Vasubandhu and the doctrine of Perfuming (vāsanā) in Yogācārabhūmi​

Abstract

On the issue of Robert Kritzer’s hypothesis that Vasubandhu was already a yogācāra when he composed the Abhidharmakośa, Changhwan Park argues that the key notion of perfuming (vāsanā) used by the Yogācāras is entirely not attested in Vasubandhu’s seed (bīja) theory, which is merely the specific transformation in continuity (saṃtāti-pāriṇāma-viśeṣa). However, in his *Nyāyānusāra, the orthodox Vaibhāṣika Saṃghabhadra criticizes Vasubandhu’s seed theory with its synonym of perfuming; he even claims that Vasubandhu also used the notion of perfuming. Moreover, Vasubandhu, in the context of proving the existence of ālaya-vijñāna in his Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa, explicitly states that the potency of specific transformation is not possible without perfuming. These facts demand us to reevaluate Park’s plausible methodology. In this paper, I will examine the doctrine of perfuming in the Yogācārabhūmi and relevant abhidharma texts to see whether Vasubandhu’s theory of seed as specific transformation in continuity was largely influenced by the early Yogācāras.