Vasubandhu

Vasubandhu, who flourished in the fourth to fifth century CE, was an influential Indian Buddhist monk, scholar and philosopher who wrote commentary on the Abhidharma from the perspectives of the Sarvastivada and Sautrantika schools, and who, after his conversion to Mahayana Buddhism along with his half-brother Asanga, became one of the main founders of the Yogacara school. His Abhidharmakosakarika, a commentary on the treasury of the Abhidharma, is widely used in Tibetan and East Asian Buddhism as a major source for non-Mahayana Abhidharma philosophy, and his philosophical verse works set forth the standard for the Indian Yogacara metaphysics of appearance only, described as a form of epistemological idealism, phenomenology and close to Immanuel Kant's transcendental idealism. Vasubandhu is one of the most influential thinkers in the Indian Buddhist philosophical tradition; because of their association with Nalanda university, he and Asanga are counted among the so-called Seventeen Nalanda Masters.