The Word of Buddha: Scriptures and Schools 57
along sectarian lines; monks from various of the existing schoolswould have been more or less favourably inclined towards the
new stltras. In time, certain schools more formally and explicitly
refused to acknowledge the authority of the Mahayana siitras,
but such uncompromising attitudes were perhaps not relevant
until as late as the fifth century CE. The reason for this was that
for the most part the new sfitras represented something of a minor-
ity and esoteric interest,.rather than a mass popular movement;.
and this appears ·to have remained so for at least several
centuries.^32 According to the figures reported by the Chinese
monk Hsiiantsang, by the seventh century monks following the
Mahayana constituted about half of the Indian Satigha.^33 But it
is likely that this is an inflated figure.
The production of Mahayana stitras spans a period of somesix or seven centuries. Just as the earlier sfitras of the Nikayas/
Agamas had already given rise to the Abhidharma andthe dis-
tinctive interpretations of a number of schools, so the Mahayana
stitras are also associated with the production of treatises and
commentaries associated with the emergence of new philosoph-ical schools of Buddhism. Three writers should be singled out in
this connection since I will be referring to them from time to time.
The first is Nagarjuna, a monk probably from the south of India
who lived in the second century CE arid was the author of the
Madhyamaka-karika ('Verses on the Middle') as well as anum-
ber of other works. He is revered by the Buddhists of China ·
and Tibet as the founding father of one of the principal 'Sastra'
systems of Mahayana philosophy, namely the Madhyamaka or
Sunyavada. The other two authors can be taken together. Indeed,
tradition has it that they were brothers. They are Asatiga and
Vasubandhu, who lived in north India at the end of the fourth
or beginning of the fifth century CE. According to tradition, ques-
tioned by modern scholarship (see Chapter 7), this Vasubandhu
is one and the same Vasubandhu whom .I mentioned above as
author of the Abhidharmakosa. Together these two are regarded
as the founding fathers of the other great 'Sastra' school of
the Mahayana, namely the Yogacara or Vijfianavada, which ex-
pounded the theory that apart from consciousness or mind ( citta,