Yogacara ("practice of yoga") is a school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy founded in India in the fourth century CE by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu, building on earlier Abhidharma analysis of mind. Its central claim, vijnaptimatra ("consciousness-only" or "representation-only"), holds that the objects of ordinary experience are constructed by consciousness rather than encountered as mind-independent external things, without denying that consciousness itself and its causal processes are real. The school elaborated an eight-fold model of consciousness, including the alayavijnana ("storehouse consciousness") that carries the karmic seeds shaping future experience, to explain how a continuous stream of perception and action arises without a permanent self. Yogacara thought spread from India into Tibet, China (as the Faxiang school) and Japan (as Hosso), and its analysis of perception and mind profoundly shaped later Buddhist epistemology and meditation theory, including its long philosophical rivalry with the Madhyamaka school over how far emptiness extends.
Facts
Disputed
Start YearSourced to the subject's own accountAsanga and Vasubandhu's exact dates are disputed among scholars, with estimates ranging across the fourth and early fifth centuries CE. Founded DateSourced to the subject's own accountAsanga and Vasubandhu's exact dates are disputed among scholars, with estimates ranging across the fourth and early fifth centuries CE. RegionIndian subcontinent, later Tibet, China, and Japan 1 Connections
Associated With
Asanga co-founded Yogacara with his brother Vasubandhu, who carries the Founded By edge above; both names are standardly credited together.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Founded By
Vasubandhu, with his brother Asanga, founded the Yogacara school of Buddhist philosophy.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In Branch
Yogacara (vijnanavada, "consciousness-only") holds that experienced phenomena are constructs of consciousness, a philosophy-of-mind classification.
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Sources
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informationentry: Yogacara, OverviewQuote, entry: Yogacara, Overview
Yogacara is one of the two main philosophical schools of Mahayana Buddhism in India, the other being Madhyamaka, and it is best known for its doctrine of vijnaptimatra, or consciousness-only.
2. Yogācāra (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory sectionQuote, History section
The brothers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu (both c. 4-5th century) are considered the classic philosophers and systematizers of this school
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