## 1. Biography and Works


### 1.1 Biography (Disputed)



Vasubandhu (4th century C.E.) is dated to the height of the
Gupta period by the fact that, according to Paramartha, he
provided instruction for the crown prince, and queen, of King
"Vikramaditya"--a name for the great
Chandragupta II (r.
 380-415).[6]
 Vasubandhu lived his life at the center of controversy, and he won
fame and patronage through his acumen as an author and debater. His
writings, packed as they are with criticisms of his
contemporaries' traditions and views, are an unparalleled
resource for understanding the debates alive among Buddhist and
Orthodox (Hindu) schools of his time.



As a young Buddhist scholar monk, Vasubandhu is said to have traveled
from his home in Gandhara to Kashmir, then the heartland of the
Vaibhasika philosophical system, to study. There, students
were sworn to keep the tradition secret amongst themselves. Vasubandhu
questioned Vaibhasika orthodoxy and made enemies there, but
managed to return home an expert in the system. Immediately, he
violated Kashmiri Vaibhasika norms by giving public
teachings, going so far as to dare all comers to debate him at the end
of each day. Vasubandhu's Kashmiri colleagues were livid until
they received a copy of the text from which he was teaching, the root
verses of his *Treasury of the Abhidharma*. This brilliant
summary of their system pleased them immensely. But then, Vasubandhu
published his auto-commentary, which criticized the system in various
ways, primarily from a Sautrantika perspective. Livid again.
Years later, Vasubandhu's Vaibhasika contemporary
Sanghabhadra composed two treatises purporting to refute the
*Commentary*, and traveled to Ayodhya, where Vasubandhu
was living under royal patronage, to challenge the master to a public
debate (Vasubandhu refused). This narrative, reported in Chinese and
Tibetan sources, accounts for the unusual fact that Vasubandhu's
*Commentary* often disagrees with positions affirmed in the
*Treasury*'s root verses.



Vasubandhu's elder half-brother was Asanga, the monk who
meditated in solitude for twelve years until he was able to meet with
and receive teachings directly from the future Buddha, Maitreya.
Asanga thereby became the preeminent expounder of the
Yogacara synthesis of "Great Vehicle"
(Mahayana) Buddhism, writing some texts himself, and
transmitting the so-called "Five Treatises" revealed by
Maitreya. When he was advanced in years, Asanga became worried
about his younger brother's karmic outlook (Vasubandhu had
publicly insulted Asanga's works). So he sent his students
to teach Vasubandhu and convince him to adopt the Yogacara
system. It worked. This narrative provides a reason for
Vasubandhu's having written many texts from the
Yogacara perspective after his prior advocacy of so-called
"Sravaka" positions. It explains why the author
of the *Treasury* and its *Commentary* might have gone
on to write several commentaries on Mahayana scriptures, a
treatise that defends the legitimacy of Mahayana scriptures,
and a series of concise Yogacara syntheses.



The mythologized, hagiographic character of the traditional
biographies, together with the (disputed) belief that they contradict
one another, has led a number of modern scholars to doubt their
veracity. Many have expressed doubts that the mass of extant texts
attributed to Vasubandhu in the Tibetan and Chinese canons could have
been written by a single individual. In the 1950s Erich Frauwallner
proposed a thesis that there were two separate Vasubandhus, whom the
traditional biographies mistakenly combined into one
 figure.[7]
 Versions of this theory hold sway in some areas of the academy. Some
scholars have called into question the story of Vasubandhu's
conversion from Sravaka (non-Mahayana) to
Yogacara under the influence of his brother Asanga, by
noting a more gradual set of transitions and commonalities across
works previously thought to sit on opposite sides of this
 "conversion."[8]
 An extension of this argument, advocated today by Robert Kritzer and
colleagues, holds that Vasubandhu was secretly an advocate of
Yogacara all
 along.[9]


### 1.2 Doctrinal Positions and Works



Vasubandhu composed works from the perspectives of several different
philosophical schools. In addition, his works often state doctrinal
positions and arguments with which he disagrees, in order to refute
them. For this reason, scholars have used his works, especially his
*Commentary on the Treasury of the Abhidharma* to explicate a
range of Buddhist and non-Buddhist positions prevalent during his
time.



The main Buddhist schools represented in his works are the
Vaibhasikas or Sarvastivadins of Kashmir and
Gandhara, the Vatsiputriyas, the Sautrantikas
(also called Darstantikas), and the
Yogacarins. He also argues with non-Buddhist, Orthodox
(Hindu) positions, including especially Samkhya and
Nyaya-Vaisesika views. It would appear that the only
Buddhist school with which he always expresses disagreement is the
Vatsiputriyas, also called the Pudgalavadins or
"Personalists." Vasubandhu's works are most often
said to have been written either from the Sautrantika perspective
or from the Yogacara perspective, depending upon the work.
Yet the verses of his *Treasury of the Abhidharma* summarize
the doctrines of the Kashmiri Vaibhasika school. It is only
in the commentary that the Sautrantika system tends to win the
day, through numerous
 arguments.[10]
 And, it is quite often the case, even in the *Commentary*,
that Vaibhasika views are left unchallenged or
unharmed.



A great number of texts of the Theravada Abhidharma tradition are
extant in Pali, and a great number of Sarvastivada
Abhidharma texts exist in their Chinese translations. In Sanskrit and
Tibetan, however, nearly all of the "Sravaka"
Abhidharma texts that remain are the works of Vasubandhu and the
commentarial traditions stemming from them. It is tempting to take
this as evidence of Vasubandhu's philosophical mastery, to have
so comprehensively defeated his foes that his tradition dominated from
the 9th century on. Yet we may equally take this as
evidence not of the victory of Sautrantika, but of the influence
of the rising popularity of Yogacara in India and Tibet.
Vasubandhu, a great systematizer of mainstream Abhidharma, provided
arguments and doctrines, and a life story, that paved the way to, and
justified, the later dominance of Mahayana.



Vasubandhu wrote in Sanskrit, but many of his works are known from
their Chinese and Tibetan translations alone. It is beyond the
purposes of this essay to summarize all of the works attributed to
Vasubandhu, or to take into consideration the relevant criteria for
determining his authorship. A quick mention of well-known works must
 suffice.[11]
 Vasubandhu's most important work of Abhidharma is his
*Treasury of the Abhidharma*
(*Abhidharmakosakarika*), with its
*Commentary*

(*Abhidharmakosabhasya*).[12]
 After these, his best known works are his concise, Yogacara
syntheses, the *Twenty Verses*
(*Vimsikakarika*) with its
*Commentary* (*Vimsikavrtti*), the
*Thirty Verses* (*Trimsika*), and the
*Three Natures Exposition*
 (*Trisvabhavanirdesa*).[13]
 The majority of the arguments discussed below are taken from these
works.



A number of Vasubandhu's shorter independent works are also
available. The *Explanation of the Establishment of Action*
(*Karmasiddhiprakarana*) draws together, synthesizes and
advances somewhat the many discussions of *karma* from the
*Treasury of the Abhidharma*--adding a defense of the
Yogacara concept of the "storehouse
consciousness" (*alayavijnana*). The
*Explanation of the Five Aggregates*
(*Pancaskandhaprakarana*) is a summary of central
Abhidharma terminology that includes some Yogacara
cross-referencing as well. The *Rules for Debate*
(*Vadavidhi*) is lost, but numerous fragments preserved in
later texts show it to be foundational for the development of formal
Buddhist logic and
 epistemology.[14]



Vasubandhu wrote a number of commentaries on Buddhist scriptures,
primarily (but not exclusively) those that are classified as
Mahayana Sutras. He also wrote a tremendously
influential work on how to interpret and teach Buddhist scriptures,
entitled the *Proper Mode of Exposition*
(*Vyakhyayukti*), in which (among other things) he
argued for the legitimacy of the Mahayana Sutras (which
he called "Vaipulya
 Sutras").[15]



Also quite influential, and still regularly studied in Tibetan
educational settings, are Vasubandhu's commentaries on major
Yogacara works. These include commentaries on three texts
said to have been revealed to Asanga by the bodhisattva
Maitreya, his *Commentary on Distinguishing Elements from
Reality* (*Dharmadharmatavibhagavrtti*),
*Commentary on Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes*
(*Madhyantavibhagabhasya*), and
*Commentary on the Ornament to the Great Vehicle Discourses*
(*Mahayanasutralamkarabhasya*).
Finally, Vasubandhu is credited with an important commentary on
Asanga's Yogacara *summa*, the
*Commentary on the Summary of the Great Vehicle*
(*Mahayanasamgrahabhasya*).



Among these works, and numerous others attributed to Vasubandhu in the
Tibetan and Chinese canons, one finds countless perspectives and
approaches represented, and many scholars are skeptical as to the
unity of the authorship even of the works listed. Many, however, still
find it sensible to assume that Vasubandhu worked in various genres
and schools, and adopted the norms of each, developing his own
thinking along the way. Yet no narrative of Vasubandhu's
intellectual development has achieved scholarly consensus.


## 2. Major Arguments from the *Treasury of the Abhidharma*


### 2.1 Disproof of the Self



The Buddhist approach to the question of personal continuity attracts
perhaps more attention from contemporary philosophy than any other
aspect of the
 tradition.[16]
 Vasubandhu's *Commentary on the Treasury of the
Abhidharma* includes, as its final chapter, an extended defense of
the Buddhist doctrine of no-self, entitled, "The Refutation of
the Person." The majority of the argument assumes a Buddhist
interlocutor, and is intended to prove that no Buddhist ought to
accept the reality of a so-called "self"
(*atman*) or "person" (*pudgala*) over
and above the five aggregates (*skandhas*) in which, the Buddha
said, the person consists. (The aggregates, as their name suggests,
are themselves constantly-changing collections of entities of five
categories: the physical, feelings, ideas, dispositions, and
consciousness.) Vasubandhu apparently believed that the
Vatsiputriyas, also called Pudgalavadins or
"Personalists," represented a significant, Buddhist rival.
Late in the chapter, Vasubandhu also provides some arguments that are
targeted at a Vaisesika (Hindu) view of the self.



The chapter begins with a brief statement of the soteriological
purpose of the treatise, and something of a definition of the
Buddha's teachings. Vasubandhu says that for outsiders (meaning
outsiders to Buddhism), there is no possibility of liberation, because
all other systems impose a false construct of a self upon what is
really only the continuum of aggregates (*skandha*). Since
grasping the self generates the mental afflictions
(*klesa*), liberation from suffering is impossible for one
who holds onto the false, non-Buddhist view that the self has
independent reality.



