Asanga (asaṇga) Skt., lit. “Untouched,” “Unbound,” “Unfettered.”
[Hinduism] The state of a free soul (ātman) that knows it consists not of body and mind but of absolute consciousness.
[Buddhism] Name of a founder of the Yogāchāra school. He lived in the fourth century C.E. and came from a brahmin family living in present-day Peshawar. His brother was Vasubandhu. Asanga is said to have been converted to Buddhism by a monk of the Mahīshāsaka school but quickly to have turned to the Mahāyāna. Asanga, influenced by the Sarvāstivāda school, departed from Nāgārjuna’s view of absence of substantiality and advanced an idealistic doctrine. According to tradition, he received his teaching directly from Maitreya, the future Buddha. Some researchers see behind this tradition the historical figure Maitreyanātha.
The most important works ascribed to Asanga (sometimes also to Maitreyanātha) are the Yogāchārabhūmi-shāstra and the Mahāyāna-sūtralankāra (Ornament of the Mahāyāna Sūtras); definitely by Asanga is the Mahāyāna-samparigraha (Compendium of the Mahāyāna), a treatise composed in prose and verse that expounds the basic teaching of the Yogāchāra. It is only extant in Chinese and Tibetan translations. This work consists of ten parts dealing with the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna); the theory that everything is produced by the mind, that is, is pure ideation; the achievement of insight into pure ideation; the pāramitās; the bhūmis; discipline (shīla); meditation; wisdom (prajñā); higher undifferentiated knowledge; the teaching of the three bodies of a buddha (trikāya). Sometimes the Guhyasmaja tantra is also attributed to Asanga, which would make Asanga a significant figure in Buddhist Tantrism.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Asanga documents
Books on Asanga
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