Āryāsanga

(T)(Chagpa-Thog-Med) (c. 410-500). Also known as Asa‰ga. Tradition has it that šry€sa‰ga was the founder of the Yog€c€ra or Naljorchodpa School in Buddhism. Not a great deal is known about his life, but it is said that he meditated in a cave for twelve years with no apparent progress and then gained enlightenment by his compassionate care for a maggot ridden dog.

Helena P. Blavatsky has stated that šry€sa‰ga came from Shamballa (Sk. ®ambhala) and that he was said to have been taught the Ancient Wisdom by the MaitrEya Buddha, the Buddha of the Sixth race (CW XIV:451).

Extant works include Uttaratantra tr. by E. Obermiller, (reprinted by Canon Pubs., Talent, Oregon, 1985), Diamond S™tra Commentary, tr. by G. Tucci in Minor Buddhist Texts, (vol. 1, Rome, 1956).

One of his important teachings is šlaya-Vijñ€na which is the store-consciousness that underlies the continuity of personal experiences in time and through many lives.

Blavatsky refers to two šry€sa‰gas in The Secret Doctrine. “Ary€sanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma di K`ros places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another Ary€sanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two” (SD I:49-50, fn.). See šLAYA-VIJÑšNA.

P.S.H.