Abstract
The connection between early yogācāras, or practitioners of yoga, and later Yogācāra-vijñānavāda philosophy has long preoccupied scholars. But these connections remain obscure. This article suggests that a text that has received little attention in modern scholarship, the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra, may shed light on aspects of early yogācāra contemplative cultures that gave rise to some of the formative dynamics of Yogācāra-vijñānavāda thought. I show how traditional Buddhist meditative practice and engagement with Abhidharma theoretics come together in the Saddharmasmṛtyuasthānasūtra to produce a novel theory of mind that mirrors many of the philosophical problematics that early and late Yogācāra-vijñānavādins confronted and attempted to work out in śāstric detail.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bareau, A. (1955). Les sectes bouddhiques du petit véhicule. Saigon: École française d’Extrême-Orient.
Barua, A. (Ed.). (1982 [1949]). The Peṭakopadesa. London: The Pali Text Society (distributed by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.).
Baums, S. (2014). Truth and scripture in early Buddhism: Categorial reduction as exegetical method in ancient Gandhāra and Beyond. In S. Tansen (Ed.), Buddhism across Asia: Networks of material, intellectual and cultural exchange (Vol. I, pp. 19–38). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Bendall, C. (Ed.). (1970 [1897]). Çikshāsamuccaya: A Compendium of Buddhistic Teaching Compiled by Çāntideva, Chiefly From Earlier Mahāyāna-sūtras. Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag.
Blum, J. (2012). Radical empiricism and the unremarkable nature of mystic ineffability. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 24(3), 201–219.
Blum, J. (2014). The science of consciousness and mystical experience: An argument for radical empiricism. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 82(1), 150–173.
Blumenberg, H. (1997 [1979]). Shipwreck with spectator: A paradigm of a metaphor for existence. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Bronkhorst, J. (2012). Absorption: Human nature and Buddhist liberation. Paris: University Media.
Cousins, L. (1981). The Paṭṭhāna and the development of the Theravādin Abhidhamma. Journal of the Pali Text Society, IX, 22–46.
Cox, C. (1995). Disputed Dharmas, Early Buddhist Theories on Existence: An Annotated Translation of the Section on Factors Dissociated From Thought from Saṅghabhadra’s Nyāyānusāra. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies.
Cox, C. (2014). “Yogācāra prehistory: The interpretation of Bhāva, Svabhāva, Abhiniṣpanna and Pariniṣpanna in a Gāndhārī Scholastic Text.” In T. Lewis & B. M. Owens (Eds.), Sucāruvādadeśika: A Festschrift Honoring Professor Theodore Riccardi (pp. 37–74). Kathmandu: Himal Books.
Deleanu, F. (2006). The chapter on the Mundane Path (Laukikamārga) in the Śrāvakabhūmi: A trilingual edition (Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese), Annotated translation, and introductory study. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies.
Delhey, M. (Ed.). (2009). Samāhitā Bhūmiḥ: Das Kapitel über die meditative Versenkung im Grundteil der Yogācārabhūmi. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien.
Demiéville, P. (1954). La Yogācārabhūmi de Saṅgharakṣa. Bulletin de l’Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient, 44, 340–436.
Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
Dhammajoti, B. K. L. (2007). Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma. Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong.
Gethin, R. (1994). Bhavaṅga and rebirth according to the Abhidhamma. In T. Skorupski & U. Pagel (Eds.), The Buddhist Forum (Vol. III, pp. 11–35). London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Gnoli, R., with the assistance of T. Venkatacharya (Eds.). (1977–1978). The Gilgit manuscript of the Saṅghabhedavastu: Being the 17th and last section of the Vinaya of the Mūlasarvāstivādin. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente.
Griffiths, P. J. (1986). On being mindless: Buddhist meditation and the mind-body problem. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company.
Hamar, I. (2014). The metaphor of the painter in the Avataṃsaka-sūtra and its Chinese interpretations. Studia Orientalia Slovaca, 13(2), 175–198.
Hardy, E. (Ed.). (1961 [1902]). The Netti-pakaraṇa, With Extracts from Dhammapāla’s Commentary. London: The Pali Text Society (Messrs. Luzac & Company, Ltd.).
