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Volume I · Ancient Greece · 624–262 BCE

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Vasubandhu

BuddhistIndian

Born c. 320 CE

Died c. 400 CE

The master who mapped the whole of early Buddhist thought, then crossed over to argue that the world we see is mind only.

Vasubandhu first wrote the Abhidharmakosha, the great compendium that systematized the entire Buddhist analysis of mind and matter into interlocking lists — the standard reference for centuries. Then, converted by his brother Asanga, he turned to the Yogacara school and argued something stranger: the external world is a construction of consciousness, appearing real the way objects in a dream appear real. In twenty and then thirty terse verses he laid out how mind alone, ripening from its own seeds, projects the world it then mistakes for solid. Reality is not denied, but relocated — from out there to in here.

Places

Ideas

The Mind-Body ProblemEmptiness (Shunyata)

Words

“All this is consciousness only, for the world appears as the objects of a dream appear.”

— Vasubandhu

Works

Thirty Verses on Consciousness-Only

·Sanskrit

Thirty terse verses laying out the Yogacara teaching that the world is consciousness only — that mind, ripening from its own stored seeds, projects the objects it then mistakes for an external, solid reality. The companion to his vast Abhidharmakosha, it relocates the world from out there to in here.

Life & Moments

c. 360 CE

The Abhidharmakosha

Wrote the great compendium that systematized the entire Buddhist analysis of mind and matter.

c. 380 CE

The Turn to Mind-Only

Converted by his brother Asanga, he turned to Yogacara and argued that the external world is consciousness only.

Influence

Influenced by

  • ←
    NagarjunaMahayana tradition

    Vasubandhu's Yogacara took shape alongside the Madhyamaka tradition that Nagarjuna founded, the two great wings of Mahayana thought.

Influenced

  • →
    Dignagateacher and student

    Dignaga studied under Vasubandhu and turned the Yogacara analysis of mind toward logic and the theory of knowledge.

Related Thinkers

D

Dignaga

c. 480 CE – c. 540 CE

Nagarjuna

c. 150 CE – c. 250 CE

Read the Journey →Compare with Dignaga

Thinkers

A story-first philosophy atlas. Explore history's greatest thinkers through place, time, movement, and ideas.

Explore

  • Thinkers
  • Atlas
  • Works

Browse

  • Concepts
  • Volumes

About

  • About Thinkers
  • Image Credits

Volume I · Ancient Greece · 624–262 BCE