Yogacara/Vijñanavada (Fa-hsiang/Hosso)
The Yogacara (or Vijñanavada) school is traditionally ascribed to the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu (5th century AD), to whom may be added Sthiramati (6th century). These writers were systematizers of doctrines already being taught and contained in such literature as the Lankavatara-sutra and the Mahayana-sraddhotpada-sastra (attributed to Asvaghosa but probably written in Central Asia or in China). Yogacara explored and propounded basic doctrines that were to be fundamental in the future development of Mahayana and that influenced the rise of Tantric Buddhism (see below Esoteric Buddhism).
Its central doctrine is that only consciousness (vijñanamatra; hence the name Vijñanavada) is real, that thought or mind is the ultimate reality. External things do not exist; nothing exists outside the mind. The common view that external things exist is due to an error or misconception that is removable through a meditative or yogic process that brings a complete withdrawal or “revulsion” from these fictitious externals and an inner concentration and tranquility.
A store consciousness (alaya-vijñana) is postulated as the receptacle, or storehouse, of the imprint of thoughts and deeds, the vasana (literally, “dwelling”) of various karmic seeds (bijas). The “seeds” develop into touch, mental activity, feeling, perception, and will, corresponding to the five skandhas. Then ideation (manas) develops, which sets off a self or mind against an outer world. Finally comes the awareness of the objects of thought via sense perceptions and ideas. The store consciousness must be purified of its subject-object duality and notions of false existence and restored to its pure state. This pure state is equivalent to the absolute “suchness” (tathata), to buddhahood, to the undifferentiated.
Corresponding to these three elements of false imagination (vikalpa), right knowledge, and suchness are the three modes in which things are: (1) the mere fictions of false imagination, (2) the relative existence of things, under certain conditions or aspects, and (3) the perfect mode of being, corresponding to right knowledge. The latter state of consciousness and being is that ultimately attained by the bodhisattva in buddhahood. Corresponding to this threefold version of the modes of being and awareness is the tri-kaya doctrine of the Buddha noted above (the apparitional body, the enjoyment body, and the dharma body), a doctrine that was put into its systematic, developed form by Yogacara thinkers.
The special characteristics of Yogacara are its emphasis on meditation and a broadly psychological analysis. This contrasts with the other great Mahayana system, Madhyamika, where the emphasis is on logical analysis and dialectic.
This consciousness-oriented school of thought was represented in China primarily by the Fa-hsiang (or Dharmalaksana; also Wei-shih) school, called Hosso in Japan. The basic teachings of Yogacara became known in China primarily through the work of Paramartha, a 6th-century Indian missionary-translator. His translation of the Mahayana-samparigraha-sastra provided the foundation for the She-lun school, which preceded the Fa-hsiang school as the vehicle of Yogacara thought in China. Fa-hsiang was founded by Hsüan-tsang, the 7th-century Chinese pilgrim-translator, and his main disciple, K'uei-chi. Hsüan-tsang went to India and studied the doctrines derived from Dharmapala (d. 507) and taught at the Vijñanavada centre at Valabhi. When he returned to China he translated Dharmapala's Vijñapti-matrata-siddhi and many other works. His teachings followed mainly the line of Dharmapala but also included the ideas of other Indian teachers such as Dignaga and Sthiramati. They were expressed systematically in his works Fa-yuan-i-lin-chang and Wei shih-shu chi, the basic texts of the Fa-hsiang school.
Fa-hsiang is the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit dharmalaksana (“characteristic of dharma”), referring to the school's basic emphasis on the peculiar characteristics (dharmalaksana) of the dharmas that make up the world which appears in human ideation. The connection of this so-called idealist school with the “realist” Abhidharma-Kusha school (see above Early Buddhist schools: Sarvastivada [P'i-t'an, Chü-she/Kusha]) is evident, though many new elements are introduced. According to Fa-hsiang teaching, there are five categories of dharmas: (1) 8 mental dharmas (cittadharma), comprising the 5 sense consciousnesses, cognition, the cognitive faculty, and the store consciousness, (2) 51 mental functions or capacities, dispositions, and activities (caitasikadharma), (3) 11 elements concerned with material forms or appearances (rupa-dharma), (4) 24 things, situations, and processes not associated with the mind—e.g., time, becoming (cittaviprayuktasamskara), and (5) 6 noncreated or nonconditioned elements (asamskrtadharma)—e.g., space or “suchness” (tathata).
britannica.com |