Humphrey, N. (2011). Soul dust: The magic of consciousness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hutto, D. D., & Myin, E. (2013). Radicalizing enactivism: Basic minds without content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Koch, C. (2004). The quest for consciousness: A neurobiological approach. Denver, CO: Roberts and Co.
Kramer, J. (2010). The concept of the person in the Yogācāra Tradition: A study and edition of Sthiramati’s Pañcaskandhakavibhāṣā. Unpublished Habilitation, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich.
Kramer, J. (2012). “Descriptions of ‘Feeling’ (vedanā), ‘Ideation’ (saṃjñā), and ‘The Unconditioned’ (asaṃskṛta) in Vasubandhu’s Pañcaskandhaka and Sthiramati’s Pañcaskandhakavibhāṣā.” Rocznik Orientalistyczny, LXV(1), 120–139.
Kramer, J. (Ed.). (2013). Sthiramati’s Pañcaskandhakavibhāṣā. Sanskrit texts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region (STTAR) 16 (2 Vols.). Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House—Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
Kramer, J. (2014). Indian Abhidharma Literature in Tibet: A study of the Vijñāna section of Sthiramati’s Pañcaskandhakavibhāṣā. In T. Sen (Ed.), Buddhism across Asia: Networks of material, intellectual and cultural exchange (pp. 309–325). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Kramer, J. (2016). Some remarks on the proofs of the ‘Store Mind’ (Ālayavijñāna) and the development of the concept of Manas. In B. Dessein & W. Teng (Eds.), Text, history, and philosophy: Abhidharma across Buddhist scholastic traditions (Proceedings of the conference “From Abhidhamma to Abhidharma,” Ghent 2013) (pp. 146–167). Leiden: Brill.
Kripal, J. J. (2010). Authors of the impossible: The paranormal and the sacred. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kritzer, R. (2005). Vasubandhu and the Yogācārabhūmi, Yogācāra Elements in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. Studia Philologica Buddhica XVIII. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies of The International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies.
Kritzer, R. (2013). Garbhāvakrāntau (‘In the Garbhāvakrānti’), quotations from the Garbhāvakrāntisūtra in Abhidharma literature and the Yogācārabhūmi. In U. T. Kragh (Ed.), The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners (pp. 738–771). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kritzer, R. (2014). Garbhāvakrāntisūtra: The Sūtra on Entry into the Womb. Studia Philologica Buddhica XXXI. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies of The International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books.
Lamotte, É. (1973 [1938]). La somme du grand véhicule d’Asaṅga (Mahāyānasaṃgraha). Louvain: Institut Orientaliste de Louvain.
Li, X., & Steinkellner, E. (Eds.). (2008). Vasubandhu’s Pañcaskandhaka. Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House and The Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
Lin, L., & Demiéville, P. (1949). L’aide-mémoire de la vraie loi. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve.
Lusthaus, D. (2002). Buddhist phenomenology: A philosophical investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Chʾeng Wei-shih Lun. London: Routledge/Curzon.
Metzinger, T. (2003). Being no one: The self-model theory of subjectivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mizuno, K. (1964). On the Ārya-saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna-sūtra. Journal of Indian and Buddhist studies (Indogaku Bukkyogaku Kenkyu), 12, 38–47.
Nagel, T. (2012). Mind and cosmos: Why the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false. New York: Oxford University Press.
Noë, A. (2009). Out of our heads: Why you are not your brain, and other lessons from the biology of consciousness. New York: Hill and Wang.
Park, C. (2014). Vasubandhu, Śrīlāta, and the Sautrāntika theory of seeds. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien.
Pradhan, P. (Ed.). (1975[1967]). Abhidharmakoṣabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu. Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute.
Schmithausen, L. (1976). On the problem of the relation of spiritual practice and philosophical theory in Buddhism. In G. Scholars (Ed.), on India: Contributions to Indian Studies (pp. 235–250). Bombay: The Cultural Department, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Schmithausen, L. (1987). Ālayavijñāna: On the origin and the early development of a central concept of Yogācāra Philosophy. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies.
