The History of Buddhist Thought c26.30

c26.30

There is another presentation of this system in Aśvaghosha’s *Awakening of faith in the Mahāyāna*.¹ Stcherbatsky puts the recognition of *ālaya-vijñāna* and *tathatā* by Aśvaghosha in the first century A.D. This implies that he identifies the author of the *Awakening of faith* with the great Buddhist poet of the time of Kanishka. However, there were several Aśvaghoshas, and it is certain that the doctrine of the work as there presented cannot be earlier than the Mādhyamika school. It may be later even than the *Laṅkāvatāra*, for Suzuki says that it seems to be an attempt at systematizing the philosophy of that sūtra. It is a work of the same school, and need not be separately considered.