ha-prajna-paramita-sastra
is generally accepted as his work. A consensus of tradition makes him
the author of the Madhyamika[212] aphorisms of which some account has
been given above. It is the principal authority of its school and is
provided with a commentary attributed to the author himself and with a
later one by Candrakirti.[213] There is also ascribed to him a work
called the Suhrillekha or friendly letter, a compendium of Buddhist
doctrines, addressed to an Indian king.[214] This work is old for it
was translated into Chinese in 434 A.D. and is a homily for laymen. It
says nothing of the Madhyamika philosophy and most of it deals with
the need of good conduct and the terrors of future punishment, quite
in the manner of the Hinayana. But it also commends the use of images
and incense in worship, it mentions Avalokita and Amitabha and it
holds up the ideal of attaining Buddhahood. Nagarjuna's authorship is
not beyond dispute but these ideas may well represent a type of
popular Buddhism slightly posterior to Asvaghosha.[215]

In most lists of patriarchs Nagarjuna is followed by Deva, also called
Aryadeva, Kanadeva or Nilanetra. I-Ching mentions him among the older
teachers and a commentary on his principal work, the Satasastra, is
attributed to Vasubandhu.[216] Little is known of his special teaching
but he is regarded as an important doctor and his pupil Dharmatrata is
also important if not as an author at least as a compiler, for
Sanskrit collections of verses corresponding to the Pali Dhammapada
are ascribed to him. Aryadeva was a native of southern India.[217]

The next epoch in the history of Buddhism is marked by the names of
Asanga and Vasubandhu. The interval between them and Deva produced no
teacher of importance, but Kumaralabdha, the founder of the
Sautrantika school and perhaps identical with Kumarata the eighteenth
Patriarch of the Chinese lists, may be mentioned. Hsuean Chuang
says[218] that he was carried off in captivity by a king who reigned
somewhere in the east of the Pamirs and that he, Asvaghosha, Nagarjuna
and Deva were styled the four shining suns.

Asanga and Vasubandhu were brothers, sons of a Brahman who lived at
Peshawar. They were both converted from the Sarvastivadin school to
Mahayanism, but the third brother Virincivatsa never changed his
convictions. Tradition connects their career with Ayodhya as well as
with Peshawar and Vasubandhu enjoyed the confidence of the reigning
monarch,