Schmithausen, L. (2005). On the problem of the external world in the Chʻeng Wei Shih Lun. Studia Philologica Buddhica, Occasional Paper Series 13. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies of the International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies.
Schmithausen, L. (2014). The genesis of the Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda, responses and reflections. Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies.
Siegel, D. J. (2007). The mindful brain: Reflection and attunement in the cultivation of well-being. New York: W.W. Norton.
Stuart, D. M. (2015a). A less traveled path: Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra Chapter 2, Critically edited with A Study on Its Structure and Significance for the Development of Buddhist Meditation. Sanskrit Texts From the Tibetan Autonomous Region (STTAR) 18. Beijing and Vienna: China Tibetology Publishing House—Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
Stuart, D. M. (2015b). Power in practice: Cosmic sovereignty envisioned in Buddhism’s Middle Period. Critical Review for Buddhist Studies, 18, 165–196.
Stuart, D. M. (2017). Unmanifest perceptions: Mind-matter interdependence and its consequences in Buddhist thought and practice. In J. Nagashima & S. Kim (Eds.), Śrāvakabhūmi and Buddhist manuscripts (pp. 109–171). Tokyo: Nombre Inc.
Stuart, D. M. (forthcoming 2018). Brush strokes of sentience: The painting of Saṃsāra in Buddhist Yoga. In C. DiSimone (Ed.), Reading outside the lines: On the intersection of art and texts in Buddhist Studies. Contemporary issues in Buddhist studies. Berkeley, CA: Institute for Buddhist Studies.
Taves, A. (2009). Religious experience reconsidered: A building-block approach to the study of religion and other special things. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Taylor, A. C. (Ed.). (1979 [1905 and 1907]). Paṭisambhidāmagga (2 Vols.). London: The Pali Text Society (distributed by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.).
The Śrāvakabhūmi Study Group (Ed.). (1998). Śrāvakabhūmi, the first chapter, revised Sanskrit text and Japanese translation. Tokyo: The Institute for Comprehensive Studies of Buddhism, Taisho University.
The Śrāvakabhūmi Study Group (Ed.). (2007). Śrāvakabhūmi, the second chapter with Asamāhita Bhūmiḥ, Śrutamayī Bhūmiḥ, Cintāmayī Bhūmiḥ, Revised Sanskrit Text and Japanese Translation. Tokyo: The Institute for Comprehensive Studies of Buddhism, Taisho University.
Waldron, W. (2003). The Buddhist unconscious. London: Routledge/Curzon.
Willemen, C., Dessein, B., & Cox, C. (1997). Sarvāstivāda Buddhist scholasticism. Leiden: Brill.
Yamabe, N. (1990). Bīja theory in the Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī. Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 38(2), 929–931.
Yamabe, N. (1999). The Sūtra on the ocean-like Samādhi of the visualization of the Buddha: The interfusion of the Chinese and Indian Cultures in Central Asia as reflected in a fifth century Apocryphal Sūtra. Doctoral Dissertation, Yale University.
Yamabe, N. (2012). 「アーラヤ識論」. In S. Katsura (Ed.), 唯識と瑜伽行 (181–219). Shunjūsha: Tokyo.
Yamabe, N. (2013). Parallel passages between the Manobhūmi and the *Yogācārabhūmi of Saṃgharakṣa. In U. T. Kragh (Ed.), The foundation for yoga practitioners (pp. 596–737). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Yamabe, N. (2015). A reexamination of On Being Mindless: Possible implications of the eightfold proof of Ālayavijñāna.” In K. L. Dhammajoti (Ed.), Buddhist meditative praxis, traditional teachings & modern applications (pp. 137–176). Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, University of Hong Kong.
Zacchetti, S. (2002). An early Chinese translation corresponding to chapter 6 of the Petakopadesa. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 65(1), 74–98.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stuart, D.M. Yogācāra Substrata? Precedent Frames for Yogācāra Thought Among Third-Century Yoga Practitioners in Greater Gandhāra. J Indian Philos 46, 193–240 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-017-9332-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-017-9332-4