Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s2.35

c19.s2.35

Of Āryadeva we now have beside fragments the *Catuḥśataka*,⁴ the *Hastabālaprakaraṇa*,⁵ and the *Cittaviśuddhiprakaraṇa*;⁶ the latter concludes that the mind, when without a touch of imagination, is the true reality, the apparent diversity which it exhibits being explained by the coloration of imagination, just as the limpid crystal is discoloured by the reflection of a coloured object, a doctrine which shows that Āryadeva⁷ was approximating to the views of the Vijñānavāda or the *Mahāyānaśraddhotpāda*. The foremost authority on the Vijñānavāda, though not necessarily or probably its founder, is Āryāsaṅga, or Asaṅga, the real author of the *Yogācārabhūmiśāstra*, of which the *Bodhisattvabhūmi*⁸ is preserved in Sanskrit. This text, which with others is ascribed to Maitreya, in the manner of the Mahāyāna, attempts to prove the authenticity of its doctrine; it rests on the belief in enlightenment as the supreme reality to be attained by the Yogācāra, the monk who practises the Yoga mysticism which is an essential part even of the Hīnayāna, but is now incorporated definitely in the Mahāyāna, giving the idealist school the alternative name of Yogācāra. The ten stages of the progress of the Bodhisattva to enlightenment are described in the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, in verse with a prose comment by the author. Other works by Asaṅga are enumerated, Mahāyānasamparigrahaśāstra, Madhyāntavibhāga, Mahāyāna Sūtra, various Upadeças, Saptadaçabhūmi Sūtra &c., but it is difficult to ascribe to him any high rank as a philosopher. It would be interesting to ascertain his precise relation to the Laṅkāvatāra; if we could accept the ascription of the Mahāyānaçraddhotpāda to Açvaghoṣa and the identification of a citation in it with the Laṅkāvatāra, we could be sure that Asaṅga was later than the Sūtra, in which case his claim to originality would be very slight. In point of fact, however, originality was not the aim of these writers, but rather effective exposition of a doctrine already in circulation.¹