Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed a number of scholarly attempts to illuminate the philosophical affinity between the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, the two main systems of thought in the Mahāyāna stream of Buddhism. Both schools originated in India in the first centuries of the common era, and had a significant impact on the doctrines of Asian Buddhism in such countries as China, Korea, Tibet, and Japan. Consequently, their views concerning reality have been documented in various textual sources, ranging from early philosophical treatises by their chief founders, Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu and Asaṅga, to sūtras and later commentaries. These sources indicate that the two schools shared certain core...