Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/144

 128 Buddhist Philosophy [CH. the truth preached by the Siinyavadins, interested themselves in explaining the phenomena of consciousness by their theory of beginningless illusory root-ideas or instincts of the mind (VaSalla). Asvaghoa (100 A.D.) seems to have been the greatest teacher of a new type of idealism (vijiiiinaviida) known as the Tathata philosophy. Trusting in Suzuki's identification of a quotation in Asvaghoa's SraddhotPiidasiistra as being made from Laizkiiva- tiiraSlttra, we should think of the Laizkiivatiirasittra as being one of the early works of the Vijf1anavadinsI. The greatest later writer of the Vijf1anavada school was Asanga (400 A.D.), to whom are attributed the Saptadasabl111mi siUra, M allayiina Slttra, Upadesa, M alziiyiinasamparigralla siistra, Yogiiciirabhitmi siistra and J/.1 ahiiyiillasittriilal!lkiira. None of these works excepting the last one is available to readers who have no access to the Chinese and Tibetan manuscripts, as the Sanskrit originals are in all probability lost. The Vijf1anavada school is known to Hindu writers by another name also, viz. Y ogacara, and it does not seem an improbable supposition that Asanga's Yogiiciira- bhiimi stistra was responsible for the new name. Vasubandhu, a younger brother of Asanga, was, as Paramartha (499-569) tells us, at first a liberal Sarvastivadin, but was converted to Vijf1a- navada, late in his life, by Asaliga. Thus Vasubandhu, who wrote in his early life the great standard work of the Sarvasti- vadins, Abllidharmakosa, devoted himself in his later life to Vijf1a- navada 2. He is said to have commented upon a number of Mahayana siitras, such asA vataltlsaka, Nirvii?za, Saddharmaplt?l- tfarika, PrajiiiiPiiramitii, Vimalakirtti and Srimiiliisil?z1w11iida, and compiled some Mahayana siitras, such as Vij1ziilla11latrasiddlli, Ratnatraya, etc. The school of Vijf1anavada continued for at least a century or two after V asu bandhu, but we are not in possession of any work of great fame of this school after him. We have already noticed that the Siinyavada formed the fun- damental principle of all schools of Mahayana. The most powerful exponent of this doctrine was Nagarjuna (100 A.D.), a brief account of whose system will be given in its proper place. Nagarjuna's karikas (verses) were commented upon by Aryyadeva, a disciple of his, Kumarajiva (383 A.D.), Buddhapalita and Candrakirtti (55 0 A.D.). .A.ryyadeva in addition to this commentary wrote at I I>r S. C. VidyaLhiishana thinks that La/lk/ivatiira belongs to about 300 A. D. 2 Takakusu's .. A study of the Paramartha's life of Vasubandhu," J. R. A. S. 1905.