Vasubandhu does not attempt, here, to prove the karmic causality that
justifies his soteriological exclusivism. Instead, he moves directly
to prove the non-existence of the self. What is real, he says, is
known by one of two means: perception or
 inference.[17]
 Seven things are known directly, by perception. They include the five
objects of the senses (visual forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and
touchables), mental objects (mental images or ideas), and the mind
 itself.[18]
 What is not known directly can only be known indirectly, by
inference. As an example, Vasubandhu provides an argument that the
five sense *organs* (eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin) can each be
inferred from the awareness of their respective sensory objects. But,
he says, there is no such inference for the self. Since Vasubandhu
believes in universal momentariness (see the section on Momentariness
and Continuity), he would reject Descartes' deduction of
"I am," as an enduring self, from the perception of the
momentary mental event, "I think."



Vasubandhu does not list the five aggregates here, but his discussion
of perception and inference stands in for having done so. Any Buddhist
scholastic would be able to see that he has claimed to have proven the
reality of the twelve sense bases (*ayatana*), and these
twelve are easy to correlate with the five aggregates. The first
aggregate, the physical (*rupa*), includes the five
sensory organs and their five objects. The second, third, and fourth
aggregates--feelings (*vedana*), thoughts
(*samjna*), and dispositions
(*samskara*)--are kinds of mental objects. The
fifth aggregate, consciousness (*vijnana*), is
equivalent to the twelfth sense base, the
 mind.[19]
 Earlier in the *Treasury* Vasubandhu had included other
elements within the five aggregates (including, for instance,
*avijnapti-rupa*, which is imperceptible, within
the physical), but since he had also provided arguments
*disproving* those elements (see the section on Disproof of
Invisible Physicality), perhaps he felt no compulsion to include them
here. Focusing on the twelve sense bases may be Vasubandhu's way
of providing as clean and parsimonious a Buddhist ontology as he
can.




| **12 Sense Bases** | **5 Aggregates** |
| --- | --- |
| Eye | Physical |
| Visual Form |
| Ear |
| Sound |
| Nose |
| Smell |
| Tongue |
| Taste |
| Skin/Body |
| Touchable |
| Mind |  Consciousness  |
| Mental Object | Feelings |
| Thoughts |
| Dispositions |



In any event, Vasubandhu is affirming the mainstream Buddhist view
that the constantly-changing elements, which seem to be the
possessions of, or the components of, the so-called
"self," are real, while the self is unreal. Buddhists
readily admit that this view is counterintuitive (if it were intuitive
we would all be liberated), and many doubts may arise when it is
posited: If there is no self, then what is the same about me as a
child and as an adult? What is named by my name? What perceives
perceptions, or experiences experiences, or enacts actions, if not the
self? What is memory, without a self? And crucially, from a Buddhist
perspective, what transmigrates from one body to the next, and reaps
the karmic fruit of good and evil deeds, if not a self? These are all
questions of great importance in Buddhist philosophical treatments of
the doctrine of no-self, and Vasubandhu will address them each in due
course. Vasubandhu begins, however, by focusing on certain commonsense
advantages to the no-self view, and exposing the difficulties in
holding to the reality of the self. His first target, then, is
Buddhist "Personalists."



For Vasubandhu, everything that is real or substantial
(*dravya*) is causally efficient, having specifiable
cause-and-effect relations with other entities. Everything that does
not have such a causal basis is unreal, and if anything, it is merely
a conceptual construct, a mere convention (*prajnapti*).
The so-called "person," like everything else, must be one
or the other--real or unreal, causally conditioned or
conceptually constructed. Vasubandhu places it in the latter category.
Notice that, to call something a "conceptual construction"
(*parikalpita*) is, for Vasubandhu, to remove it from the flow
of causality. Abstract entities have no causal impetus and are unreal.
This is Vasubandhu's formalization, and expansion, of the
Buddhist doctrine that all conditioned things are impermanent. Some
Buddhists accept (for instance) that space and nirvana are real,
though unconditioned. Vasubandhu says, instead, that all things that
are engaged with the causal world must be, themselves, conditioned
(this is a corollary of his proof of momentariness), so he rejects the
causal capacity of eternal, unchanging entities. But even setting
aside Vasubandhu's expanded view, it is clearly out of the
question for Buddhists to say that *the self* is unconditioned
and eternal. That is a non-Buddhist view, which Vasubandhu treats
later on.



Vasubandhu thus begins his argument by posing a dilemma for the
Personalists, between saying that the "person" is
uncaused--which would be to adopt a non-Buddhist view--and
specifying the cause. Since the Buddha explained the aggregates to be
the psychophysical elements that make up the person, any posited
"self" must be in some way related to those entities. But
the Personalists will not wish to say simply that the
"person" is caused by the aggregates. For, the aggregates
are temporary and impermanent in the extreme. The whole issue at hand
is how to account for the continuity of the person as the aggregates
change. If the aggregates are the cause(s) of the person, then the
person, too, must change as they change. As Vasubandhu explains in
criticizing a parallel context, "No unchanging quality is seen
to inhere in changing substances." (AKBh
 159.20)[20]
 If the causal basis is accepted as changing, the "person"
is no longer continuous across the aggregates and through time. So a
"person" caused by the aggregates provides no answer to
the doubts about personal identity raised above.



Yet for Vasubandhu, if the cause cannot be specified, then the person
must be conceptually constructed. He adduces the following as an
example of conceptual construction: When we see, smell, and taste
milk, we have distinct sensory impressions, which are combined in our
awareness. The "milk," then, is a mental construct--a
concept built out of discrete sensory impressions. The sensory
impressions are real, but the milk is not. In the same way, the
"self" is made up of constantly-changing sensory organs,
sensory impressions, ideas, and mental events. These separate,
momentary elements are real, but their imagined unity--as an
enduring "I"--is a false projection.



The Personalists are willing to accept that the person is a conceptual
construction, but they do not accept that this makes it unreal, or
causally inert. They believe in a perceptible "person,"
who is ineffably neither the same as nor distinct from the aggregates,
but who comes into existence in a particular lifetime "depending
upon" the aggregates. Vasubandhu considers this a muddled
attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. He focuses in on this
term, "depending upon." If, by this, the Personalists mean
"dependent as a conceptual object," he says, then really
they are conceding that the term "person" actually just
refers to the aggregates. It is to admit that the aggregates are
understood as unified through a mere conceptual construction,
"person," just as the taste, touch, and smell of milk
generate the conceptual construction, "milk." If, on the
other hand, they are saying the "person" is
*causally* dependent upon the aggregates, then they are saying
that the "person" is caused by the aggregates, which is to
specify its causes among impermanent entities.



There is, for Vasubandhu, no acceptable explanation of conceptual
constructs as real entities. His exclusive dichotomy (real &
causal vs. unreal & conceptual) serves not only as a tool for
refusing a separate self, but also as a method of denying apparent
subject/object relations or apparent substance/quality relations, and
translating them into linear, causal series. For instance, he says
that objects of awareness do not exist as causally significant
entities distinct from consciousness; rather, consciousness is
*caused* by its apparent objects, from which it takes on a
particular shape (*akara*). This is how Vasubandhu
resolves some of the standard challenges to the no-self view, such as
the question of how experience can exist without an experiencer. The
answer is that any given awareness only *appears* to be made up
of two parts, subject and object, a "cognizer" acting upon
a cognitive object. In reality, any given moment of awareness consists
in a full, constructed appearance of subject/object duality without
there actually being any separate subject. The object is an aspect or
shape of the consciousness itself. Similarly, when asked with regard
to memory "who" remembers if not the self, Vasubandhu
rejects the subject/object structure. What is really occurring is only
a series of discrete elements in the continuum of aggregates, which
arise successively, causally linked to one another. The reason I
remember my past is because my aggregates now are the causal result of
the past aggregates whose actions I remember. My consciousness today
arises with the shape of my past aggregates imprinted upon it.



Moving on, the "dependence" relation that the Personalists
are attempting to defend resists none of Vasubandhu's arguments
(a casualty, perchance, of its appearing as a counterargument within
his text), but the Personalists persist by stating that the relation
between the person and the aggregates is "ineffable." To
this, Vasubandhu argues, interestingly, that ineffability in regard to
an entity that is ostensibly perceived undermines the functionality of
perception as a source of knowledge. Without any way of
distinguishing, clearly, what is perceived directly and what is
perceived "ineffably," all of perception becomes
potentially ineffable. And, perhaps more importantly, not everything
is said by the Buddha to be ineffable, or at least not equally so. For
instance, when the Buddha denies the reality of the self, he does so
*in contradistinction to* the sense bases. If the
"person" also exists as an object of sensory perception,
how can this distinction be upheld?



Vasubandhu's dialogue with the Personalists takes some rather
technical twists and turns, which I will not attempt to cover here.
See the section on scripture for a summary of Vasubandhu's
methods of scriptural interpretation, which he employs decisively to
defend against the Personalist adducement of the Buddha's
silence on the nature of the person. I will here mention only one
further argument against the Personalists, before treating
Vasubandhu's arguments with non-Buddhists.



The Personalist challenges Vasubandhu to explain how it can be, if
everything is only a constantly-changing fluctuation of
causally-connected separate entities, that things do not arise in
predictable patterns. Why is there so much unpredictable change, the
Personalists are asking, if there is no independent person who enacts
those changes? This is a question that seems to be affirming a greater
degree of freedom of the will than would appear possible were there
not some outside, uncaused intervener in the causal flow. If I am
reading it correctly, it is something like an incredulous denial that
we could be "mere automatons," given our capacities for
innovation and creativity. Vasubandhu's answer is to emphasize
the possibility of change in a self-regulating
 system.[21]



Vasubandhu points out that in fact, there *are* predictable
patterns to the causal fluctuations of thoughts, so it is a mistake to
call them unpredictable. Seeing a woman, he says, causes you to think
thoughts that you tend to think when you look at women. (If we needed
it, here's confirmation that the implied reader is a
heterosexual male--though probably a celibate one.) If you
practice leaving a woman alone in your thoughts (for instance, by
practicing thinking of the woman's overprotective father, as
monks are taught to do), then when you see a woman you'll reject
her in your thoughts. If you do not practice this, other thoughts
arise: "...then those [thoughts] which are most frequent
[or clearest], or most proximate arise, because they have been most
forcefully cultivated, except when there are simultaneous special
conditions external to the body." (Kapstein 2001a: 370) This is
an argument that undermines a naive trust in the independence of
the will. But of course, Vasubandhu adds, just because the mind is
subject to conditions does not mean that it will always be the same.
On the contrary, it is fundamental to the definition of conditioned
things that they are always changing.



