Distinguishing the Middle from Every Extreme.
The Madhyāntavibhāga — "Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes" — opens with a single verse naming its entire program: characteristics, obstructions, reality, the cultivation of remedies, the stages of that cultivation, the fruit attained, and the unsurpassed vehicle. Maitreya's root verses, expounded by Vasubandhu's prose commentary, work through false discrimination and the three natures, a full catalogue of what obstructs the path, ten kinds of reality, the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment, eighteen stages from the spiritual lineage to buddhahood, five fruits of practice, and — in the treatise's longest chapter by far — the unsurpassed vehicle itself, closing with the treatise's own explanation of its name. This page is the entrance for reading it part by part.
How to read this collection
Unlike this site's Viṃśatikā, the Madhyāntavibhāga's root verses and prose commentary belong to two different authors: Maitreya's verses, and Vasubandhu's own long-form exposition beneath them. The treatise's own seven-part structure already gives it a natural shape, so this site follows it directly — one page per topic, except the seventh and by far the longest, "the unsurpassed vehicle," which is split across two pages at a seam in Vasubandhu's own argument.
For a second layer of reading, we follow Kuījī, Xuánzàng's direct disciple, whose commentary (辯中邊論述記, T1835) preserves the same "Xuánzàng system" of terminology already running through this site's Cheng Weishi Lun, Mahāyānasaṃgraha, and Viṃśatikā.
What each part page includes
- The Chinese source text beside our English translation.
- Reading notes drawn from Kuījī's commentary.
- Cross-links to this site's other Yogācāra pages where the same argument or terminology appears.
Read by Part
The treatise's own seven topics, worked out across eight pages, from false discrimination's own middle way to the unsurpassed vehicle's three kinds of supremacy.
Characteristics, Obstructions, Reality
False discrimination and the three natures, the sixteen emptinesses, and the mind's original purity; the five kinds of obstruction and the thirty obstacles blocking the path; and ten kinds of reality, from the four noble truths to a closing set of ten skillful means.
Cultivation, Stages, Fruit
The thirty-seven factors of enlightenment as the direct remedy for every obstruction catalogued; the entire path compressed into eighteen named stages; and the five classical fruits of practice, renamed ten further ways.
The Unsurpassed Vehicle
Six correct practices — including the treatise's famous ten inversions and ten vajra-verses, and a Middle Way threading fifteen extremes from the Ratnakūṭa Sūtra — the object relied on, realization through cultivation, and the treatise's own account of its name.
Translation Notes
Recurring terms, kept consistent from Part 1 through Part 8, and matched to the site's other Yogācāra pages where the same term appears. See also this site's note on translation method.