Vijñānavāda

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Vijñānavāda ( doctrine of consciousness), also known as Cittamātra (mind only) or Yogācāra ( yoga practice), is a philosophical school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by Asanga and Vasubandhu in the 4th century . The central teaching of this school says that all perceptible phenomena arise only on the basis of the spirit and as such are insubstantial. As a result, all perceptions are classified as mental projections.

According to the teaching of Vijñānavāda, all things do not exist in the sense of manifest reality, but only as mental phenomena of consciousness ( vijñāna ). In our thoughts and ideas we create a supposedly "real" world, which in truth only consists of the viewer's creative imagination . Everything is only consciousness, only mind (citta) ( Latin esse est percipi ) and not really. That is why things have no peculiarity, no actual reality. The world is nothing more than a mental construction, thus only a dream, not being. But the dreamer (I) is also non-being, because if the world is only a dream, then the dreamer (I) is also only a dream. With this view, the Vijñānavāda represents a consistent idealism .

The Vijñānavāda school of thought died out in India with the decline of Buddhism in his homeland in the 12th century. Some elements still live on in the Chinese Faxiang , the Japanese Hossō-shū and the Tibetan Vajrayāna .

Together with the Mādhyamaka , the Vijñānavāda has been able to penetrate deeply into the thinking of the Mahāyāna like no other system .

literature

  • Chilton, Lee; Oldmeadow, Peter (2009). Louis de La Vallée Poussin, Theodore Stcherbatsky, and Tibetan Tradition on the Place of the Absolute in Yogacara Buddhism, Journal of Religious History Vol. 33, No. 2.
  • Choi, Jong-Nam (2001). The threefold training (Siksa) in early Yogacara. The 7th volume of the Hsen-yang sheng-chiao lun, Ancient and New Indian Studies Volume 54. ISBN 978-3-515-07874-0
  • Cook, Francis H. (1999). Three Texts on Consciousness Only, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Berkeley.
  • Kalupahana, David J. (1992), The Principles of Buddhist Psychology, Delhi: ri Satguru Publications
  • Keenan, John (2000), Scripture on the Explication of the Underlying Meaning, Berkeley: Numata Center, ISBN 1886439109
  • Kochumuttom, Thomas A. (1999), A Buddhist Doctrine of Experience. A New Translation and Interpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the Yogacarin, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass
  • Lévi, Sylvain, trad. (1911): Mahāyāna-Sūtrālaṃkāra: exposé de la doctrine du Grand Véhicule selon le système Yogācāra / Asaṅga. Ed. et trad. d'après un manuscrit rapporté du Népal - Tome 2: Traduction, introduction, index. - Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion. Gallica, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (PDF 20.9 MB)
  • Lusthaus, Dan (2002), Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism, RoutledgeCurzom. ISBN 0700711864
  • Stcherbatsky, Theodore (1936). Mathyanta-Vibhanga, "Discource on Discrimination between Middle ans Extremes" ascribed to Bodhisattva Maiteya and commented by Vasubhandu and Sthiramathi, translated from the sanscrit, Academy of Sciences USSR Press, Moscow / Leningrad. Digitized version ( memento from January 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

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