East Asian Yogācāra refers to the Mahayana Buddhist traditions in East Asia which developed out of the Indian Buddhist Yogācāra (lit. "yogic practice") systems (also known as Vijñānavāda, "the doctrine of consciousness" or Cittamātra, "mind-only"). In East Asian Buddhism, this school of Buddhist idealism was known as the "Consciousness-Only school" ().
The 4th-century brothers, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, are considered the classic founders of Indian Yogacara school.Siderits, Mark, Buddhism as philosophy, 2017, p. 146. The East Asian tradition developed through the work of numerous Buddhist thinkers working in Chinese. They include Bodhiruci, Ratnamati, Huiguang, Paramārtha, Jingying Huiyuan, Zhiyan, Xuanzang and his students Kuiji, Woncheuk and Dōshō.
The East Asian consciousness only school is traditionally seen as being divided into two main groups. There are the "Old Translation 舊譯 (Jiù yì)" or "Ancient Vijnaptimatra 唯識古學 (Wéishí gǔxué)" schools, which refers to the earliest traditions to develop in China prior to Xuanzang, primarily the Dilun and Shelun, which heavily blends buddha-nature thought with Yogācāra. The other branch is the "New Translation 新譯 (Xīn yì)" or "Contemporary Vijnaptimatra 唯識今學 (Wéishí jīnxué)" Schools, which refers specifically to the tradition of Xuanzang and tends to focus much more strictly on mainstream Yogācāra philosophy following the Indian master Dharmapala.
Names In Chinese Buddhism, the overall Yogācāra tradition is mostly called Wéishí-zōng (, yusik) which is a translation of the Sanskrit ("cognition only", "mere consciousness"). The consciousness-only view is the central philosophical tenet of the school which states that ontologically there are only vijñāna (consciousness, mental events).
Yogācāra may also be referred to as Yújiāxíng Pài (瑜伽行派), a direct translation of the Sanskrit term Yogācāra ("Yogic praxis").
The term Fǎxiàng-zōng ("dharma characteristics", ) was first applied to a branch of Yogacara by the Huayan scholar Chengguan, who used it to characterize the teachings of the school of Xuanzang and the Cheng Wei Shi Lun as provisional, dealing with the characteristics of phenomena or dharmas. As such, this name was an outside term used by critics of the school, which eventually was adopted by Weishi nevertheless. Another lesser known name for the school is Yǒu Zōng ( "School of Existence"). Yin Shun also introduced a threefold classification for Buddhist teachings which designates this school as Xūwàng Wéishí Xì ( "False Imagination Mere Consciousness System").
In opposition to the "Dharma characteristics" view, the term Dharma nature school (Fǎxìng zōng, 法性) is used to refer to a form of Yogācāra which blends Yogācāra with buddha-nature (tathagatagarbha) thought, especially with the doctrines of texts like the Awakening of Faith. This term would include schools like Dilun, Shelun, Chan, and Huayan, who affirm basic Yogācāra principles like mind-only, while also promoting metaphysical views which are not strictly compatible with orthodox Yogācāra.
Characteristics
Like the Indian parent, the Yogācāra school, the East Asian Yogācāra tradition teaches that reality is only consciousness, and rejects the existence of mind-independent objects or matter. Instead, Weishi holds that all phenomena (dharmas) arise from the mind. In this tradition, deluded minds distort the ultimate truth and project false appearances of independent subjects and objects (termed the imagined nature).
In keeping with Indian Yogācāra tradition, Weishi divides the mind into Eight Consciousnesses and the Four Aspects of Cognition, which produce what we view as reality. The analysis of the eighth, the ālayavijñana, or store-consciousness (阿賴耶識), which is at the root of all experience, is a key feature of all forms of Weishi Buddhism. This root consciousness is also held to be the carrier of all karmic seeds (種子). A distinct teaching of the Yogācāra is that of three kinds of cognitive objects innovated by Xuanzang's 唯識三類境 (Wéishí sān lèi jìng). Another central doctrinal schema for the Yogācāra traditions is the schema of the three natures (三性).
The central canonical texts of Weishi Buddhism are the classic Indian sutras associated with Yogācāra, such as the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra and the Ten Stages Sutra, as well as the works associated with Maitreya, Asanga and Vasubandhu, including the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra, Mahāyānasaṃgraha, Viṃśatikā-vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā, and the Xianyang shengjiao lun (顯揚聖教論, T 1602.31.480b-583b).Schmithausen, Lambert. 1987. Ālayavijñāna: On the Origin and the Early Development of a Central Concept of Yogâcāra Philosophy. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies. Studia Philologica Buddhica Monograph Series. IV
Besides these Indic works, the Cheng Weishi Lun (成唯識論, The Demonstration of Consciousness-only) compiled by Xuanzang is considered the central work of the tradition, which is generally studied alongside the three commentaries of Kuiji, Huizhao, and Zhizhou known as the Three Commentaries on Weishi 唯識三個疏 (Wéishí sān gè shū).
There are different sub-sects of the East Asian Yogācāra, including the early schools such as Dilun and Shelun, the school of Xuanzang, and the Korean and Japanese branches of Yogācāra.
History in mainland Asia Translations of Indian Yogācāra texts were first introduced to China in the early fifth century. Among these was Guṇabhadra's translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra in four fascicles, which would also become important in the early history of Chan Buddhism. Another early set of translations where two texts by Dharmakṣema (Ch: Tan Wuchen 曇無讖; 385–433): the Bodhisattvabhūmi-sūtra (Pusa di chi jing 菩薩地持經; Stages of the Bodhisattva Path), and the Bodhisattva Prātimokṣa (which contains excerpts from the Yogācārabhūmi).Makeham, John. Transforming Consciousness: Yogacara Thought in Modern China, p. 4. Oxford University Press, 2014. Soon following the first traditions of Chinese Yogacara formed, the Dilun (Daśabhūmika) and Shelun (Mahāyānasaṃgraha) schools which flourished during the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the early Tang before being eclipsed by Xuanzang's new translation school.