It is with this setup that Vasubandhu turns to address the
non-Buddhist sectarians, asking them to account as elegantly as his
causal, no-self view does, for the changing flux of mental events.
For, the non-Buddhist opponent believes in an independent self who is
the agent and controller of mental actions. If that is so, Vasubandhu
challenges them, why do mental events arise in such disorder? Just
what kind of a controller is the "self"? This is an
important point, because it implies that Buddhists might use as
evidence what is introspectively obvious to any
meditator--namely, the difficulty of controlling the mind. If the
"self" is an uncaused agent, why can't I, for
instance, focus my concentration indefinitely? Non-Buddhist
(orthodox/Hindu) traditions generally affirm that the mind must be
controlled, and harnessed, by the self; this is one of the central
meanings of the term *yoga* (lit. "yoking") in
classical Hinduism. And, of course, the reason that such
"yoking" is necessary is that the mind has its own causal
impetus, which overwhelms the self unless and until the self attains
liberation. Vasubandhu asks why, if changes in experience must be
admitted to originate in the fluctuations of the mind, it should be
believed that the "yoking" and other willful, agent-driven
events originate *outside* of the mind in an unchanging
"self." The need for such an explanation is evidence that
the "self" requires a more burdensome (less simple)
theoretical structure than might appear at first blush.



The Buddhist view has an in-built explanation for the difficulty of
changing the mind's dispositions. Each temporary collection of
psychophysical entities generates, through causal regularities,
another collection in the next moment. The mind's present
dispositions are conditioned by its past, and its every experience is
only an expression of its internal transformations, triggered of
course by influences coming from outside the individual. It is widely
considered a difficulty for the Buddhist no-self view that it has
trouble accounting for our intuitive senses of continuity and control.
But here we see Vasubandhu turning a disadvantage into an advantage.
The intuitive sense of control is a mistake. This is introspectively
obvious and is implicit in the non-Buddhist's admission that a
mental series, distinct from the "self," is dependent upon
its own causal impetus. Of course, the non-Buddhists have a panoply of
theories explaining the relation between the self and the mental
events with which it is complexly entwined. This is territory over
which Indian thought contemplates free will and determinism.
Vasubandhu does not enter into these debates in any detail. His
interest is only to indicate the Buddhist position's comparative
simplicity and causal parsimony.



In the last stages of the chapter, Vasubandhu's non-Buddhist
believer in a permanent self proposes several potential
counter-arguments. Here Vasubandhu addresses a number of common
worries about the no-self view, including the questions of experience
and agency without a self. With regard to experience, Vasubandhu
simply makes reference to the argument above in which the
subject/object relation was described in a causal line, with the
object causing a consciousness to take on the "shape" or
appearance of an object. An individual, momentary consciousness does
not need to be possessed by a self in order to have a certain
appearance. With regard to agency, Vasubandhu again redescribes the
structure under consideration--in this case, the act/agent
structure--as a unitary, causal line: "From recollection
there is interest; from interest consideration; from consideration
willful effort; from willful effort vital energy; and from that,
action. So what does the self do
 here?"[22]
 (Kapstein 2001a: 373) The point, again, is not that there is no
action, but that action takes place as one event in a causal series,
no element of which requires an independent agent.



The last argument in the work addresses the crucial, Buddhist concern
about karmic fruits. If there is no self, how can there be karmic
results accruing to the agent of karmic acts? What can it mean to say
that, if I kill someone, I go to hell, when there is no
"I"? The way the question is phrased is in terms of a
technical question about the nature of karmic retribution. The way
that karma works in the non-Buddhist schools is, naturally, via the
self. In one way or another, karmic residue adheres to the soul/self.
If there is no soul that is affected by the karmic residue, how can
you be affected at a later time by a previous cause? How can something
I do now affect me at the time of my death, if at that time the deed
will be in the past?



Vasubandhu gives a clear, if quick reply. A complete answer to this
question would require a fuller discussion of the question of
 continuity.[23]
 (See the sections Momentariness and Continuity and Disproof of
Invisible Physicality below.) The short answer is simply that the past
action inaugurates a causal series, which eventuates in the result at
a later time via a number of intermediate steps. When I act now, it
does not alter some eternal soul, but it does alter the future of my
aggregates by sparking a causal series. As he does many times
throughout his disproof of the person, Vasubandhu encourages his
opponents to recognize the term "I" as simply referring to
the continuum of aggregates. The conceptual construction
"I" is then understood to be only a manner of speaking, a
useful shorthand. He mentions that when I say "I am pale,"
I know that it is only my body, not my eternal self, that is pale. Why
not apply such figurative use to the term overall? Then, when I say
that "I" experience the result of "my"
actions, it can be seen to be both clear and accurate. Granted, it
*seems* like there is a real "self." But it only
looks that way, just as a line of ants looks like a brown stripe on
the ground. Close philosophical and introspective attention reveals
that what seemed like a solid, coherent whole is in fact a false
mental construction based upon a failure to notice its countless,
fluctuating parts.


### 2.2 Momentariness and Continuity



For centuries before Vasubandhu, Buddhist philosophers of the
Sarvastivadin tradition had believed in, and argued for, the
doctrine of universal
 momentariness.[24]
 This view was a Buddhist scholastic interpretation and expression of
the Buddha's doctrine that all things in the world of ordinary
beings were subject to causes and conditions, and therefore
impermanent. Buddhists rejected the notion of substances with changing
qualities, and affirmed instead that change was logically impossible.
To be, for Buddhists, is to express certain inalienable
characteristics, whereas to change must be to exhibit the nature of a
different being. Vasubandhu adopts this view, employing it in many
contexts: "As for something that becomes different: that very
thing being different is not accepted, for it is not acceptable that
it differs from itself." (AKBh 193.9-10)



One can see how the impossibility of change, coupled with the doctrine
of impermanence, served to prove that all things persisted for only a
moment. Vasubandhu certainly shared this view, and he drew upon the
premises of impermanence and the impossibility of change to establish
momentariness in his own works. Yet, as von Rospatt (1995) has shown,
Vasubandhu added a new twist to the argument. What he added was that
things *must* self-destruct, for destruction cannot be caused.
And why not? Because a cause and a result are real entities, and the
ostensible object of a destruction is a non-existent. How, he asks,
can a non-existent be a result?



Given that things must bring about their own destruction, then,
Vasubandhu needs only to recall the impossibility of change to
establish momentariness. If things have it as part of their nature to
self-destruct, they must do so immediately upon coming into being. If
they do not have it as part of their nature, it can never become
 so.[25]



The great difficulty for such a position is accounting for apparent
continuities. The standard Buddhist explanation is that usually, when
things go out of existence, they are replaced in the next moment by
new elements of the same kind, and these streams of entities cause the
appearance of continuity. Modern interpreters often illustrate the
point with the example of the apparent motion on a movie screen being
caused by a quick succession of stills. This is said to be the case
with the many entities that appear to make up the continuous self, and
of course this was the main reason the Buddha affirmed his doctrine of
impermanence in the first place. Yet for some phenomena, to call their
continuity merely apparent causes philosophical problems, even for
Buddhists. Consequently, Vasubandhu, like his Sarvastivada
forbears, was repeatedly preoccupied with the need to account for
continuity.



Many of the more prominent problems in continuity have already been
mentioned in the discussion of Vasubandhu's disproof of the self
(see above), including the problem of memory, the problem of the
reference of a name, and the problem of karmic causality across
multiple lifetimes. See also the section on the disproof of invisible
physicality for Vasubandhu's rejection of the
Vaibhasika response to a specific problem of
continuity.



One issue of great importance for the Vaibhasika and
Yogacara traditions, and consequently of interest to current
 scholarship,[26]
 is a problem specific to Buddhist meditation theory. The problem
comes from an apparent inconsistency among well-founded early Buddhist
scriptural positions. On the one hand, there was the orthodox belief
that the body was kept alive by consciousness. Even in deep sleep, it
was believed that there was some form of subtle consciousness that was
keeping the body alive. On the other hand, there was the very old
belief, possibly articulated by the Buddha himself, that there are six
kinds of consciousness, and that each of them is associated with one
of the six senses--the five traditional senses, plus the mental
sense (which observes mental objects). The problem was that there are
some meditative states that are defined as being completely free of
*all six* sensory consciousnesses. So the question becomes,
What keeps the meditator's body alive when all consciousness is
cut off?



Related to this is the problem that, given that each element can be
caused only by a previous element of a corresponding kind (in an
immediately preceding moment), there does not seem to be any way for
the consciousness, once cut off, to *restart*. The distinctive,
early Yogacara doctrine of the "store
consciousness" (*alayavijnana*) or the
"hidden consciousness"--the consciousness that is
tucked away in the body--was first introduced to solve these
continuity problems. Equally problematic is the same issue in reverse:
Without some doctrinal shift there does not seem to be any way that
beings born into formless realms, with no bodies, could be reborn
among those with physical form. The later, Yogacara view
that everything is only appearance takes care of this, too, by
eliminating the need for real physicality. (See the section concerning
disproof of invisible physicality.) Vasubandhu sets out these problems
in the *Treasury of the Abhidharma* without resolving them;
when he writes from a Yogacara perspective, he resolves them
with recourse to the store consciousness and appearance-only.


### 2.3 Disproof of Invisible Physicality



In a complex but significant passage from the *Treasury of the
Abhidharma*, Vasubandhu provides refutations to arguments that
defend the necessity of there being a special kind of physicality,
called "unperceived physicality," or "invisible
physicality,"
 (*avijnaptirupa*).[27]
 As is made clear throughout these arguments, this entity
(*dharma*) was affirmed by the Kashmiri Vaibhasikas
in order to account for the karmic effects of our physical and vocal
actions.



The need for such an entity reflects a conundrum unique to Buddhist
morality, premised as it is upon the lawlike, causal regularity of
karma operating in the absence of any divine intervention. The issue
at hand is not in itself the question of karmic continuity in the
absence of a self, but rather a particular aspect of that larger
problem. (See the sections concerning disproof of the self and
momentariness and continuity.) For this argument, then, let us agree
that the continuum of consciousness carries on after death, and that
one's future rebirth is therefore determined by the shape and
character of one's consciousness at death. Given that, we can
see how a mental action--say, holding a wrong view, or slandering
the Buddha in one's thoughts--can have consequences for
one's future, by directly affecting the shape of one's
consciousness. But how do actions of speech and body--such as
insulting, or hitting someone--bear their karmic fruit in the
mental continuum? Surely forming the intention to hit someone is a
consequential mental act. We might think that Buddhists would simply
say that it is karmically equivalent, then, to *intend* to do
something (which is a mental act) and to actually *do it*.
Although there is some blurring of the line here (the Buddha does give
great moral weight to merely intending to act), intentions and the
bodily (or vocal) acts that follow from them are understood as
distinct types of actions with distinct karmic results. Furthermore,
the Buddha is said to have indicated that the karmic effect--and
so the moral significance--of *doing* something is
additionally dependent upon the *success* of the action.
Attempted murder is not punished to the same degree as murder, even
karmically.



