Philosophy of Vasubandhu in Vimsatika and Trimsika
By Surendra Nath Das Gupta
The Indian Historical Quarterly,
vol 4:1, March, 1928 p.36-43
p. 36
The scheme of Vedanta philosophy is surprisingly
similar to the idealism of Vasubandhu (280-360 A.D.)
as taught in his Vimsatika with a short commentary of
his own and Trimsika with a commentary of Sthiramati
on it.(1) According to this Vijnanavada (idealism) of
Vasubandhu all appearances are but transformations of
the principle of consciousness by its inherent
movement and none of our cognitions are produced by
any external objects which to us seem to be existing
outside of us and generating our ideas. Just as in
dreams one experiences different objects in different
places and countries without there being any
objective existence of them or as in dreams many
people may come together and perform various actions,
so what seems to be a real world of facts and
external objects may well be explained as mere
creations of the principle of intelligence without
any objective basis at all. All that we know as
subjective or objective are mere ideation (vijnapti)
and there is no substantive reality or entities
corresponding to them, but that does not mean that
pure non-conceptual (anabhilapyenatmana) thought
which the saints realise is also false.(2) It is
possible that the awareness of anything may become
the object of a further awareness, and that of
another, but in all such cases where the awareness is
significant (arthavati) there are no entities or
reality as represented by them; but this should not
be interpreted as a denial of the principle of
intelligence or pure know-
_________________
1 Vijnaptimatratasiddhi containing two treatises
of Vi and Trimsika. Paris 1925.
2 Yo balair dharmanam svabhavo grahyagrahakadih pari-
kalpitas tena kalpitenatmana tesam nairatmyam na
tvanabhilapyenatmana yo buddhanam visaya iti.
Commentary on Vimsika, p. 6.
p. 37
ledge as such. Vasubandhu then undertakes to show
that the perceptual evidence of the existence of the
objective world cannot be trusted. He says that
taking visual perception as an example we may ask
ourselves if the objects of the visual perception are
one as a whole or many as atoms. They cannot be mere
wholes, for wholes would imply parts; they cannot be
of the nature of atoms for such atoms are not;
separately perceived; they cannot be of the nature of
the combination of atoms, for the existence of atoms
cannot not be proved. (1) For if six atoms combine
from six sides, that implies that the atoms have
parts, for if six atoms combine with one another at
one identical point, it would mean that the combined
group would not have its size bigger than that of an
atom and would therefore be invisible. Again if the
objects of awareness and perception were only wholes,
then suc- cession and sequence would be unexplainable
and our perception of separate and distinct things
would remain unaccountable. So, though they have no
real objective existence, yet perception leads us to
believe that they have. People are dreaming the world
of objects in the sleep of the instinctive roots of
the habit of false imaginative construction
(vitathavik- alpabhyasavasananidraya) and in their
dreams they construct the objective world and it is
only when they would become awake with the
transcendent indeterminate knowledge (lokott-
aranirvikalpajnanalabhat prabuddho bhavati) that they
would find the world-construction to be as false as
the dream-construction of diverse appearances. In
such a view there is no objective material world and
our cognitions are not influenced by outside objects;
how then are our minds influenced by good
instructions and associations, and since none of us
have any real physical bodies, how can one kill
another? Vasubandhu explains this by the theory that
the thought-currents of new person can sometimes
determine the thought-yam na sidhyati Ibid., p. 7.
____________________
1 Napi te samhata visayibhavanti, yasmat paramanurekam
dravyam na sidhyati. Ibid., p.7.
p. 38
currents of another. Thus the idea of killing of a
certain type may produce such a disturbance of the
vital powers of another as to produce a cessation of
the continuity of one's thought-processes which is
called death.(1) So also the good ideas of one may
influence the ideas of another for good.
In the Trimsika of Vasubandhu and its commentary
by Sthiramati, this idealism is more clearly
explained. It is said that both the soul (or the
knower) and all that it knows as subjective ideas or
as external objects existing outside of us are but
transformations of pure intelligence
(vijnanaparinama). The transformation (parinama of
pure intelligenoe means the production of an effect
different from that of the causal moment
simultaneously at the time of the cessation of the
causal moment.(2) There is neither externality nor
subjectivity in pure intelligence, but still these
are imposed on it (vijnana- svarupe parikalpita eva
atama dharmasca). All erroneous impositions imply
that there must be some entity which is mistaken as
something else. There cannot be erroneous impositions
on mere vacuity; so these erroneous impositions of
various kinds of external characteristics, self etc.
have to be admitted to have been made on the
transformations of pure intelligence.(3) Both
Vasubandhu and Sthiramati repudiate the suggestion of
those extreme idealists who deny also the reality(4)
of pure intelligence on grounds of interde-
__________________________
1 Paravijnaptivisesadhipatyat paresam jivitendriyavi-
rodhim kacit vikriya utpadyate yaya sabhagasantati-
vicchedakhyam maranam bhavati.
