Paving the Great Way

Vasubandhu's Unifying Buddhist Philosophy

Jonathan C. Gold

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780231538008
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

The Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (fourth–fifth century C.E.) is known for his critical contribution to Buddhist Abhidharma thought, his turn to the Mahayana tradition, and his concise, influential Yogacara–Vijñanavada texts. Paving the Great Way reveals another dimension of his legacy: his integration of several seemingly incompatible intellectual and scriptural traditions, with far-ranging consequences for the development of Buddhist epistemology and the theorization of tantra.

Most scholars read Vasubandhu's texts in isolation and separate his intellectual development into distinct phases. Featuring close studies of Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosabhasya, Vyakhyayukti, Vimsatika, and Trisvabhavanirdesa, among other works, this book identifies recurrent treatments of causality and scriptural interpretation that unify distinct strands of thought under a single, coherent Buddhist philosophy. In Vasubandhu's hands, the Buddha's rejection of the self as a false construction provides a framework through which to clarify problematic philosophical issues, such as the nature of moral agency and subjectivity under a broadly causal worldview. Recognizing this continuity of purpose across Vasubandhu's diverse corpus recasts the interests of the philosopher and his truly innovative vision, which influenced Buddhist thought for a millennium and continues to resonate with today's philosophical issues. An appendix includes extensive English-language translations of the major texts discussed.

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1. Summarizing Vasubandhu: Should a Buddhist Philosopher Have a Philosophy?
• 2. Against the Times: Vasubandhu’s Critique of His Main Abhidharma Rivals
• 3. Merely Cause and Effect: The Imagined Self and the Literalistic Mind
• 4. Knowledge, Language, and The Interpretation of Scripture: Vasubandhu’s Opening to the Mahāyāna
• 5. Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra: Enshrining the Causal Line in the Three Natures
• 6. Agency and The Ethics of Massively Cumulative Causality
• Conclusion: Buddhist Causal Framing for the Modern World
• Appendix A. Against the Existence of the Three Times
• Appendix B. Brief Disproof of the Self
• Appendix C. Discussion of “View” (Drsti)
• Appendix D. Against the Eternality of Atoms (Paramānu)
• Appendix E. The Proper Mode of Exposition on Conventional and Ultimate
• Appendix F. The Twenty Verses on Appearance and Memory
• Appendix G. The Three Natures Exposition
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index