Old Translation Schools The earliest Yogacara traditions were the Dilun (Daśabhūmika) and Shelun (Mahāyānasaṃgraha) schools, which were based on Chinese translations of Indian Yogacara treatises. The Dilun and Shelun schools followed traditional Indian Yogacara teachings along with tathāgatagarbha (i.e. buddha-nature) teachings, and as such were really hybrids of Yogācāra and tathāgatagarbha. While these schools were eventually eclipsed by other Chinese Buddhist traditions, their ideas were preserved and developed by later thinkers, including the Korean monks Woncheuk (–696) and Wohnyo, and the patriarchs of the Huayan school like Zhiyan (602–668), who himself studied under Dilun and Shelun masters and Fazang (643–712).King Pong Chiu (2016). Thomé H. Fang, Tang Junyi and Huayan Thought: A Confucian Appropriation of Buddhist Ideas in Response to Scientism in Twentieth-Century China, p. 53. BRILL.
Dilun school The Dilun or Daśabhūmikā school (Sanskrit. , "School of the Treatise on the Bhūmis") was a tradition that derived from the translators Bodhiruci (Putiliuzhi 菩提流支; d. 527) and Ratnamati (Lenamoti 勒那摩提; d.u.). Both translators worked on Vasubandhu's Shidijing lun (十地經論, Sanskrit: or , "Commentary on the Daśabhūmikasūtra"), producing a translation during the Northern Wei.Makeham, John. Transforming Consciousness: Yogacara Thought in Modern China, p. 6. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Bodhiruci and Ratnamati ended up disagreeing on how to interpret Yogacara doctrine and thus, this tradition eventually split into northern and southern schools. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties era this was the most popular Yogacara school. The northern school followed the interpretations and teachings of Bodhiruci (6th century CE) while the southern school followed Ratnamati. Modern scholars argue that the influential treatise called the Awakening of Faith was written by someone in the northern Dilun tradition of Bodhiruci.Jorgensen, John; Lusthaus, Dan; Makeham, John; Strange, Mark, trans. (2019), Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, in Introduction (pp. 1–10). Ratnamati also translated the Ratnagotravibhāga (究竟一乘寶性論 Taisho no. 1611), an influential buddha-nature treatise.Brunnhölzl, Karl (2015). When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and Its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sutra and Tantra, p. 94. Shambhala Publications. According to Hans-Rudolf Kantor, one of the most important doctrinal differences and points of contention between the southern and northern Dilun schools was "the question of whether the ālaya-consciousness is constituted of both reality and purity, and is identical with the pure mind (Southern Way), or whether it comprises exclusively falsehood, and is a mind of defilements giving rise to the unreal world of sentient beings (Northern Way)."Kantor, Hans-Rudolf. "Philosophical Aspects of Sixth-Century Chinese Buddhist Debates on "Mind and Consciousness"", pp. 337–395 in: Chen-kuo Lin / Michael Radich (eds.) A Distant Mirror Articulating Indic Ideas in Sixth and Seventh Century Chinese Buddhism. Hamburg Buddhist Studies, 3 Hamburg: Hamburg University Press 2014.
According to Daochong (道寵), a student of Bodhiruci and the main representative of the northern school, the storehouse consciousness is not ultimately real and buddha-nature is something that one acquires only after attaining Buddhahood (that is, the storehouse consciousness ceases and transforms into the buddha-nature). On the other hand, the southern school of Ratnamatiʼs student Huiguang (慧光) held that the storehouse consciousness was real and synonymous with buddha-nature, which is immanent in all sentient beings like a jewel in a trash heap. Other important figures of the southern school were Huiguangʼs disciple Fashang (法上, 495–580), and Fashangʼs disciple Jingying Huiyuan (淨影慧遠, 523–592). This school's doctrine was later passed on to the Huayan school via Zhiyan.Muller, Charles. 地論宗 School of the Treatise on the Bhūmis (2017), Digital Dictionary of Buddhism. http://www.buddhism-dict.net
An important founding figure of the southern Dilun, Huiguang (468–537) was the leading disciple of Ratnamati, who composed various commentaries, including: Commentary on the Ten Grounds Sutra (十地論疏 (Shidilun shu), Commentary on the Flower Garland Sutra (華嚴經疏 Huayanjing shu), Commentary on the Nirvana Sutra (涅槃經疏 Niepanjing shu) and Commentary on the Sutra of Queen Srimala (人王經疏 Renwangjing shu).
Shelun school During the sixth century CE, the Indian monk and translator Paramārtha (Zhendi 真諦; 499–569) widely propagated Yogācāra teachings in China. His translations include the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, the Madhyāntavibhāga-kārikā, the Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā, Dignāga's Ālambana-parīkṣā (Wu xiang si chen lun 無相思塵論), the Mahāyānasaṃgraha and the Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī (Juedingzang lun 決定藏論; a part of the a Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra). Paramārtha also taught widely on the principles of Consciousness Only, and developed a large following in southern China. Many monks and laypeople traveled long distances to hear his teachings, especially those on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha. This tradition was known as the Shelun school (摂論宗, Shelun zong).Keng Ching and Michael Radich. "Paramārtha." Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Volume II: Lives, edited by Jonathan A. Silk (editor-in chief), Richard Bowring, Vincent Eltschinger, and Michael Radich, 752-758. Leiden, Brill, 2019.