These distinctions accord with widely held moral instincts, but the
Abhidharma philosophers needed a full, causal explanation for why the
successful results of physical actions bring about their distinctive
effects in one's consciousness. I can see how my plunging a
knife into someone affects him; but how his *dying* (which may
happen later, in the hospital) affects *me* is invisible, or
uncognized. How does what goes around, come around? The
Vaibhasika answer is that, since his death is a physical
event, there must be another physical event--the invisible
physicality--which impinges upon me.



Vasubandhu rejects this entity, and provides a compelling explanation
of the Buddha's differentiation between intentions, acts, and
success that does not need to appeal to invisible physicality.
Although here Vasubandhu answers through the mouth of another (and so,
presents this position without explicitly endorsing it), he advocates
something like this position more forcefully in his later,
*Explanation of the Establishment of
 Action*.[28]
 He admits that there must be a karmic difference between (1) merely
intending, (2) intending and acting, and (3) intending, acting and
accomplishing the deed. But the difference does not come from the
accomplishment of the result itself--that is, it does not come
from the death of the murder victim. Rather, the karmic effect is the
result of my experience and my beliefs. If I experience myself
stabbing someone, and I *know* that the person died (even if by
reading the newspaper the next day), I gain a fuller karmic result
than I would have by simply intending to act.



The Vaibhasikas present a number of other arguments that
suggest the necessity of invisible physicality, all of which follow a
similar logic. A close parallel to the example above is a murder by
proxy; why do I experience a karmic result if the hit man I've
hired does his job, but not if he doesn't? My action was the
same either way. The Vaibhasikas also point to the
enduring, karmic benefits of having taken vows to refrain from
negative actions such as killing or stealing. These vows generate a
karmic benefit in spite of their being fulfilled through not acting.
How is this non-action different from that of someone who
*just* *happens* not to be killing or stealing? Another
argument suggests that advanced practitioners in refined meditative
states cannot be said to be practicing the eight-fold path of the
Buddha's teachings, since it includes "right
speech," "right action" and "right
livelihood"--but no action at all can be taken while in
meditative equipoise. Finally, another argument points out that a
donor gains great karmic merit when (obviously, later) the monk who
receives and eats her gift of food uses its energy to attain a great
meditative accomplishment.



Such arguments draw upon numerous scriptures to indicate that morally
significant effects seem to take place in the world even when physical
actions are no longer possible or relevant. In each case, Vasubandhu
reinterprets the scripture, or the situation, or both, in such a way
as to make it sensible to describe the effect without appealing to
invisible physicality. In the case of the vow, Vasubandhu says that a
vow helps a vow-taker to remember not to do immoral deeds, and the
disciplinary vows of monks have the effect of transforming the whole
character of the mind. Therefore a disciplined vow-taker does not act
without the thought of the vow arising. The vow does not cause a
magical imprint on some invisible entity; it transforms the
dispositions of the vow-taker. The same is true of the meditating
practitioner; there is no lack of "right action" during
meditation, because the meditator's continuum of aggregates is
still *disposed* to act properly after the meditation session
is complete. Such arguments exhibit Vasubandhu's general pattern
of reducing apparent continuities to causal chains of momentary
events, and eliminating as many extraneous elements from the system as
possible.


### 2.4 Disproof of a Creator God



In the *Treasury*, Vasubandhu provides an argument against the
existence of Isvara, a God who is the sovereign creator of
 everything.[29]
 For Vasubandhu, theism is essentially the absurd notion that all of
creation might be the result of a single cause. He begins his disproof
with what has been called verbal equivocation (Katsura 2003, p. 113),
and might also be taken as a joke or a pun:



> 
> 
> Living beings proceed from conditions; nor is it the case that
> "the cause (*karana*) of all the world is a
> single Isvara, Purusa or Pradhana [i.e.,
> God]."
> 
> 
> 
> What is the reason (*hetu*) for this?
> 
> 
> 
> If you think it is established upon the provision of a reason
> (*hetu*), this is a refusal of the statement, "the cause
> (*karana*) of all is a single
> Isvara." (AKBh 101.19-21)
> 
> 
> 



The pun is in the fact that the word for "reason,"
*hetu*, also means "cause." It is as if Vasubandhu
is saying, "If you're looking for my [just] *cause*
for believing this, then clearly you don't believe God is the
*cause* of everything! If I believe it, it must be
*'cause* God made me believe it!" This is somewhat
silly, and apparently an equivocation between reasons and causes.



A more serious reading, though, rises to the surface when we notice
that Vasubandhu does not, in fact, verbally equivocate. He uses the
word *hetu* to refer to reasons, and another word,
*karana*, to refer to causes. In his own philosophy,
Vasubandhu separates these two regions of reality quite strictly:
"Causes" are real, substantial entities, whereas
"reasons" are conceptual constructs devoid of causal
capacity. (Cf. Davidson's "Anomalism of the Mental";
see the entries on
 anomalous monism
 and
 Donald Davidson.)
 This is not to say that Vasubandhu would endorse Sellars's
notion that ideas which inhabit the normative "space of
reasons" are irreducible to those within the "space of
causes." (See the discussion of the myth of the given, in the
entry on
 Wilfrid Sellars.)
 He would not; on the contrary, for Vasubandhu, to say that something
is a conceptual construct is to say that it is *caused*, but in
a way quite different from how it appears. This is developed
explicitly in his Yogacara theory of the Three Natures of
all entities, where one of the natures is said to be *how things
appear*, and another is *how things are caused*. (See the
discussion of three natures and non-duality.)



Yet here in the *Treasury* Vasubandhu is only gesturing in this
direction. His non-Buddhist opponents would also like to distinguish
reasons from causes, so instead of attempting to unify their causal
basis himself, Vasubandhu suggests that commitment to the unitary
nature of divine causality commits them to conflating them. The
serious point behind the opening joke, then, is that philosophy
requires that we make distinctions among ideas and entities, and
debate assumes differences of opinion and perspective. For Vasubandhu,
such differences are evidence that it is impossible that all things
have issued from a single cause. He begins, then, with a shot across
the bow, which expresses just how seriously he will hold the theists
to their claim that all things have one cause.



The majority of Vasubandhu's argument consists in his support
for the notion that the diversity of the world--especially its
changes through time--are inconsistent with the notion of a
single creator. An important, implicit premise in this argument is the
notion that things do not change their defining, characteristic
natures. Everything is what it is: "As for something that
becomes different: that very thing being different is not accepted,
for it is not acceptable that it differs from itself." (AKBh
193.9-10) Thus, if God is the cause of everything, God is
*always* the cause of everything--or, if God's
nature at time *t* is to be the cause of everything, then God
must cause everything at time *t*.



In response, the theist proposes a variety of predictable
alternatives. One option is that God is posited as the creator of each
specific thing at its specific time due to God's having unique,
temporally-indexed desires. One person is caused by God's desire
for a person to be born in Gandhara in the fourth century, and
another person is caused by God's desire for a person to be born
in New York City in 1969. Vasubandhu responds that if that is the
case, then things are not caused by a unitary God, but rather each
thing is caused by one of God's countless, distinct desires.
Furthermore, the theist is then responsible to account for the causes
of those specific desires.



In addition, specific temporally-indexed desires imply that something
is interfering with God's creative action--namely, the
particular temporal location. If God is capable of--not only
capable of, but having it as His inherent nature to be--creating
something, what could possibly prevent that thing's occurrence
at every moment in which God is expressing God's own nature
(which should be every moment forever)? If God has the desire for a
tree in Washington Square Park in 2010, it should always be 2010, with
a tree in Washington Square Park. Why should God wait? (This argument
relies upon a typical Buddhist penchant for particulars and moments as
the touchstone of the
 real.[30])



One unwise option the theist proposes is that God's creation
changes through time because God is using other
elements--material causes, for instance--to bring things
into being, and those elements follow their own causal laws. That, of
course, makes God's actions subject to other causes, and amounts
to the Buddhist view that all things are the results of multiple
causes and conditions. Furthermore, when it is proposed that God
engages in creation for his own pleasure (*priti*),
Vasubandhu replies that this means that God is not sovereign because
He requires a means (*upaya*) to bring about a cause,
namely his own pleasure. As a cap to this argument, Vasubandhu mocks
the idea that a praiseworthy God should be satisfied with the evident
suffering of sentient beings. Thus, along with his causal argument,
Vasubandhu throws in a barb from the argument from evil.



Vasubandhu's final argument in this section is to say that
theists are, or ought to be, committed to the denial of apparent
causes and conditions. If you think that God is the only cause, then
you must deny that seeds cause sprouts. This may seem like another
overly literalistic reading of the nature of God as the only cause,
but is God really deserving of the name "cause," if He has
intermediary causes do His work of creation? For, Vasubandhu points
out, ordinarily we do not require that something be an uncaused cause
in order to call it a "cause." We call a seed a cause of a
sprout, even if it is itself caused by a previous plant. So to say
that God is the "cause" of the sprout whereas the seed is
*not* amounts to denying a visible cause and replacing it with
an invisible one. To avoid this, the theist might say that to call God
the "cause" is to say that God is the original cause of
creation. But if this is what God is doing to gain the name
"cause," and God is beginningless (uncaused), then
creation too must be beginningless--which means that, once again,
God has nothing to do.


## 3. Approaches to Scriptural Interpretation



Vasubandhu was a master of Buddhist scripture. A great number of
scriptural commentaries are attributed to him, and we find Vasubandhu
citing scripture literally hundreds of times throughout his
philosophical works. (Pasadika 1989) Furthermore, Vasubandhu
is one of very few Indian or Tibetan authors to have written a
treatise dedicated to the interpretation and exposition of Buddhist
scripture, called the *Proper Mode of Exposition*
 (*Vyakhyayukti*).[31]
 Here is not the place for a thorough survey of this material, which
awaits future research. It is, however, worth sketching a
characteristic pattern in Vasubandhu's citation of scripture,
and noting its relation to his view of scripture in the *Proper
Mode of Exposition*.



