founder of the DGE LUGS(GELUK) school, devoted con-
siderable attention to Yogacara, especially the works of
Asan ̇ga and the Samdhinirmocana-sutra,with particu-
lar attention to the Korean monk WO ̆NCH’U ̆K’s
(613–696) commentary on the latter. Wo ̆nch’u ̆k was a
Korean disciple of Xuanzang; the final chapters of his
Samdhinirmocanacommentary are no longer extant in
the original Chinese, the complete work surviving only
in its Tibetan translation. The Tibetan understanding
of Yogacara, therefore, is drawn from East Asian as well
as Indian sources. Many of the Tibetan debates on Yo-
gacara thought, which have continued until today, ap-
pear to be replays of the controversies that raged in
China and East Asia centuries earlier, sometimes with
new wrinkles.
Classic texts
The Maitreya-Asan ̇ga texts tend to be vast compendi-
ums of models, technical terminology, and doctrinal
lists that come alive only when one pays attention to
their minutest details and contemplates their implica-
tions. The Yogacarabhumi,which comprises one hun-
dred fascicles in Xuanzang’s Chinese translation (the
complete Sanskrit is not available), describes seventeen
stages (bhumis) of practice, beginning with an exposi-
tion of what it means to have a body with the five sen-
sory consciousnesses, and moving on to instructions
on developing a vast array of mental and meditative
capacities and on engaging the s ́ravaka (HINAYANA),
PRATYEKABUDDHA(one who achieves enlightenment
independently without relying on Buddhism), and
BODHISATTVAvehicles, culminating in NIRVANAwith-
out remainder (nirupadhikabhumi).
The first part of the Abhidharmasamuccaya,the
laksanasamuccaya(compilation of definitions), offers
detailed abhidharmalists and definitions of the five
SKANDHAS(AGGREGATES), twelve sense-realms, and so
on. The second part, vinis ́cayasamuccaya(compilation
of determinations), teaches how to activate the plethora
of abhidharmalists and models, so that when applied
to each other (rather than taken in isolation), they ef-
fect changes in the practitioner by deconstructing one’s
delusions, greed, and anger. The Mahayanasamgraha
details how hearing, thinking, and contemplating the
Mahayana teachings destroys the alayavijñanafrom
within, like a germ infecting a host, since the Buddha’s
word (buddhavacana) is ultimately irreducible to men-
tal constructions; eliminating the alayavijñanathere-
fore results in buddhahood. The Madhyantavibhaga,
implicitly deploying the theory of three natures
(trisvabhava) to define and explicate Buddhist practice,
illustrates how S ́UNYATA (EMPTINESS) and cultivating
positive insight (parinispanna) act as an antidote
(pratipaksa) to the pervasive false mental constructions
(parikalpita) one projects as lived experience, resulting
in reality being experienced just as it is (purified
paratantra).
Vasubandhu’s Karmasiddhiprakarana (Investiga-
tion Establishing [the Correct Understanding] of
Karma) discusses various Buddhist theories on how
karma works, concluding that all is momentary but
held together by causal chains, consequences of ac-
tions requiting their doer through mental causal
chains embodied in the alayavijñana.The Vadavidhi
(Debate Methods) is a proto-logic text on reasoning in
arguments and debates, and a precursor of Dignaga’s
innovations in logic. Pañcaskandhaprakarana(Inves-
tigation of the Five Aggregates) breaks down the ag-
gregates into abhidharma categories and their
constituents (dharmas), constructing a dharma sys-
tem in transition between the seventy-five dharmas of
his Vaibhasika Abhidharmakos ́aand his fully mature
Yogacara system of one hundred dharmas, later enu-
merated in his Mahayanas ́atadharmapraka ́amukha-s
s ́astra(One Hundred Dharma Treatise). One can trace
Vasubandhu’s development from Vaibhasika to Yo-
gacara through these texts.
Vasubandhu’s most important Yogacara texts are
his Vims ́atika (Twenty Verses) with autocommentary
and Trim ́ikas (Thirty Verses), together sometimes
called the Vijñaptimatra treatises. The Trims ́ika
densely packs the entire Yogacara system into thirty
short verses. The Vims ́atikarefutes realist objections
to Yogacara. The realists contend that the objects in
our perception exist outside of consciousness just as
we perceive them, which is why they remain stable
through (1) time and (2) space; why (3) people with
different perceptions of a thing can reach a consensus
about it; and why (4) the objective world operates by
determinate causal principles, not through unreal, in-
effective fantasies. Vasubandhu responds with numer-
ous arguments to these four points, and he offers an
analogy to DREAMS. Seemingly external objects appear
in dreams, even though such objects are only mental
fabrications with nothing external corresponding to
them, proving that consciousness is a necessary and
sufficient condition for objects to appear, but actual
external objects are neither necessary nor sufficient.
Ordinary perception is like a dream, a mental projec-
tion; that different beings perceive the supposed same
thing differently proves this. To update Vasubandhu’s
example, that humans and flies perceive and react toYOGACARASCHOOL