Vimsatika, p.10.
2 Karanaksannirodhasamakalah karanaksanavilaksanakar-
yasya atmalabhah parinamah. Sthiramati's Commentary
on Trimsika, p.16.
3 Upacarasya ca niradharasyasambhavad avasyam vijnana
parinamo vastuto'sty upagantavyo yatra atmadharmo-
pacarah pravarttate. Na hi niraspada mrgatrsnikadayah.
Ibid. Compare Sankara's Commentary on Gaudapada's
Karika.
4 Thus Lankavatara, one of the most important works
on Buddhistic idealism, denies the real transfor-
mation of the pure intelligence or alayavijnana.
See Lankavatara, p. 46.
p. 39
pendence or-relativity (samvrti). Vasubandhu holds
that pure consciousness (vijnaptimatrata) is the
ultimate reality. This ultimate consciousness is a
permanent entity which by its inherent power (sakti)
undergoes threefold transformation as the inherent
indeterminate inner changes (vipaka) which again
produce the two other kinds of transformation as the
inner psychoses of mental operations (manana) and as
the perception of the so-called external sensibles
(visayavijnapti).
The apprehension of all appearances or
characterised entities (dharma) as the cognised
objects and that of selves and cognisers, the duality
of perceivers and the perceived is due to the
threefold transformation of vipaka, manana and
visayavijnapti. The ultimate consciousness
(vijnaptimatra) which suffers all these modifications
is called alayavijnana in its modified
transformations, because it is the repository of all
experiences. The ultimate principle of consciousness
is regarded as absolutely permanent in itself and is
consequently also of the nature of pure happiness
(sukha), for what is not eternal is painful and this
being eternal is happy.(l) When a saint's mind become
fixed (pratisthita) in this pure consciousness(
vijnaptimatra), the tendency of dual thought of the
subjective and the objective (grahyagrahakanusaya)
ceases and there dawns the pure indeterminate
(nirvikalpa) and transcendent (lokottara)
consciousness. It is a state in which the ultimate
pure consciousness runs back from its transformations
and rests in itself. It is divested of all
afflictions (klesa) or touch of vicious tendencies
and is therefore called anasrava. It is unthinkable
and undemonstrable because it is on one hand pure
self-consciousness (pratyatmavedya) and omniscience
(sarvajnata) as it is divested of all limitations
(avarana)
___________________________
1 Druvo nityatvat aksayataya; sukho nityatvad eva ya-
danityam tad duhkham ayam ca nitya iti asmat sukhah.
Sthiramati's commentary on Trimsika, p. 44.
p. 40
and on the other hand it is unique in itself.(1) This
pure consciousness is called the container of the
seed of all (sarvabija) and when its first
indeterminate and indefinable transformations rouse
the psychosis-transformations and also the
transformations as sense-perceptions, these mutually
act and react against one another and thus the
different series rise again and again and mutually
determine one another. These transformations are like
waves and ripples on the ocean where each is as much
as the product of others as well as the generator of
others.(2)
In this view thought (vijnana) is regarded as a
real subtance and its transformations are also
regarded as real and it is these transformations that
are manifested as the selves and the charactrised
appearances.(3) The first type of transformations
called vipaka is in a way the ground of the other two
transformations which contain the indeterminate
materials out of which the manifestations of the
other two transformations appear. But as has already
been pointed out, these three different types of
transformations again mutually determine one another.
The vipaka transformations constain within them the
seeds of the constructive instincts (vikalpavasana)
of the selves as cognisers, the constructive
instincts of colours, sounds etc., the substantive
basis (asraya) of the attribution of this twofold
constructive instinct as well as the sense-faculties
and the localisation of space- determinations
(sthanavijnapti or bhajanalokasannivesa-vij-
________________________
1 Alayavijnana in this ultimate state of pure consci-
ousness (vijna-primatrata is called the cause
(dhatu) of all virtues, and being the ultimate
state in which all the dharmas, or characterised
appearances, had lost all their limitations it is
called the dharmakaya of the Buddha (mahamnueh
bhumiparamitadibhavanaya klesajneyavarana-
prahanat... sarvadharmavibhutualabhata's ca
dharmakaya ity ucyate).