Like other scholastic philosophers, Vasubandhu often cites scriptures
in support of an argument. Unlike many others, however, Vasubandhu
regularly presents a scriptural passage as a potential
counter-argument, only to refute the traditional interpretation of the
passage. The opponent's interpretation, moreover, is quite often
the most literal or direct reading of the passage in question. One of
Vasubandhu's characteristic philosophical moves, then, is to
argue in favor of a secondary interpretation of a given scriptural
passage that might, on its face, be thought to disprove his view.



A prominent, paradigmatic example of this use of scriptural citation
takes place in the *Twenty Verses Commentary*. As will be
discussed below (in the section concerning defense of appearance
only), this text is dedicated to proving the central
Yogacara thesis of "appearance only"
(*vijnaptimatra*)--that is, that everything in
the many worlds of living beings is only apparent, with no real
existence outside of perception. A central challenge to this
idealistic view, then, comes from the objector's simple
statement that, "If the images of physical forms, and so on,
were just consciousness, not physical things, then the Buddha would
not have spoken of the existence of the sense bases of physical form,
and so on." (*Vims* 5) Vasubandhu thus adduces
the Buddha's word as the basis of the objection. Then, he turns
to further scriptures to account for, and explain away, this extremely
well-founded Buddhist doctrine.



Vasubandhu's response to his internal objector is to explain
that the passages in question need to be understood as spoken with a
"special intention" (*abhipraya*--on
which, see Broido 1985, Collier 1998 and Tzohar 2018). Furthermore, in
addition to defending the idea of reinterpreting scripture in general,
Vasubandhu defends the act of reinterpretation in this case. In fact,
we may distinguish four separate elements of the argument: (1)
Vasubandhu explains the Buddha's general practice of speaking
words that are not technically true, but are beneficial to his
listeners. (2) He proves that such interpretations are sometimes
necessary, by providing two passages that without such a reading would
prove the Buddha to have contradicted himself. (3) He provides an
explanation of the Buddha's "special intention" in
the passage under discussion--that is, he declares what the
Buddha *actually* believes on the topic. And, (4) he suggests
why, in this case, the Buddha might have chosen to speak the words he
did, instead of simply saying what he really believed.



For (1) and (2), Vasubandhu explains that the Buddha's statement
that "there is a self-generated living being
(*satva*)" must be taken as having a "special
intention," so as to prevent its contradicting his statement
that "there is no self or living being (*satva*), only
entities with causes." (*Vims* 5) Vasubandhu
says that the Buddha spoke the first statement in the context of
explaining karma, in order to indicate that the continuity of the
mental series was not "cut off" (*uccheda*). If the
Buddha had taught about the no-self doctrine at the time he delivered
the discourse on "the self-generated living being," his
listeners would have been led to this false view that the mental
stream comes to an end at death. Such a false view is often translated
as "nihilism," and among Buddhists it is considered far
more dangerous than the false belief in a self, because it entails the
further false view that our moral actions have no afterlife
 consequences.[32]
 If you believe that, then you are liable to act in a way that
*will* lead you to hell.



The danger of nihilism is perhaps the primary justification for the
Buddha's having spoken words that were technically untrue.
Vasubandhu provides a similar example in the "Disproof of the
Person" section of the *Treasury*. (See the section
concerning disproof of person.) There, Vasubandhu was arguing with the
Personalists, who pointed to a scripture in which the Buddha remained
silent when asked whether or not the person existed after death. The
Personalists, of course, saw this as evidence that the Buddha affirmed
the ineffability of the person. Vasubandhu says, in response, that the
Buddha explained quite clearly (to Ananda, his disciple, after
the questioner left) why there had been no good way to answer. To
affirm a self would be to imply a false doctrine, but to deny the self
(in this case, stating the truth) would cause the confused questioner
to fall into a still greater falsehood: Namely, the thought of
formerly having had a self, but now having none. This is the view,
once again, of the self being "cut off" or
"destroyed" (*uccheda*), the view that leads to
moral nihilism.



The danger of the false view of "destruction" is an
extreme case, in which the Buddha is silent so as not to have to lead
his disciple into a dangerous view. To what degree can this paradigm
be extended to suggest other, perhaps less dire, cases in which the
Buddha may have neglected to speak frankly? For Vasubandhu,
apparently, the presence of a contradiction between two statements
from the Buddha is one key. The Buddha cannot have literally meant
*both* that there was no living being (*satva*)
*and* that living beings (*satva*) came into being in a
particular bodily form. A similar contradiction is brought to bear in
the discussion with the Personalists, during their argument over the
functionality of memory in the absence of an enduring self. There,
Vasubandhu cites a scripture in which the Buddha says that whoever
claims to remember past lives is only remembering past aggregates in
his own continuum--a quote which vitiates the Personalists'
citation of the Buddha having said of his own past life, "I was
such-and-such a person, with such-and-such a form."



To return to the case at hand from the *Twenty Verses
Commentary*, although Vasubandhu does not indicate a direct
contradiction in the Buddha's words, he does explain (3) what he
takes to be the truth behind the Buddha's statements about the
"sense bases of physical form, and so on." The literal
meaning of the twelve sense bases, recall, is simply the listing of
the six sensory organs and their six sensory objects. The truth behind
this, for Vasubandhu, is the Yogacara causal story, which
tells how conscious events arise from karmic seeds within the
mind's own continuum. Each consciousness comes into being with a
particular subject/object appearance imprinted upon it by its karmic
seed. There are no subjects and no objects, only "dual"
appearances. It is this causal story that was the "special
intention"--the real truth--behind the Buddha's
words affirming the sense bases. Of course, the Yogacara
causal story denies the functionality of the senses, and so the
"special intention" is a direct contradiction of the
literal meaning of the sense bases.



In response to this supposed explanation, the opponent asks for the
Buddha's justification for speaking in this way, and (4)
Vasubandhu provides two separate reasons, targeted at two different
levels of listeners. For students who do not yet understand the truth
of appearance-only, the Buddha taught the sense bases in order to help
them to understand the absence of self in persons. This seems to
cohere with Vasubandhu's *Treasury* argument that uses
the sense bases as a way to explain away the apparent self. For
students who *do* understand the truth of appearance-only, the
doctrine of the sense bases is useful for helping *them* to
understand the absence of self in the elements--that is, in the
sense bases
 themselves.[33]
 Thus, for Vasubandhu, the Buddha's teachings are still useful,
even when they are understood to have been spoken from a provisional
standpoint.



Perhaps this point can be extended still further. For Vasubandhu,
while scriptures are always valid sources of knowledge, to excavate
their meaning often requires in-depth, sophisticated, philosophical
reasoning. We find Vasubandhu mocking his opponents, in one place in
the *Treasury*, for understanding "the words"
rather than "the meaning" of a scriptural passage in
question. (204.1) Vasubandhu often argues against his opponents'
overly literal interpretations of scripture as a crucial part of his
argument against their philosophical positions. When he turns to a
formal analysis of expository method and theory, Vasubandhu defends
this broad, rationalist approach to scripture.



In the *Proper Mode of Exposition*, Vasubandhu defends the
legitimacy of the Mahayana Sutras against a
"Sravaka" opponent, and defends their
figurative, Yogacara interpretation against a
Madhyamika opponent. Cabezon (1992) usefully summarizes
Vasubandhu's arguments here in three general categories:
Arguments based on the structure of the canon; arguments based on
doctrinal contents; and arguments based upon "intercanonical
criteria for authenticity." As we have seen in his
*Treasury* and *Twenty Verses* arguments, Vasubandhu
argues that naively to require that all scriptures be interpreted
literally is to insist that the Buddha repeatedly contradicted
himself. He cites many internal references to lost or unknown texts,
and argues that this shows that no lineage or school can claim to have
a complete canon. Unlike his Madhyamika opponents, Vasubandhu
believes that the Mahayana Sutras must be read under a
"special intention," so as to prevent the danger of
nihilism. As Cabezon writes, both the Sravaka and Madhyamaka
position share an over-emphasis on literal readings.
Vasubandhu's emphasis on "correct exegesis" (a
literal translation of *Vyakhyayukti*) shows the
Yogacara to be the school of greatest hermeneutical subtlety
and sophistication.


## 4. Major Yogacara Arguments and Positions


### 4.1 Defense of Appearance Only



The *Twenty Verses* is Vasubandhu's most readable, and
evidently analytic, philosophical text, and it has consequently drawn
a significant degree of modern scholarly
 attention.[34]
 It begins with a simple statement, which Vasubandhu defends
throughout the brief text and commentary: "Everything in the
three realms is only appearance
 (*vijnaptimatra*)."[35]
 The three realms are the three states into which Buddhists believe
living beings may be reborn. For all beings except for Buddhas and
advanced bodhisattvas, the three realms make up the universe.
Vasubandhu glosses this statement with citations from scripture that
make it clear that he means to say that there no things
(*artha*), only minds (*citta*) and mental qualities
(*caitta*). He says that the experience of the three realms is
like the appearance of hairs in front of someone with eye disease. It
is the experience of something that does not exist as it appears.
Although the term has a history of controversy among interpreters of
Yogacara, it seems safe to say that the *Twenty
Verses* defends at least some form of idealism. (See the section
on the controversy over Vasubandhu as idealist.)



After stating his thesis that everything is "only
apparent," Vasubandhu immediately voices a potential
counter-argument, which consists in four reasons that the three realms
being appearance only is impossible: First and second, why are things
restricted to specific places and times, respectively? Apparent
objects can appear anywhere, at any time. Third, why do beings in a
given place and time experience the same objects, and not different
objects according to their distinct continua? And fourth, why do
objects perform causal functions in the real world, when merely
apparent mental objects do not?



These objections aim to prove the impossibility that the world is
merely apparent by arguing that the elements of ordinary experience
behave in ways that what is merely apparent does not. Vasubandhu sets
up, and meets, these objections in order to prove the possibility, and
hence the viability of the theory, that everything in experience is
appearance only. He shows, essentially, that the objector has a narrow
view of what is possible for merely apparent things; appearances are
not *necessarily* limited in the ways the objector thinks.



