The Mahāyānasaṃgraha (MSg) (
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
; zh, t=攝大乘論, p=Shè dàchéng lùn,
Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...
: ''theg pa chen po bsdus pa''), or the Mahāyāna Compendium/Summary, is a key work of the
Yogācāra
Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through t ...
school of
Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy, attributed to
Asanga
Asaṅga (, ; Romaji: ''Mujaku'') ( fl. 4th century C.E.) was "one of the most important spiritual figures" of Mahayana Buddhism and the "founder of the Yogachara school".Engle, Artemus (translator), Asanga, ''The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed ...
(c. 310–390 CE). The MSg is a comprehensive work on the central doctrines and practices of the
Yogacara
Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through t ...
school. It was translated into Chinese by
Paramartha
Paramārtha (Sanskrit, Devanagari: परमार्थ; ) (499-569 CE) was an Indian monk from Ujjain, who is best known for his prolific Chinese translations of Buddhist texts during the Six Dynasties era.Toru Funayama. The work of Paramārth ...
(499–567 CE) and became the central text of the Shelun school. Although no Sanskrit original has been found, the work survives in Tibetan (Tohoku, 4050; Peking, 5551.) and Chinese translations (
Taishō Tripiṭaka
The Taishō Tripiṭaka (; Japanese: ''Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō''; “ Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka”) is a definitive edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon and its Japanese commentaries used by scholars in the 20th century. It was edited by ...
1592, 1593, 1594), together with commentaries. There are two commentaries to the work;
Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; floruit, fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential bhikkhu, Buddhist monk and scholar from ''Puruṣapura'' in ancient India, modern day Peshawar, Pakistan. He was a philosopher who ...
's ''Mahāyānasaṃgraha-bhāṣya'' and the ''Mahāyānasaṃgraha-panibandhana'' by Asvabhava (first half of the sixth century).
Content
In ten chapters, Asanga's ''Mahāyānasaṃgraha'' expounds the major doctrines of the
Mahayana
''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing bra ...
Yogacara
Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through t ...
school such as the
ālayavijñāna
The Eight Consciousnesses (Skt. ''aṣṭa vijñānakāyāḥ'') is a classification developed in the tradition of the Yogācāra school of Mahayana Buddhism. They enumerate the five sense consciousnesses, supplemented by the mental consciousne ...
(storehouse consciousness), the '
three forms of existence' (
trisvabhāva
Trisvabhāva (Sanskrit; Chinese characters, Chinese: 三性 or 三自性) or the three natures, is one of the key doctrines of the Yogachara, Yogācāra school of Buddhism. The concept of the three natures describes the three qualities that all ph ...
), the
five paths
5 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
5, five or number 5 may also refer to:
* AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era
* 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era
Literature
* ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram
* ''5'' (comics), an awar ...
(pañcamārga) and the
Dharmakaya.
The ten chapters are the following:
# Jñeyāśraya ("The Support for the Knowable", or "The Foundation of What is to be Known")
# Jñeyalakṣaṇa ("The Distinguishing Characteristics of the Knowable" or "The Characteristics of What is to be Known")
# "Penetrating the Characteristics of What is to be Known" - discusses the path to awakening (mārga),
# "The Causes and Results of this Penetration", discusses the six perfections (ṣaṭpāramitā),
# "The Divisions of Cultivating These Causes and Results" discusses the ten stages of a bodhisattva (daśabhūmi).
# "Training in Superior Discipline" (
śīla
Buddhist ethics are traditionally based on what Buddhists view as the enlightened perspective of the Buddha. The term for ethics or morality used in Buddhism is ''Śīla'' or ''sīla'' (Pāli). ''Śīla'' in Buddhism is one of three sections of ...
),
# "Training in Superior
Samādhi
''Samadhi'' (Pali and sa, समाधि), in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools, is a state of meditation, meditative consciousness. In Buddhism, it is the last of the eight elements of the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Ash ...
"
# "Training in Superior
Prajñā"
# "The Relinquishment That is the Result of This training", discusses the “transformation of the basis” (āśrayaparāvṛtti)
# "The Wisdom That Is the Result of This Training", discusses Buddhahood, the Dharmakāya.
In his introduction to the ''Mahāyānasaṃgraha,'' Asanga outlines these ten main topics as follows:
Through these instructions in that fashion, the ten topics that are not taught in the śrāvakayāna are taught in the mahāyāna as follows: (1) The ālaya-consciousness is taught as the foundation of what is to be known. (2) The three natures—the dependent, the imaginary, and the perfect aturesare taught as the characteristics of what is to be known. (3) Mere cognizance is taught as penetrating the characteristics of what is to be known. (4) The six pāramitās are taught as the causes and results of penetrating these haracteristics (5) The ten bhūmis of bodhisattvas are taught as the divisions of cultivating the causes and results of this enetration (6) The bodhisattva vows are taught as the superior discipline within this ivision of cultivation (7) Samādhis such as Heroic Stride and Sky Treasure are taught as the superior mind within this ivision of cultivation (8) Nonconceptual wisdom is taught as the superior prajñā ithin this division of cultivation (9) The nonabiding nirvāṇa is taught as the relinquishment that is the result of this raining
Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...
