THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF MAHAYANA BUDDHISM 914.3 YOGACARA
At the beginning of the fourth century C. E. a new series of Sutras was com-
posed that gathered various metaphysical points from the earlier Mahayana
Sutras and organized them into a scheme portraying the role played by con-
sciousness in forming the experience of the universe. These Sutras included
the Avata1J1saka Sutra (Flower Ornament), Lankavatara Sutra (Descent into
Lanka), and most important, the Sandhinirmocana Sutra (Resolution of Enig-
mas) (Strong EB, sec. 4.3.2). The authors of these Sutras viewed their work as
so momentous that they proclaimed it to be the third turning of the wheel of
Dharma. In their view, the first two turnings of the wheel-the teaching of
the Four Noble Truths as systematized in the Abhidharma literature, and the
founding of the Madhyarnika school-represented the two extremes of being
and non-being between which the new thinkers proposed a new Middle Way.
According to the Sandhinirmocana, the earlier turnings of the wheel were ex-
pressed in enigmas that needed their meaning explained. This third turning
was devoted to making everything explicit.
Within the century, a number of theoreticians-chiefly Asanga; his
teacher, Maitreyanatha; and his brother, Vasubandhu-formed a new school
that systematized the views offered in these Sutras, synthesizing elements from
the Sutra Pi taka, Abhidharma 1 and Madhyamika with the aim of devising a
theoretical framework that would have therapeutic use in the practice of med-
itation along the bodhisattva Path. This school was thus called the Yogacara, or
practice of meditation school. Because some of the Sutras and later theoreti-
cians in the school expressed views that bordered on philosophical idealism-
denying the reality of objects outside of the mind-the school developed other
names.as well: Vijiianavada (Proponents of Consciousness); Cittamatra (Mind-
Only); Vijiianamatra (Consciousness-Only); and Vijiiaptimat1a (Concept-Only).
However, in its original theoretical formulation in the writings of Asanga
and Vasubandhu, Yogacara was not a doctrine of idealism. Rather, it was more
a phenomenology of mind, focused primarily on the role that the mind played
in forming experience, inasmuch as the mind was the principal factor in giv-
ing rise to suffering. Asanga and Vasubandhu were concerned with mapping
the creative role of consciousness so that the map could be used to dismantle
that role. Because maps of this sort were also creations of the mind, they too
would ultimately have to be discarded in the course of the dismantling, but
their therapeutic value would have been served in bringing about Awakening.
In this, the brothers were following a mode of teaching that dates back through
the Bqddhist tradition to the Buddha himself (see Section 2.3).
The Yogacarins' approach, as noted previously, combined features ofboth
the Abhidharma and the Madhyamika extremes between which they were
claiming to chart a new course. On the one hand, they accepted the Abhi-
dharmist premise that one needs a systematic diagram of the workings of ex-
perience so that one may properly understand the problem of suffering and
deal with it effectively. In their view, Madhyamika dialectics alone are not