Notice that it is not incumbent upon Vasubandhu here to prove that
*all* instances of the merely apparent transcend the
limitations assumed by the objector. He has not set up this objection
in order to try to prove, absurdly, that *all* mental images,
for instance, are spatially restricted, or that *all* mere
appearances perform observable causal functions in the real world. On
the contrary, one upshot of the recognition that things are appearance
only will be that things do not have the cause-and-effect structure
that we ordinarily take them to have. In any event, the positive
argument that ordinary experience is, in fact, illusory, comes later
and takes the form of an argument to the best explanation. Before an
explanation can be the best, though, it must be a possibility. So
here, all Vasubandhu must do to counter these initial objections is
provide, for each, a single example of a mental event that exemplifies
the behavior that the objector claims is only available to physical
 objects.[36]



To defeat the objections that mental objects are not restricted in
space and time, Vasubandhu provides the counterexample that in dreams
objects often appear to exist in one place and time, as they do in
ordinary waking reality. In a dream, I can be looking at shells on a
beach on Long Island, during the summer of my eighth year. It is only
upon waking that I come to realize that the dream objects (the shells,
the beach) were only mental fabrications, temporally dislocated, with
no spatial reality. Thus, what is merely apparent *can*
sometimes have the character of appearing in a particular place and
time. To say they do not is to misremember the
 experience.[37]



Next, to defeat the objection that unlike ordinary physical objects,
merely apparent objects are not intersubjectively shared by different
beings, Vasubandhu provides the counterexample that in hell, demonic
entities appear to torment groups of hell beings. This is a case of a
shared hallucination. When the objector wonders why the demons might
not in fact be real, Vasubandhu appeals to karma theory: Any being
with sufficient merit--sufficient "good
karma"--to generate a body capable of withstanding the
painful fires of hell would never be born into hell in the first
place. Any creature in hell that is not suffering must be an
apparition generated by the negative karma of the tormented.



Finally, to defeat the objection that merely apparent objects do not
produce functional causal results, Vasubandhu provides the memorable
counterexample of a wet dream, in which an evident, physical result is
produced by an imagined sexual encounter with a nonexistent lover.



The initial objection to the mere possibility of the "appearance
only" theory quelled, Vasubandhu turns to his main positive
proof. This consists in a systematic evaluation of every possible
account of sensory objects as physical, which ultimately leads
Vasubandhu to conclude that no account of physicality makes more
sense, or is more parsimonious, than the theory that it is appearance
only.



Before turning to Vasubandhu's treatment of physics, it is worth
stopping to note the crucial importance that Buddhist karma theory
plays in Vasubandhu's argument, overall. First, the proof of
shared hallucinations in hell depends upon the particulars of the
Buddhist belief in the hells. Of course, we might have believed in
shared hallucinations even without believing in karma. But the
tormenters in hell play an important, double role in
Vasubandhu's argument. He has the objector raise the question
again, and suggest as a last-ditch effort that perhaps, the tormenters
are physical entities generated and controlled by the karmic energies
of the tormented. At this, Vasubandhu challenges his objector: If
you're willing to admit that karma generates physical entities,
and makes them move around (pick up swords and saws, etc.), so that
they might create painful results in the mental streams of the
tormented, why not just eliminate the physical? Isn't it simpler
to say that the mind generates mental images that torment the
 mind?[38]
 This a crucial question, because it resonates beyond hell beings,
across Buddhist karmic theory.



In the *Treasury of the Abhidharma*, Vasubandhu expressed the
widely-held Buddhist view that in addition to causing beings'
particular rebirths, karma also shapes the realms into which beings
are reborn and the non-sentient contents of those realms. Such a
belief provides Indian religions with answers to questions often
thought unanswerable by western theisms, such as why the mudslide took
out my neighbor's house, but not mine. But this view of karmic
causality requires that the physical causes of positive or negative
experiences are linked back to our intentional acts. (For more on the
continuity problems associated with karmic causality, see the
discussion of the disproof of invisible physicality.) Vasubandhu does
not say so explicitly, but if it is easier to imagine the causes of a
mind-only hell demon than a physical one, it should also be easier to
imagine the causes of a mind-only mudslide--assuming that both
are generated as a karmic repercussion for the beings that encounter
them. The background assumption that any physical world must be
subject to karma, therefore places the realist on the defensive from
the start. Can the external realist adduce a theory intellectually
satisfying enough to counter Vasubandhu's suggestion that we
throw up our hands and admit that what appears to be out there is only
in our minds?



It is in response to *this* that the objector cites scripture,
saying that the Buddha did after all, teach of the sense bases, saying
that eyes perceive physical forms, and so on. As discussed above,
Vasubandhu reinterprets this scripture as having a "special
intention" (*abhipraya*). (See the section
concerning scriptures.) The Buddha did not intend to affirm the
ultimate reality of such entities. Yet the objector is not satisfied
with Vasubandhu's alternate reading of the Buddha's words.
In order to doubt such an explicit, repeated, statement, Vasubandhu
needs to *prove* that it could not be interpreted directly.
Even if the appearance-only world is possible, and even if it accounts
better for karmic causality than the physical world, a direct reading
of scripture is still supported, unless and until its doctrines are
shown to be internally inconsistent.


### 4.2 Disproof of Sensory Objects



In order to disprove the possibility of external objects, Vasubandhu
delves into the atomic theory of the Kashimiri Vaibhasikas
as well as that of the ("orthodox"/Hindu)
 Vaisesikas.[39]
 The purpose here is to undermine every possible theory that might
account for perception as caused by non-mental entities.
Vasubandhu's argument at this stage is entirely based in
mereology--the study of the relations between parts and wholes.
He argues first that atomism--the view that things are ultimately
made up of parts that are themselves partless--cannot work. Then,
he argues that any reasonable explanation of objects of perception
*must* be atomic, by arguing that the alternative--an
extended, partless whole--is incoherent. Vasubandhu takes it that
together, these conclusions prove that external objects must be unreal
appearances.



I can only summarize Vasubandhu's sophisticated mereological
arguments. He begins with the assertion that anything that serves as a
sensory object must be a whole made up of basic parts, a bare
multiplicity of basic parts, or an aggregate. But none of these can
work. A whole made up of parts is rejected on the grounds that things
are not perceived over and above their parts. This is a well-developed
Buddhist Abhidharmika view, which coheres with the rejection of a
self over and above the aggregates. A bare multiplicity of partless
parts is rejected on the grounds that separate atoms are not perceived
separately. Thus the only sensible option is a grouping of
parts--an aggregate--that somehow becomes perceptible by
being joined together.



The combination of partless entities, however, is conceptually
impossible. Vasubandhu points out that if they if they combine on one
"side" with one atom and another "side" with
another--those "sides" are parts. The opponent must
account for the relation between those parts and the whole, and we are
brought back to the beginning. Furthermore, if they are infinitesimal,
they cannot be combined into larger objects.



It is proposed, instead, that perhaps a partless entity may be
extended in space, and so perceived. But perception is generated by
contact between a sensory organ and its object. This requires the
object to put up some kind of resistance. But if a thing has no parts,
then its near side is its far side, which means that to be adjacent to
it is to have passed it by. Partless atoms are therefore logically
incapable of providing the resistance that is definitive of
physicality and the basis for sensory contact (Vasubandhu says that
they cannot produce light on one side and shade on the other). This
confirms that entities must be combined into larger groupings in order
to be functional and perceptible, which has already been shown
impossible.



If atoms and extended partless entities are impossible, so also are
unitary sensory objects. Vasubandhu is well practiced in the
Abhidharma arguments reducing apparent wholes to their composite
entities. Suppose we say I see something that has both blue and yellow
in it. How, if it is one unitary thing, can I see these two colors at
different points? What makes one point in an object different from
another point, if the object is of a single nature? This is clearly
parallel to the argument against Isvara as a single cause of
all things. A similar case is movement across an extended thing. As
with a partless atom, to step on the near side of a partless extended
singular entity would be to step on its far side, too. So there can be
no gradual movement across a singular entity. As Vasubandhu concludes,
one cannot but derive the need for partless, atomic units from such
reasoning. But partless atomic units are imperceptible. So, perception
is impossible; apparently perceived objects are only apparent.



The main part of his argument settled, Vasubandhu entertains another
set of counterarguments, which are the charges of solipsism and moral
nihilism: How, the internal objector asks, can beings interact with
one another? What is the karmic benefit of helping or harming, when we
are all merely apparent beings? Vasubandhu's direct, candid
response to these challenges may be viewed as a failure of
imagination, or a surprising willingness to bite the bullet of
anti-realism. Mental streams, he says, interact in essentially the
same way as we imagine physical objects to interact. Minds affect
minds directly. When you speak to me, and I hear you, we ordinarily
think that your mind causes your mouth to produce sounds that my ears
pick up and transform into mental events in my mind. Vasubandhu takes
Occam's razor to this account and says that--given that we
have no sensible account of physicality, let alone mental causation of
a physical event and physical causation of a mental event--it
makes *more sense* if we eliminate everything but the evident
cause and the result: Your mind and mine.



Note that Vasubandhu is not saying that nothing in our appearances
exists; he is saying, on the contrary, that mere appearances bear all
the reality that we need for full intersubjectivity and moral
responsibility. It seems worth noting in this context that something
similar to Vasubandhu's option just may be the only option
available for a modern physicalist who believes that human minds are
constituted by, or out of, neurons. Human persons, for such a modern,
do not exist as we imagine them to, and are not causally constituted
in ways that we can intuit or even comprehend, except vaguely. Does
this mean that we must advert to moral nihilism or solipsism?
Vasubandhu's alternative is to affirm our pragmatic acceptance
of our own, and others' experiences and causal responsibilities,
and not to imagine that we must await an account of physicality before
trusting the effectiveness of our mental, moral, causality. Read in
this way, Vasubandhu seems much closer to Madhyamaka philosophy than
is ordinarily assumed; see Nagao (1991).


### 4.3 Three Natures and Non-Duality



Vasubandhu did the work of defending the controversial,
Yogacara thesis of appearance-only
(*vijnaptimatra*) in his *Twenty Verses*. In
his short, poetic works the *Thirty Verses* and the *Three
Natures Exposition*, he does not entertain
 objections.[40]
 Instead, he draws together the basic doctrinal and conceptual
vocabulary of the Yogacara tradition and forms an elegant,
coherent system. The *Thirty Verses* includes a complete
treatment of the Buddhist path from a Yogacara perspective.
In order to understand Vasubandhu's contribution in this text,
it would be necessary to place it against the wide backdrop of
previous Yogacara doctrine. This scholarly work is ongoing.
Here, let us focus instead on introducing the basics of the intricate
doctrinal structure formulated in the *Three Natures
Exposition*.



