The
Śrāvakabhūmi, "The Level of the
Śrāvaka," is the thirteenth of the seventeen levels (
bhūmi) that make up the first and longest part of the
Yogācārabhūmiśāstra, the encyclopedic treatise of the
Yogācāra tradition traditionally ascribed to
Asaṅga. It sets out the path of the
śrāvaka, the "hearer" or
disciple, as a complete course of training. It begins with the spiritual
disposition (
gotra) that makes liberation possible and moves through ethical discipline, guarding the senses, and the other preparations for meditation. Its core is a detailed manual of meditative practice: the objects of meditation suited to different temperaments, the cultivation of calm abiding (
śamatha) and insight (
vipaśyanā), and the nine stages of settling the mind (
navākārā cittasthiti). Though framed as the path of the śrāvaka, these instructions became a common foundation for
Mahāyāna meditation, and Tibetan authors such as Tsongkhapa drew on them extensively in their presentations of calm abiding.
The work survives in Sanskrit, in a manuscript photographed by Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana at Zhalu Monastery in the 1930s, which has since been edited by Karunesha Shukla and by the Śrāvakabhūmi Study Group of Taishō University. It was translated into Chinese by Xuanzang as part of his complete translation of the Yogācārabhūmi, and into Tibetan by Yeshe De and Jinamitra. The Tibetan translation is preserved in the Derge Tengyur (Toh 4036), in the sems tsam section, vol. dzi, F.1b–195a.