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Our estimate of his position in the history of Buddhism must depend on our opinion as to the authorship of The Awakening of Faith. If this treatise was composed by Aśvaghosha then doctrines respecting the three bodies of Buddha, the Tathâgatagarbha and the Âlaya-vijñâna were not only known but scientifically formulated considerably before Asanga.
Two epochs are of special importance for the development of later Indian Buddhism, that of Kanishka and that of Vasubandhu and his brother Asanga.
Vasubandhu and Asanga appear to have broken up this isolation for they first preached the Vaibhâshika doctrines in a liberal and eclectic form outside Kashmir and then by a natural transition and development went over to the Mahayana. But the Vaibhâshikas did not disappear and were in existence even in the fourteenth century. Their chief tenet was the real existence of external objects.
As this was to travel into Japan and be hailed as purest Buddhism, let us note how this tenth century Tantra system grew up. To see this clearly, is to look upon the parable of the man with the unclean spirit being acted out on a vast scale in history. In the sixth century of our era, one Asanga, or Asamga, wrote the Shastra, called the Shastra Yoga-chara Bhumi.
They are ascribed to one Patañjali identified by Hindu tradition with the author of the Mahâbhâshya who lived about 150 B.C. Jacobi however is of opinion that they are the work of an entirely different person who lived after the rise of the philosophy ascribed to Asanga sometimes called Yogâcâra.
According to tradition Buddhaghosa was well versed in Sanskrit but deliberately preferred the southern canon. The Mahayanist doctor Asanga cites texts found in the Pali version, but not in the Sanskrit . The monks of the Mahâvihâra were probably too indulgent in admitting late scholastic treatises, such as the Parivâra.
For if tradition can be trusted, earlier teachers especially Nâgârjuna dealt in spells and invocations and the works of Asanga known to us are characterized by a somewhat scholastic piety and are chiefly occupied in defining and describing the various stages in the spiritual development of a Bodhisattva.
Three stages in the history of Indian Buddhism are marked by the names of Aśvaghosha, Nâgârjuna and the two brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu.
So the study of the sûtras and the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu is approved by a Sarvâstivâdin. The Sautrântikas, though accounted Hinayanists, mark a step in the direction of the Mahayana. The founder of the school was Kumarâlabdha, mentioned above.
Târanâtha informs us that among the many Mahayanist works which appeared in the reign of Kanishka's son was the Ratnakûṭa-dharma-paryâya in 1000 sections and the Ratnakûṭa is cited not only by the Śikshâsamuccaya but by Asanga.
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