Some Remarks on Sthiramati and his Putative Authorship of the Madhyantavibhagatika, the *Sutralamkaravrttibhasya and the Trimsikavijñaptibhasya
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.31641Keywords:
Sthiramati, Yogācāra, Indian commentaries, svabhāva, āśrayaparāvṛtti, Madhyāntavibhāgaṭīkā, *Sūtrālaṃkāravṛttibhāṣya, TriṃśikāvijñaptibhāṣyaAbstract
The present paper focuses on the commentaries attributed to the Indian Yogacara scholar Sthiramati (sixth century). So far Sthiramati’s work has received far less attention from modern scholars than the texts of other Yogacara authors like Asanga or Vasubandhu, possibly because of the erroneous view that as a commentator he has not been an original author in his own right. However, commentators like Sthiramati have shaped the doctrinal development of Yogacara thought by introducing new concepts and reorganizing previous teachings to a similar extent as ‘independent’ authors. In total seventeen works are ascribed to the author Sthiramati in Indian, Tibetan, Chinese and modern Western sources. The main concern of this study is to show some aspects of the relations between three of these works, namely the Madhyantavibhagatika, the *Sutralamkaravrttibhasya and the Trimsikavijñaptibhasya, and to question the common authorship of these texts.
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