2 Tac ca varttate srotasanghavat. Ibid., p. 21.
3 Avasyam vijnanaparinamo vastuto'sty upagantavyo
yatratmadharinopacarah pravarttate. Ibid., p.16.
p. 41
napti). They are also associated in another mode with
sense-modifications involving the triune of the sense
(indriya), sense-object (visaya) and cognition (and
each of these triune is again associated with a
characteristic affective tone corresponding with the
affective tones of the other two members of the
triune in a one to one relation), attention
(manaskara), discrimination (samjna), volition
(cetana) and feeling (vedana).(1) The vipaka
transformations have no determinate or limited forms
(aparicchinnalambanakara) and there are here no
actualised emotional states of attachment, antipathy
or the like which are associated with the actual
pleasurable or painful feelings. The vipaka
transformations thus give us the basic concept of
mind and its principal functions with all the
potentialities of determinate snbject-object
consciousness and its processes. There are here the
constructive tendencies of selves as perceivers, the
objective constructive tendencies of colours, sounds
etc., the sense-faculties etc. attention, feeling,
discrimination, volition and sense-functioning. But
none of these have any determinate and actualised
forms. The second grade of transformations called
___________________________
1 Feeling (vedana) is distinguished here as painful,
pleasurable, and as the basic entity which is
neither painful nor pleasurable, which is feeling
per se (vedana anubhavasvabhava, sa punar visayasya
ahlada- kaparitapakatadubhayakaraviviktasvarupasaks
kaparita This feeling per se must be distinguished
again from the non-pleasurable- painful feeling
existing along with the two other varieties, the
painful and the pleasurable. Here the vipaka
transformations are regaded as evolving the basic
entity of feeling and it is therefore
undifferentiated in it as pleasure or pain and is
hence called "feeling as indifference (upeksa)" and
undifferentiated (avyakrta). The differentiation of
feeling as pleasurable or as painful takes place
only as a further determination of the basic entity
of feeling evolved in the vipaka transformations of
good and bad deeds (subhasubhakarmavipaka). Good
and bad (subhasubha) are to be distinguished from
moral and immoral as potential and actual
determinations of virtuous and vicious actions.
p. 42
manana represents the actual evolution of moral and
immoral emotions and it is here that the mind is set
in motion by the ignorant references to the mental
elements as the self, and from this ignorance about
the self is engendered self-love (atma-sneha) and
egoism (atma-mana). These references are again
associated with the fivefold universal categories of
sense functioning, feeling, attention, volition and
discrimination. Then comes the third grade of
transformations which are associated with the
fivefold universal categories together with the
special manifestations of concerte sense-perceptions
and the various kinds of intellectual states and
moral and immoral mental states such as desire
(chanda) for different kinds of sense-experiences,
decisions (adhimoksa) in conclusions firmly
established by perceptions, reasoning etc., memory,
attentive reflection (samadhi), wisdom (prajna),
faith and firm will for the good (sraddha),
shamefulness (hri) for the bad etc. The term
alayavijnana is given to all these three types of
transformations, but there is underneath it as the
permanent passive ground the eternal and unchangeable
pure thought (vijnaptimatrata).
It may be pointed out here that in this system of
philosophy the eternal and unchangeable thought
substance undergoes by virtue of its inner dynamics
three different orders of superficial changes which
are compared with constantly changing streams and
waves. The first of these represents the basic
changes which later determine all subjective and
objective possibilities; the second starts the
process of the psychosis by the original ignorance
and false attribution of self-hood to non-self
elements, self-love and egoism, and in the third
grade we have all the concrete mental and
extra-mental facts. The fundamental categories make
the possibility of mind, mental processes and the
extra-mental relations evolve in the first stage of
the transformation and these abide through the other
two stages of the transformation and become more and
more complex and concrete in course of their
association with the categories
p. 43
of the other transformations. In analysing the
knowledge situation, Vasubandhu does not hold that
our awareness of blue is only a modification of the
"awareness" but he thinks that an awareness has
always two relations, a relation with the subject or
the knower (grahakagraha) and a relation with the
object which is known (grahyagraha). Blue as an
object is essential for making an awareness of blue
possible, for the awareness is not blue, but we have
an awareness of the blue. But Vasubandhu argues that
this psychological necessity is due to a projection
of objectivity as a necessary function of determinate
thought and it does not at all follow that this
implies that there are real external objects existing
outside of it and generating the awareness as
external agent. Psychological objectivity does not
imply ontological objectivity. It is argued that if
the agency of objective entities in the production of
sense-knowledge be admitted, there could not be any
case where sense-knowledge can be admitted to be
produced without the operation of the objective
entities, but since in dreams and illusions such
sense-knowledge is universally regarded as being
produced without the causal operation of such
objective entities, no causal operation can be
admitted to the objective entities for the production
of sense-knowledge.