Twenty Verses Against a Mind-Independent World.
The Viṃśatikā — "the Twenty-Verse [Treatise]" — is Vasubandhu's own short, dense answer to every objection a rival school could raise against consciousness-only: how a mind-only world could still explain fixed place and time, how it could be shared consistently by many separate witnesses, how it could still cause real harm and real function, and — in the treatise's most famous argument — why no indivisible atom could ever combine with another to build the physical world those schools took for granted. This page is the entrance for reading it part by part, following the treatise's own argument as it unfolds.
How to read this collection
The treatise itself is short — twenty-one verses in Xuánzàng's translation, each with Vasubandhu's own prose commentary attached — but its argument is dense, moving briskly from one rival school's objection to the next. We split it into three parts by the natural shape of that argument: the fourfold challenge and its answer, scripture's hidden intent together with the refutation of atoms, and the closing run of objections on perception, ethics, and other minds.
Because Vasubandhu supplies his own commentary directly beneath each verse, no root-and-commentary pairing is needed the way it is for the Triṃśikā. For a second layer of reading, we follow Kuījī, Xuánzàng's direct disciple, whose own commentary preserves notes taken during the very week Xuánzàng translated the root text.
What each part page includes
- The Chinese source text beside our English translation.
- Reading notes drawn from Kuījī's commentary.
- A running glossary so terminology stays consistent from Part 1 to Part 3, and with the site's other Yogācāra pages.
Read by Part
The treatise's own argument, unfolding verse by verse: from the fourfold challenge to consciousness-only, through the refutation of every rival account of the physical world, to the closing objections on perception, ethics, and other minds.
The Fourfold Challenge
Vasubandhu's opening thesis that the three realms are consciousness-only, an opponent's challenge that a mind-only world could never explain fixed place, fixed time, many witnesses, or real function, and the answer — dream, hungry ghost, and hell — that closes off three rival schools' accounts of the hell-guardians.
Scripture's Hidden Intent, and the Refutation of Atoms
Why the Buddha's own teaching that form and the senses exist does not prove a mind-independent world, and the treatise's most celebrated argument: that no indivisible, partless atom could ever combine with another to build anything at all.
Perception, Ethics, and Other Minds
Whether direct perception proves an external object, why dream and waking karma differ, how killing is possible without a real external victim, and the treatise's closing verse: consciousness-only's own limits, before the unthinkable domain of a buddha's own wisdom.
Translation Notes
Recurring terms, kept consistent from Part 1 through Part 3, and matched to the site's other Yogācāra pages where the same term appears. See also this site's note on translation method.