Asanga

Asaṅga (Sanskrit: असंग, Tibetan: ཐོགས་མེད།, Wylie: thogs med, traditional Chinese: 無著; ; pinyin: Wúzhuó; Romaji: Mujaku) (fl.

Some sources record that he was born in Puruṣapura (present day Peshawar in Pakistan) in a Brahmin family, which at that time was part of the ancient kingdom of Gandhāra.

[3][9][10] In the record of his journeys through the kingdoms of India, Xuanzang wrote that Asaṅga was initially a Mahīśāsaka monk, but soon turned toward the Mahāyāna teachings.

[12] Asaṅga spent many years in serious meditation and study under various teachers but the narrative of the 6th century monk Paramārtha states that he was unsatisfied with his understanding.

c. 602 – 664), a Chinese monk who traveled to India to study in the Yogacara tradition tells a similar account of these events:[11] In the great mango grove five or six li to the southwest of the city (Ayodhya), there is an old monastery where Asaṅga Bodhisattva received instructions and guided the common people.

; in the daytime, he lectured on the marvelous principles to a great audience.Modern scholars disagree on whether the figure of Maitreya in this story is to be considered as Asaṅga's human teacher or as a visionary experience in meditation.

[15] Other scholars argue that this figure was the tutelary deity of Asaṅga (Iṣṭa-devatā) as well as numerous other Yogacara masters, a point noted by the 6th century Indian monk Sthiramati.

"[30] While the Yogācārabhūmi śāstra (“Treatise on the Levels of Spiritual Practitioners”), a massive and encyclopaedic work on yogic praxis, has traditionally been attributed to Asaṅga or Maitreya in toto, but most modern scholars now consider the text to be a compilation of various works by numerous authors, and different textual strata can be discerned within its contents.