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In recent decades, scholars of Buddhist philosophy have frequently treated the Trisvābhavanirdeśa (TSN), or “Teaching of the Three Natures,” attributed to Vasubandhu, as an authentic and authoritative representation of that celebrated thinker’s mature work within the Yogacara tradition. However, serious questions may be posed concerning the status and authority of the TSN within Yogacara, its true authorship, and the relation of its contents to trends in early Yogacara thought. In the present article, we review the actual state of our knowledge of the TSN’s possible origins, considering, too, the implications this may have for contemporary treatments thereof.

In the past, for largely geographical reasons, Tibet was isolated from the rest of the world, which meant that our country, people and culture were not only shrouded in mystery, but often gravely misunderstood. More recently, as interest has grown, scholarship concerning Tibet has improved beyond expectation, although it has often singled out narrow topics for consideration. In producing this substantial book, which takes a broad view of Tibetans and their civilization, within a long historical perspective, Matthew Kapstein has brought to his work the authority

More than 30 years after publication, after many excellent additions to philosophical work on the self and personal identity have appeared, Collins’ and Parfit’s books would remain the ineluctable touchstones with reference to which all subsequent scholarship in this area must be assayed. In view of the recent passing of Derek Parfit (January 1, 2017) and of Steven Collins (February 15, 2018), it is fitting to revisit Selfless Persons and Reasons and Persons, and to ask just why they seem to shine even more brightly through the prism of more recent work, not at all receding into the background.

This book explores the Buddhist role in the formation of Tibetan religious thought and identity. In three major sections, the author examines Tibet’s eighth-century conversion, sources of dispute within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and the continuing revelation of the teaching in both doctrine and myth.

In accord with the theme of the present volume on ‘Philosophical Traditions’, it is not so much the aim of this essay to provide a detailed account of particular lines of argument, as it is to suggest something of the manner in which so-called 'Buddhist idealism' unfolded as a tradition not just for Buddhists, but within Indian philosophy more generally. Seen from this perspective, Buddhist idealism remained a current within Indian philosophy long after the demise of Buddhism in India, in about the twelfth century, and endured in some respects at least until the Mughal age, when the last thinker to be examined here, the Jain teacher Yaśovijaya, was active.

Review of a major recent contribution to the study of Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy in Tibet.