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Who Wrote the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa? Reflections on an Enigmatic Text and Its Place in the History of Buddhist Philosophy

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“Everyone knows Vasubandhu.

What is remarkable, then, is that we do not, by now, know Vasubandhu very well” (Gold 2015, p. 1)

Abstract

In recent decades, scholars of Buddhist philosophy have frequently treated the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa (TSN), or “Teaching of the Three Natures,” attributed to Vasubandhu, as an authentic and authoritative representation of that celebrated thinker’s mature work within the Yogācāra tradition. However, serious questions may be posed concerning the status and authority of the TSN within Yogācāra, its true authorship, and the relation of its contents to trends in early Yogācāra thought. In the present article, we review the actual state of our knowledge of the TSN’s possible origins, considering, too, the implications this may have for contemporary treatments thereof.

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Abbreviations

ADhK:

Abhidharmakośa, ed. Dwārikādās Śāstrī (1970–1972)

ADhKBh:

Abhidharmakośabhāṣya, see AdhK

BBh:

Bodhisattvabhūmi, ed. Dutt (1978)

LAS:

Laṅkāvatārasūtra, ed. Nanjio (1923)

MAV:

Madhyāntavibhāga, ed. Nagao (1964)

MAVBh:

Madhyāntavibhāgabhāṣya, see MAV

MSA:

Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, ed. Lévi (1907)

MSABh:

Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkārabhāṣya, see MSA

TrBh:

Triṃśikābhāṣya, ed. Buescher (2007)

Trṃś:

Triṃśikā, see TrBh

TSN:

Trisvabhāvanirdeśa, ed. Yamaguchi (1931), La Vallée Poussin (1933) and Mukhopadhyaya (1939)

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  1. EPHE, PSL Research University, Paris 7, Collège de France, CNRS, UMR 8155, Paris, France

    Matthew T. Kapstein

  2. The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Matthew T. Kapstein

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Kapstein, M.T. Who Wrote the Trisvabhāvanirdeśa? Reflections on an Enigmatic Text and Its Place in the History of Buddhist Philosophy. J Indian Philos 46, 1–30 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-017-9334-2

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