Thirty Verses on Conscious Life

The 'Thirty Verses' or 'Treatise on the Thirty Verses on No More Nor Less than Representation Only' by Vasubandhu (316 – 396) is a succinct and concentrated set of thirty verses crucial to the Yog?c?ra the second branch of the Mah?y?na. Yog?c?ra is next to Madhyamaka or ??nyav?da (initiated by N?g?rjuna) one of the two schools of Mah?y?na integrating yoga and epistemology. It became canonical and was translated into Chinese forming the heart of the 'Treatise on the Establishment of the Doctrine of Consciousness-Only' a major 7th-century work of Xuanzang (602 – 664). In this work the thoughts of Vasubandhu were turned into an ontological idealism i.e. the subject constituting the object. The commentary avoids this common take on Vasubandhu and returns to his original approach : a critical and phenomenological Yog?c?ra (‘yoga practice’ or ‘one whose practice is yoga’) also called ‘citta-m?tra’ Consciousness-Only. The text is translated from Sanskrit into English and French.