Madhyanta-vibhaga-karika
key work in Buddhist philosophy of the Yogacara school
The Madhyāntavibhāgakārikā (Chinese: 辯中邊論頌; pinyin: Biàn zhōng biān lùn sòng), or Verses Distinguishing the Middle and the Extremes is a key work in Buddhist philosophy of the Yogacara school attributed in the Tibetan tradition to Maitreya-nātha and in other traditions to Asanga.
Text
The Madhyānta-vibhāga-kārikā consists of 112 verses (kārikā) which delineate the distinctions (vibhāga) and relationship between the middle (madhya) view and the extremes (anta); it contains five chapters: Attributes (laksana), Obscurations (āvarana), Reality (tattva), Cultivation of Antidotes (pratipakṣa-bhāvanā) and the Supreme Way (yānānuttarya). Along with Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian translations, the text survives in a single Sanskrit manuscript discovered in Tibet by the Indian Buddhologist and explorer, Rahul Sankrityayan. The Sanskrit version also included a commentary (bhāsya) by Vasubandhu. An important sub-commentary (tīkā) by Sthiramati also survives in Sanskrit as well as a Tibetan version.
Editions and translations
A Sanskrit edition was prepared by Gadjin M. Nagao in 1964. The Madhyāntavibhāga-kārikā has been translated into English at least nine times, often with the Indian commentaries, in the following volumes:
Mathyanta-Vibhanga, "Discource on Discrimination between Middle and Extremes" ascribed to Bodhisattva Maitreya and commented by Vasubhandu and Sthiramathi, translated from the sanscrit by Theodore Stcherbatsky, Bibliotheca Buddhica XXX, Academy of Sciences USSR Press, Moscow/Leningrad 1936.
Madhyāntavibhāga-ṭikā: An Analysis of the Middle Path and the Extremes by David Lasar Friedmann. Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden. 1937
A Buddhist Doctrine of Experience: A New Translation and Interpretation of the Works of Vasubandhu the Yogacarin by Thomas Kochumuttom.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as key work in Buddhist philosophy of the Yogacara school. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q916921. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1936 and 1937.
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This entry incorporates text from “Madhyanta-vibhaga-karika” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.