On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c13.s2.16

v1.c13.s2.16

The above passage has been condensed from Yuan-chuang's text and the reader will observe that; according to Yuan-chuang's information, Sanghabhadra was not, as Tāranātha represents him, the master of Vasubandhu. He is rather the young Doctor in Philosophy who is presumptuous enough to take up arms against the great chief renowned far and wide as peerless in dialectics. There is nothing in the text to shew that he and Vasubandhu were personal acquaintances, or that they ever met. So also in the Life of Vasubandhu the two men are apparently unknown to each other, and never meet.¹ Then as to the "Abhidharma-kośa-śāstra" it will be remembered that according to Yuan-chuang it was composed by Vasubandhu in Purushapur of Gandhāra, and this does not agree with the account in the Life of Vasubandhu. Yuan-chuang also tells us, and the statement has been often repeated, that Vasubandhu composed this treatise in order to refute the Vaibhāshikas. But, as has been stated already, this is not correct.² The original verses were compiled by him as a Sarvāstivādin Vaibhāshika, and the Commentary, still mainly Vaibhāshika, gives a development to certain questions from the Sautrantika point of view.