(10) The three kāyas of a buddha—the svābhāvika āya the sambhogakāya, and the nirmāṇakāya—are taught as the wisdom that is the result of this raining
Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...
In its first chapter, the compendium offers the most extensive analysis of the Yogacara concept of "storehouse consciousness" of any early Yogacara text. According to Asanga, this is a subliminal consciousness in which impressions (vasanas) from past experiences are stored as the seeds (bija) of future experiences. The active consciousness (pravrtti-vijñana) of present experience grows from these seeds. According to Asanga, humans are just this stream of consciousness formed from the
ālayavijñāna
The Eight Consciousnesses (Skt. ''aṣṭa vijñānakāyāḥ'') is a classification developed in the tradition of the Yogācāra school of Mahayana Buddhism. They enumerate the five sense consciousnesses, supplemented by the mental consciousne ...
and the "active consciousness" arising from it and planting new seeds in the storehouse consciousness.
The second chapter of the MSg is devoted to the doctrine of the '
three forms of existence' or 'three patterns' (trisvabhāva). This doctrine holds that all beings possess three patterns - the dependent (paratantra), the imagined (parikalpita) and the consummate (pariniṣpanna). John Keenan explains the three patterns thus:
The most basic is the other dependent pattern (paratantra-svabhåva), which, in a word, is the above structure of consciousness as co-arising in an interplay between the container and the active consciousnesses and in the interplay between image and insight in thinking. The imagined pattern (parikalpita-svabhåva) is the failure to understand this basic structure and the consequent clinging to things as if they had enduring essences. Frozen at the presentation of images as essences, one mistakenly affirms the reality of things that are in their very being empty and nonexistent. All things are empty inasmuch as all the ideas that are projected in the imagined pattern are without essence. The perfected pattern (parinipanna-svabhåva), which Paramårtha renders as reality pattern, is the absence of imagining in the other dependent pattern and the consequent recovery of its basic nature as other-dependent.[John Keenan, trans.,The Summary of the Great Vehicle by Bodhisattva Asaṅga (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1992), translated from the Chinese of Paramārtha (Taishō 1593), page xv.]
Chapter three expounds the doctrine of
representation only as a rejection of the subject-object dichotomy. Chapters four to nine are an overview of the Bodhisattva's advance through the practice of the
paramitas (perfections) and the
stages of realization. Chapter ten discusses the nature of wisdom as related to the
Trikaya
The Trikāya doctrine ( sa, त्रिकाय, lit. "three bodies"; , ) is a Mahayana Buddhist teaching on both the nature of reality and the nature of Buddhahood. The doctrine says that Buddha has three ''kāyas'' or ''bodies'', the ''Dharma ...
doctrine.
Translations
*Karl Brunnholzl, trans., A Compendium of the Mahayana: Asanga's Mahayanasamgraha and Its Indian and Tibetan Commentaries (Tsadra), 3 volumes; Boulder, Colorado: Snow Lion, 2019.
*John Keenan, trans.,The Summary of the Great Vehicle by Bodhisattva Asaṅga (Berkeley, Calif: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1992), translated from the Chinese of Paramārtha (Taishō vol. 31, number 1593).
Revised Second Edition 2003 (digital 2014)*Chikafumi Watanabe, Asanga's Mahayanasamgraha, Chapter III: Translation and Tibetan Text, D.K.Printworld, New Delhi, India, 2013.
*Paul Griffiths, Noriaki Hakamaya, John P. Keenan, and Paul L. Swanson; The Realm of Awakening: Chapter Ten of Asanga’s Mahayanasamgraha, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
*Étienne Lamotte, ed. and trans., La Somme du Grand Véhicule d'Asaṅga (Mahāyānasaṁgraha), 2 volumes; Louvain: Institut Orientaliste, Université de Louvain, 1973.
See also
*
Abhidharma-samuccaya
The Abhidharma-samuccaya (Sanskrit; ; English: "Compendium of Abhidharma") is a Buddhist text composed by Asaṅga. The ''Abhidharma-samuccaya'' is a systematic account of Abhidharma. According to J. W. de Jong it is also "one of the most import ...
*
Yogacarabhumi-sastra
References
Sources
*Frauwallner, Erich (1969). Die Philosophie des Buddhismus. 3d rev. ed. Berlin
*
*Nagao Gadjin, Shodaijoron: Wayaku to chukai, Tokyo.
*Alan Sponberg (1979)
Liberation in Yogācāra Buddhism Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 2(1), pp. 47–49
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahayanasamgraha
Mahayana texts
Yogacara
4th-century books