Yaśomitra

Yaśomitra (T. Grags pa bshes gnyen) (fl. c. late sixth century). Indian Ābhidharmika scholastic, probably affiliated with the Sautrāntika school, and author of the Sphuṭārthā-Abhidharmakośavyākhyā, an important commentary on Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. His commentary is noted for its detail and clarity, and for its attempt to identify the adherents of the various doctrinal positions mentioned by Vasubandhu. The text is preserved in both Sanskrit and Tibetan. Yaśomitra's text was among the first Abhidharma works to be studied in Europe; it was one of the Sanskrit manuscripts sent by Brian Houghton Hodgson from Kathmandu to Paris, where it was read by Eugène Burnouf, who discusses it in his Introduction à l'histoire du Buddhisme indien (1844). (Source: "Yaśomitra." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 1024. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)