The *Three Natures Exposition* takes as its topic, and its
title, the three natures of reality from a Yogacara
perspective: These are the fabricated nature
(*parikalpita-svabhava*), the dependent nature
(*paratantra-svabhava*) and the perfected nature
(*parinispanna-svabhava*). In Yogacara
metaphysics, things no longer have only one nature, one
*svabhava*; rather, things have three different, if
interconnected, natures. We may note immediately how fundamentally
this differs from the *Treasury*, in which the apparent purpose
is, at all times, to determine the singular nature of each entity
(*dharma*). In that context, to discover that an entity must be
admitted to have more than one, distinct nature, would be to discover
that that entity is unreal. Something that changes, for instance, is
internally inconsistent because of exhibiting multiple natures.
Vasubandhu employs exactly such arguments to deny the ultimate reality
of many specific entities (*dharma*) in the *Treasury*.
Such entities, he says, are unreal; like a "self," they
are only conceptual fabrications (*parikalpita*).



One of the basic distinguishing features of Great Vehicle
(Mahayana) metaphysics is the affirmation that not only the
person, but *all* entities (*dharma*) are empty of a
"self" or an inherent nature (*svabhava*).
That means, in the terms laid out in the *Treasury*, that
*all dharmas* are only conceptual fabrications. But that is not
the only way of looking at things. To say that all things have
*three* inherent natures is not to take back the Great
Vehicle's denial of inherent natures, but rather to explain it.
It is to say that, what we ordinarily take to be a thing's
individual character or identity is best understood from three angles,
so as to explode its unity. The first nature is the fabricated nature,
which is the thing as it appears to be. Of course, to use this term is
to indicate the acceptance that things do not really exist the way
they appear. This is a thing's nature as it might be defined and
explained in ordinary Abhidharma philosophy, but with the added
proviso that we all know that this is not really how things work. The
second nature is the dependent nature, which Vasubandhu defines as the
causal *process* of the thing's fabrication, the causal
story that brings about the thing's apparent nature. The third
nature, finally, is the emptiness of the first nature--the
*fact* that it is unreal, that it does not exist as it
appears.



Let's take the most important example, for Buddhists, of a thing
that appears real but has no nature: the self. With this as our
example of something mistakenly thought to have a nature
(*svabhava*), we may run through its *three*
natures. The self as it appears is just my self. I seem to be here, as
a living being, typing on a keyboard, thinking thoughts. That is the
first nature. The second nature is the causal story that brings about
this seeming self, which is the cycle of dependent origination. We
might appeal to the standard Abhidharma causal story, and say that the
twelve sense bases or the five aggregates, causally conjoined, bring
about the conceptually-fabricated self. In the Yogacara,
this causal story is entirely mental, of course, so we cannot appeal
to the sense bases themselves as the real cause. Rather, the sense
bases only *appear* to be there due to karmic conditioning in
my mental stream. For this reason, the second nature should instead be
said to be the causal series according to which the mental seeds
planted by previous deeds ripen into the appearance of the sense
bases, so that I think I am perceiving things--which, in turn,
makes me think I have a self. Finally, the third nature is the
non-existence of the self, the fact that it does not exist where it
appears. Of course, if there was a real self, I could not have
provided my explanation of how it comes to appear to be there. In
Vasubandhu's telling, the three natures are all one reality
viewed from three distinct angles. They are the appearance, the
process, and the emptiness of that same apparent entity.



With this in mind, we can read the opening verses of the *Three
Natures Exposition*:



> 
> 
> 1. Fabricated, dependent and perfected: So the wise understand, in
> depth, the three natures.
> 
> 
> 
> 2. What appears is the dependent. How it appears is the fabricated.
> Because of being dependent on conditions. Because of being only
> fabrication.
> 
> 
> 
> 3. The eternal non-existence of the appearance as it is appears: That
> is known to be the perfected nature, because of being always the
> same.
> 
> 
> 
> 4. What appears there? The unreal fabrication. How does it appear? As
> a dual self. What is its nonexistence? That by which the nondual
> reality is
>  there.[41]
> 
> 
> 



These verses emphasize the crystalline, internal structure to the
three natures. "What appears" is one nature (the
dependent), whereas "how it appears" is the fabricated.
"The eternal non-existence of the appearance as it
appears" is the perfected. These are ways of talking of the same
entity, or event, from different perspectives. Also evident here is
the crucial Yogacara concept of "duality." The
fabricated is said to appear as a "dual self," whereas
reality (*dharmata*) is nondual. Since, as we have seen
above, Vasubandhu believes in the selflessness of all dharmas, the
"dual self" is the false appearance of a self that is
attributed to any entity. Things and selves mistakenly appear
"dual." What does this mean?



The twosome denied by the denial of "duality" has many
interpretations across Yogacara thought, but for Vasubandhu
the most important kinds of duality are *conceptual duality*
and *perceptual
 duality*.[42]
 Conceptual duality is the bifurcation of the universe that appears
necessary in the formation of any concept. When we say of any given
thing that it is "physical," we are effectively saying, at
the same time, that all things are either "physical" or
"not physical." We create a "duality"
according to which we may understand all things as falling into either
one or the other category. This is what it is to define something, and
to ascribe it its characteristic nature (*svabhava*). This
is why every "self" is "dual." To say
something is what it is imposes a duality upon the world. And, given
that the world is in causal flux and does not accord with any
conceptual construct, every duality imposes a false construct upon the
world. To illuminate this with regard to the person, when I say that
"I" exist, I am dividing the universe into
"self" and "other"--me and not-me. Since,
for Buddhists, the self is unreal, this is a mistaken imposition, and
of course many ignorant, selfish actions follow from this fundamental
conceptual error.



In addition, but closely related to conceptual duality, is
*perceptual* duality. This is the distinction between sensory
organs and their objects that appears in perception. When I see a
tree, I have the immediate impression that there is a distinction
between that tree, which I see, and my eye organs, which see the tree.
I take it that my eyes are "grasping" the tree, and
furthermore I understand that the eyes (my eyes) are part of me,
whereas the tree is not part of me. The same is true of all of the
sensory organs and their objects. The Abhidharma system calls the
sensory organs the "internal" sense bases, and the sensory
objects the "external" ones. It is the combination of the
"internal" sense bases upon which I impose the false
construction of self. Thus perception provides the basis for the
conceptual distinction between self and other.



For Yogacara Buddhists, however, sense perception is just as
false a "duality" as are false conceptual constructions.
Given that the external world must be only mind, the sensory
experience that we have of a world "out there" is only a
figment of our imagination. The self/other distinction implicit in
perception is as much a false imposition as is the self/other
distinction implicit in the concept, "self." Perception,
like conceptualization, is only a matter of the mind generating
"dual" images. As counterintuitive as this sounds, it may
be clarified by analogy to the idea of a multi-player virtual reality
game. In a shared virtual reality experience, the first thing the
computer system must be able to track is where, objectively,
everything is (where the various players are, where the castle with
the hidden jewels is, where the dragon is hiding, etc.). Then, when
any new player logs in, the system can place that player somewhere in
the multi-dimensional, virtual world. At that point, the computer must
generate a sensory perspective for that individual. Immediately that
person experiences herself to exist in a world of a certain kind, with
certain abilities to move around, and fight, and so on. But this is
only a trick of the software. The world is unreal, and so is the
player's subjective perspective on that world.



For the Yogacara, our sensory experience is something like
this. We are all only mental, and so the apparent physicalities that
intervene between us are merely false constructions of our deluded
minds. Furthermore, the physical body that we take ourselves to have,
as we negotiate the world, making use of our senses, is also not
there. Both external and internal realities are mistaken to the degree
that we see them as "two" and not "nondual"
constructions arising out of a single mental stream.



Vasubandhu's clearest, most evocative, and most famous
explanation of the three natures appears later on, when they are
analogized to a magician's production of an illusion of an
elephant, using a piece of wood and a magical spell:



> 
> 
> 27. It is just as [something] made into a magical illusion with the
> power of an incantation (*mantra*) appears as the self of an
> elephant. A mere appearance (*akaramatra*) is
> there, but the elephant does not exist at all.
> 
> 
> 
> 28. The fabricated nature is the elephant; the dependent is its
> appearance (*akrti*); and the nonexistence of an
> elephant there is the perfected.
> 
> 
> 
> 29. In the same way, the fabrication of what does not exist appears as
> the self of duality from the root mind. The duality is utterly
> nonexistent. A mere appearance (*akrtimatraka*)
> is there.
> 
> 
> 
> 30. The root-consciousness is like the incantation. Suchness
> (*tathata*) is understood to be like the piece of wood.
> Construction (*vikalpa*) should be accepted to be like the
> appearance of the elephant. The duality is like the
>  elephant.[43]
> 
> 
> 



Notice the two different elements here in the ending of Verse 30: The
"appearance of the elephant" is
"construction," that is, the ongoing process of
imagination that arises from the karmic causal stream. The real
problem, though, "duality," the dangerous, false
distinction between self and other, is analogized to the illusory
elephant itself. If I am at a magic show, I should expect to see the
"appearance of an elephant." That will make the show worth
attending. But if I am not a fool, I will not imagine myself to
*actually* *see an elephant*. That would be to construct
duality. For Vasubandhu, this is a crucial distinction. The basic
problem for living beings in his view is not that we
*experience* an illusory world; the problem is that we are
fooled into *accepting the reality* of our perceptions and our
concepts. Once we no longer believe, once we see the falsity of the
illusion, the illusion goes away and we can come to experience the
truth that lies behind the illusion--the ineffable
"suchness" (*tathata*), the piece of wood.


## 5. Controversy over Vasubandhu as "Idealist"



Let us posit that metaphysical idealism need not be the
counterintuitive view that all that exists is, simply, mental. To call
a view idealist it is sufficient merely that it hold that everything
is *dependent upon* mind--a mind, or many minds. Idealists
hold that the natures or forms of things are mind-dependent. Of
course, such dependence is, in itself, counterintuitive, given that we
generally take the physical world to have existence independent of
minds. Contemporary prevailing wisdom holds that the direction of
causal dependence goes in the opposite direction; the physical world
in fact generates and sustains minds (using neurons to do so).
Idealism says that ideas, or minds, are in one way or other behind, or
prior to, all other forms of existence.



Given this definition, is Vasubandhu, the author of the *Twenty
Verses* and the *Thirty Verses* and probably the *Three
Natures Exposition*, a metaphysical idealist? At first blush, it
seems quite sensible to say that he is. The evident purpose of the
*Twenty Verses* is to argue that the core background
assumptions of Mahayana Buddhism (especially its views on
karma) suggest the idealistic thesis that is asserted in the
text's opening: "In the Great Vehicle, the threefold world
is only
 appearance."[44]
 Vasubandhu argues throughout the *Twenty Verses* that whatever
aspects of the world appear to be independent of mind, they are better
explained as mental constructions. What that means is, apparently,
that not only is Vasubandhu an idealist in the sense that he believes
that everything in experience is dependent upon mind, but he also
believes that everything *simply is* mind. This is the radical
"mind only" (*cittamatra*) position that he
believes is necessitated by adherence to a Mahayana
worldview.



