and provided Mahayana with a metaphysical position on scholastic turf to
supplement Madhyamika skepticism. Whereas Asanga was ontologically am-
biguous, and primarily concerned with meditation, Vasubandhu I shifted to
philosophical concerns in defending the doctrine that there are no extra-mental
entities (Willis, 1979: 33; Griffiths, 1986: 82–83). A positive doctrine emerged
regarding the construction of world appearances. Asanga had described the
process in meditation whereby one observes the rise and fall of thoughts;
tracing them back to their origin, he referred to a store-consciousness. The
metaphor of “seeds” from which experiences grow had been used before, by
the Sautrantikas. With Vasubandhu I’s dynamic idealism, the biological anal-
ogy came to represent the fecundity of consciousness, containing the infinite
potentialities which constitute the world. What kept Vijñanavada from becom-
ing an idealism of Absolute Mind in the style of Vedanta or of European
Idealists was its Buddhist commitment; enlightenment comes not with the
realization of mind but with its cessation (Wood, 1991).
Across the Buddhist attention space there were now a range of positions,
from Sarvastivada element realism to Madhyamika dialectical emptiness and
Yogacara idealism. These completed the period when Buddhist philosophy was
created by its own internal fractionation.^37 Subsequent developments in Bud-
dhist philosophy, from the 400s through the 700s, were driven by a widening
intellectual struggle against the emerging Hindu philosophies. As the material
base of Buddhism weakened, its final creativity was to come from a recombi-
nation of positions among Hinayana and Mahayana philosophers.
The Buddhist-Hindu Watershed
The greatest creative period of Indian philosophy occurred when Hinduism
first challenged the Buddhist schools. In Figure 5.4, the generations from about
400 to 800 c.e. contain both the first great names of Hindu philosophy and
the greatest outpouring of Buddhist philosophies. In this watershed period
there is one interlocking network, not two; both sides of the intellectual
attention space develop in symbiotic conflict.
The material basis for intellectual production is now at its height. Now
exist the great intersectarian monasteries, of which Nalanda is the prototype;
here not only are the various sects of Buddhism represented, but Hindu laymen
as well. There is a good deal of crossing of the lines. Around 500 c.e. the
Hindu philosopher Bhartrihari is said to have alternated between monastic
discipline and lay life, and to have lived in the Nalanda monastery as a layman.
Bhartrihari’s teacher was the brother-in-law of one of Vasubandhu II’s pupils
(Dutt, 1962: 290; EIP, 1990: 121). In the 600s Gaudapada, Shankara’s reputed
grand-teacher, apparently switched among Mahayana, Samkhya, and Vedanta.
224 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths