Formally the fifteenth section of the massive Yogācārabhūmi corpus, this foundational treatise provides an encyclopedic manual detailing the entire spiritual trajectory of a bodhisattva—from the initial arising of the "mind of awakening" (bodhicitta) to the ultimate attainment of perfect buddhahood.

Traditionally attributed to Ārya Asaṅga (c. fourth–fifth century CE) through revelation from the future buddha Maitreya, the text likely represents a compilation of earlier materials (c. 230–300 CE) that predates the fully developed Yogācāra philosophical system. Its existence in multiple Chinese translations from the early fifth century onward confirms its early date and widespread influence across Asian Buddhism.

The work's meticulously structured curriculum unfolds across three main books: The Support (ādhāra), the foundational prerequisites for the path; The Qualities That Accord with the Support (ādhārānudharma), the progressive stages of development; and The Perfection of the Support (ādhāraniṣṭhā), the ultimate fruition of buddhahood. At its philosophical heart lies the Tattvārthapaṭala (Chapter on Reality), which articulates a nuanced doctrine of "rightly grasped emptiness" that avoids both nihilism and eternalism. The text's longest and most influential section, the Śīlapaṭala (Chapter on Morality), codifies the complete ethical discipline of bodhisattvas through the famous system of bodhisattva precepts that became standard in Tibetan Buddhism.
Text

  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. The Origin of the Treatises of Maitreya and Historical Problems
    • 1. The Nature of the Problem-Interpreting the Legends
    • 2. The Madhyantavibhāga
    • 3. The Triśatikāyāḥ Prajñāpāramitāyāḥ Kārikāsaptatiḥ
    • 4. The Āryabhagavatī-prajñāpāramitā-vajracchedika-saptārtha-ṭīkā (Appended)
    • 5. The Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkāra
    • 6. The Yogācārabhūmi
    • 7. The Āryadeśanā-vikhyāpana-śāstra (Appended)
    • 8. The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyanottaratantraśāstra
    • 9. The Dharmadharmatāvibhāga
    • 10. The Yogavibhāgaśāstra
    • 11. The Abhisamayālaṁkāra
    • 12. The Āryamahāratnakūṭa-dharmaparyāya-śatasāhasrika-parivarta-kāśyapa-parivarta-ṭīkā (Appended)
  • Chapter 2. An Examination of the Formation of the Yogācārabhūmi and the Saṁdhinirmocanasūtra
    • 1. The Yogācārabhūmi
    • 2. The Saṁdhinirmocanasūtra
  • Chapter 3. A Comparative Study of the Teachings of the Mahāyānasūtralaṁkāra, the Bodhisattvabhūmi, and the Mahāyānasaṁgraha from the Perspective of Textual History
    • 1. The Mahāyānasūtralaṁkāra and the Bodhisattvabhūmi
    • 2. The Mahāyānasūtralaṁkāra and the Mahāyānasaṁgraha
      • i. (Main Section) A Comparative Study of the Verses Quoted in the Mahāyānasaṁgraha
      • ii. (Appended Section) The Comparison of Verses Quoted in Prose Form
      • iii. Comparison of Teachings Common to the Mahāyānasaṁgraha and the Abhidharmasamuccaya
  • Chapter 4. The Mahāyānasaṁgraha and the Viniścaya-saṁgrahaṇī section of the Yogācārabhūmi


Yogācāra - Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana). Skt योगाचार  Tib རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པ་  Ch 瑜伽行派  

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Asaṅga (ཐོགས་མེད་). Yogācārabhūmaubodhisattvabhūmiḥ [बोधिसत्त्वभूमिः]. rnal 'byor spyod pa'i sa las byang chub sems dpa'i sa [རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པའི་ས་ལས་བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་ས།]. [From The Levels of Spiritual Practice: The Level of a Bodhisattva (84000)]. Translated by Prajñāvarman, Ye shes sde. Tengyur, RKTST 3376 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3376&typ=2.

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Asaṅga (ཐོགས་མེད་). Yogācārabhūmaubodhisattvabhūmiḥ [बोधिसत्त्वभूमिः]. rnal 'byor spyod pa'i sa las byang chub sems dpa'i sa [རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པའི་ས་ལས་བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་ས།]. [From The Levels of Spiritual Practice: The Level of a Bodhisattva (84000)]. Translated by Prajñāvarman, Ye shes sde. Tengyur, RKTST 3376 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3376&typ=2.

Go to the page with the definition of 'རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པའི་ས་ལས་བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་ས།'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt महायान  Tib ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ།  Ch 大乘  

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

Go to the page with the definition of 'mind of awakening'

Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

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Śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt शून्यता  Tib སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་  Ch 空 and 空門  

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattvas'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattvas'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Prajñāpāramitā - A class of Mahāyāna sūtras which represents some of the earliest known literature of this genre of Buddhism. There are around forty texts associated with this category, though the most widespread is the exceedingly brief Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra, popularly known as the Heart Sūtra. This class of literature is typically associated with the second turning of the dharma wheel and especially with the teachings on emptiness (śūnyatā). As such, these texts were the primary scriptural source for the philosophy of the Madhyamaka school. Skt प्रज्ञापारमिता  Tib ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ་ and ཤེར་ཕྱིན་  Ch 般若波羅蜜多  

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