Things are not quite this simple, however. First, it is important to
note two levels to Vasubandhu's "idealism." The
first level points to an analysis of what appears in perception.
Vasubandhu says that everything that we ordinarily ascribe existence
in the world--such as a self or an object--is actually only
mental. Tables and nebulae and eyes are mental fabrications that have
no existence apart from their "shape"
(*akara*), the way they
 appear.[45]
 The second level points to the causal story that brings about such
appearances. Along with other Yogacarins, Vasubandhu argues
that *that causal story too* is only mental. Perception, in the
form of active sensory and mental consciousnesses, is caused by the
"storehouse consciousness"
(*alayavijnana*), which stores, in mental
form, the seeds of all of our future experiences. The storehouse is
constantly replenished, because new "seeds"
(*bija*) are created every time we enact a morally
significant action (*karma*).



It is mental causation, then, that brings about our mental
experiences. It is this second level, then, that confirms Vasubandhu
as an idealist. Not only the reality that we inhabit (which we
ordinarily think of as at least partly non-mental), but also *the
causal supports upon which such a reality depends*, are only
mental. Even if the storehouse consciousnesses of living beings
provided ongoing support to a real, physical world, we would
*still* want to call that view "idealism" for its
insistence on the causal priority of the mental. Since Vasubandhu does
not say as much, but instead says that everything that is created by
minds is itself mental, we might say that in addition to a causal
idealism, Vasubandhu's is a universal, ontological idealism.



Behind both of these levels, however, there is an important sense in
which Vasubandhu is not really an idealist. Like all
Mahayana Buddhists, Vasubandhu believes that whatever can be
stated in language is only conventional, and therefore, from an
ultimate perspective, it is mistaken. Ultimate reality is an
inconceivable "thusness" (*tathata*) that is
perceived and known only by enlightened beings. Ultimately, therefore,
the idea of "mind" is just as mistaken as are ordinary
"external objects." For this reason, we can say that
Vasubandhu is an idealist, but only in the realm of conventions.
Ultimately, he affirms ineffability.





|  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Level 1** | Experience |  False Appearances (self, objects,
concepts)  | Idealism |
| **Level 2** | Causality | Storehouse Consciousness (produces
consciousness) | Idealism |
| **Level 3** | Ultimate Reality | Only Buddhas Know (*tathata*) |  Ineffability  |



Levels of Analysis of Vasubandhu




It is extremely important to keep these levels apart, in order to
prevent Vasubandhu from committing an evident self-contradiction. At
the end of his commentary to verse 10 of the *Twenty Verses*,
Vasubandhu imagines an interlocutor challenging the appearance-only
view by saying that if no dharmas exist at all, then so also
appearance-only doesn't exist. How, then, can it be established?
This charge of self-referential incoherence is faced by anti-realists
of all stripes, and it is familiar to Buddhist philosophers from
Nagarjuna's *Vigrahavyavartani*.
(See the entry on
 Nagarjuna
 in this encyclopedia.) Vasubandhu's reply in the *Twenty
Verses Commentary* is that appearance-only does not mean the
nonexistence of dharmas. It only means the absence of a nature
(*svabhava*) that is falsely attributed to a constructed
self (*kalpitatmana*), and Vasubandhu is quick to say
that when one establishes appearance-only, appearance-only must
*also* be understood to be itself a construction, without a
self. Otherwise, there would be something other than an appearance,
which would by definition contradict appearance-only. All there is, is
appearance, and everything that appears is a false construction of
self.



We can take two important lessons from this. First,
representation-only cannot be the ultimate truth. If Vasubandhu were
affirming the ultimate reality of the "mind-only" causal
story that brings about appearances, or the appearances themselves
(levels 2 and 1, respectively), then he would surely have said so in
response to the charge of self-referential, nihilistic incoherence.
Instead, his argument adverts to another level for ultimate reality.
Madhyamaka critics of Yogacara have made much of the notion
that the latter have reified the mind and made it a new
 "ultimate."[46]
 Yet Vasubandhu's position is clearly intended to elude such a
critique.



Second, for Vasubandhu the lack of a self-nature
(*svabhava*) just is, precisely, what he means by
"appearance-only." This is also contrary to a common
understanding of Yogacara which arises from the equation of
"appearance-only" with "mind-only." This
equation is not, technically, a mistake in the case of Vasubandhu. He
says, specifically, that "mind" (*citta*) and
"appearance" (*vijnapti*) are synonyms. The
mistake is what we moderns tend to think, based on a background
assumption of mind/matter Cartesian dualism--namely, that the
expression "mind only" is used to affirm the reality of
the mental at the expense of the physical. Here, reality is certainly
not physical, but that is not Vasubandhu's point. His point is
to equate the lack of independent nature (*svabhava*) with
the product of mental construction. This is a simple statement of
idealism, as mentioned above: Everything that exists must either have
independent existence, or be dependent upon mind, a mental
construction; and since, for the Great Vehicle, nothing has
independent existence, everything is only a mental construction. What
it means to be "mind only," then, is not simply to be made
of mental stuff rather than physical stuff. It is to be a false
construction by a deluded mind. Again, we can see that there is no
possibility that Vasubandhu is talking about the
"ultimate" here.



These points, and the above table, may clarify some of the
difficulties in the ongoing, contentious debates over whether
Vasubandhu and other Yogacarins should be classified as
idealists or mystics. A quarter century ago, Thomas A. Kochumuttom
(1982) argued quite powerfully and sensibly for his time that
Vasubandhu *should not* be called an idealist, but he was
arguing primarily against authors such as Theodore Stcherbatsky and S.
N. Dasgupta, about whom he wrote (200):



> 
> All of the above quoted passages clearly show that their authors
> almost unanimously accept *vijnapti-matrata*
> or *prajnapti-matrata* or
> *citta-matrata* as the Yogacarin's
> description of the absolute, undefiled, undifferentiated, non-dual,
> transcendent, pure, ultimate, permanent, unchanging, eternal,
> supra-mundane, unthinkable, Reality, which, according to them, is the
> same as *Parnispanna-svabhava*, or
> *Nirvana*, or Pure Consciousness, or
> *Dharma-dhatu*, or *Dharma-kaya*, or the
> Absolute Idea of Hegel, or the Brahman of Vedanta.
> 



One can appreciate Kochumuttom's frustration. Vasubandhu is
cautious not to conflate a description of perceived entities as
reducible to only mind (Level 1) with a description of the ineffable
ultimate reality (Level 3). Vasubandhu explicitly denies that
"mind" has ultimate reality. He is not a Hegelian
idealist.



But not all idealists are Hegelian, absolute idealists. Among
idealisms, Vasubandhu's is more closely aligned with
Kant's, in that both assert that the objects of our experience
are only representations, while both also affirm the reality of
unknowable things in themselves (*Ding* *an
 sich*).[47]
 Kochumuttom was aware of this, and even in the course of his extended
argument against using the term "idealism" for Vasubandhu,
he allowed that the term might be appropriate if understood in this
way:



> 
> This should not be understood to mean that there are no things other
> than consciousness. On the contrary, it means only that what falls
> within the range of experience are different forms of consciousness,
> while the things-in-themselves remain beyond the limits of experience.
> (48)
> 



> 
> The form in which a thing is thought to be grasped is purely imagined
> (*parikalpita*), and therefore is no sure guide to the
> thing-in-itself. It is in this sense, and only in this sense, that
> Vasubandhu's system can be called idealism. It by no means
> implies that there is nothing apart from ideas or consciousness. (53)
> 



Is the term "idealism" acceptable for the view that, even
if nothing expressible in language has ultimate reality, mental events
are still *more* real than physical events, which do not have
even *conventional* reality? Perhaps "conventionalist
idealism" would be a good term for this view, but surely it sits
squarely within the range of idealisms. To say, with emphasis, as some
do, that this view is *not* idealism, may be to privilege a
narrow understanding of the term.



In addition, the issue may be more than semantic. It will strike some
as overstating the case to say, as Kochumuttom does, that the fact
that everything within perception is only mind "by no means
implies that there is nothing apart from ideas or
consciousness." Vasubandhu's arguments in the *Twenty
Verses* are intended to exclude the possibility of anything at all
that may be coherently *asserted* to be
 non-mental.[48]
 So the doctrine of appearance-only *does* imply that there is
nothing apart from ideas or consciousness, at least, as far as logic
and implications are allowed to go. The only exceptions would be
things about which we can say nothing. So what could allow us to say
about them that they are
 exceptions?[49]



Whether or not one wants to use the word "idealism" for
Vasubandhu thus depends to a large degree upon just how strongly one
wants to lean upon the idea that idealists must affirm the
*ultimate* reality of mind. The main arguments that remain
against viewing Vasubandhu as an idealist, exemplified prominently
today by Dan Lusthaus, emphasize this idea. Given that many Buddhists
in India, Tibet and East Asia have understood the Yogacara
to be affirming the ultimate reality of the mental, the denial of such
a view on Vasubandhu's behalf is an important and useful
corrective. Lusthaus believes that Vasubandhu is not a
"metaphysical idealist" or an "ontological
idealist" but rather an "epistemological idealist,"
meaning that Vasubandhu is concerned only about awareness and its
contents, and is not in the business of affirming or denying anything
about ultimate reality. For this reason, Lusthaus refers to
Yogacara as
 "phenomenology."[50]



A final complaint is that the use of the term "idealism"
is anachronistic or for some other reason inappropriate in its
application to pre-modern India. Kochummutom's point that the
term encompasses too much is well taken. It is one thing (perhaps
already stretching the meaning) to apply the term
"idealism," as R.P. Srivastava (1973) does, to modern
thinkers whose views have been influenced by European idealists, such
as Aurobindo, Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan. But it is anachronistic
if we are to impose upon Vasubandhu the modern associations and
baggage that come along with the term, which would include an advocacy
of private, personal, sacred, "religious experience."
Vasubandhu may be an idealist, in a strict sense, but he is not what
20th century religious studies textbooks call a
"mystic philosopher." Vasubandhu does not, generally,
appeal to his own, individual personal experience as evidence or
confirmation of his positions. On the contrary, Vasubandhu repeatedly
employs reasoning to cast doubts upon the apparent realities evident
through perception, whether external or internal. This is, perhaps, a
reason to avoid describing Vasubandhu as a
"phenomenologist." His work does not take the direct
examination of "experience" as its theme, but, rather, it
draws upon scripture and rational argumentation for its critiques of
the available accounts of reality.