Йогачарья

    Йогачарья (Yogâcârya — последователь Йога) — индийская буддийская секта или школа, находящаяся в связи с философской школой Йога (см.) Основателем ее считается Арджасангха (VII в. по Р. Х.), учивший, что самосознание вечно, но не отожествлявший его с Богом, как это делал Патанджали.

    Yogacharya yogacarya (Sanskrit) [from yoga union + acharya teacher]
    A teacher of yoga; a mystic and highly esoteric school founded by the original Aryasangha, who lived at a date long preceding the pseudo-Aryasangha of the 5th or 6th century who taught the doctrines of the Tantra besides some of the elements of the Yogacharya system.
    The earlier Aryasangha was an arhat and founded the original Yogacharya school, a thoroughly esoteric institution; the latter's school is a branch of the Mahayana, and is of a truly spiritual type, its teachings being identical in essence with those of theosophy.
    This Yogacharya school must not be confused with the Mahatantra school which was founded by Samantabhadra, whose teachings were later collected and glossed around the 6th century by the pseudo-Aryasangha in connection with litanies, formularies, spells, etc. This school is wholly exoteric, popular, and its works are largely composite of Tantric worship and ritualism that can lead the student only to black magic and sorcery.

    Aryasangha Aryasamgha (Sanskrit) Founder of the first Yogacharya school, a direct disciple of Gautama Buddha; also a sage who lived in about the 5th or 6th century, who mixed Tantric worship with the Yogacharya system.
    The followers of the latter "claimed that he was the same Aryasangha, that had been a follower of Sakyamuni, and that he was 1,000 years old. Internal evidence alone is sufficient to show that the works written by him and translated about the year 600 of our era, works full of Tantra worship, ritualism, and tenets followed now considerably by the 'red-cap' sects in Sikhim, Bhutan, and Little Tibet, cannot be the same as the lofty system of the early Yogacharya school of pure Buddhism, which is neither northern or southern, but absolutely esoteric.
    Though none of the genuine Yogacharya books (the Narjol chodpa) have ever been made public or marketable, yet one finds in the Yogacharya Bhumi Shastra of the pseudo-Aryasangha a great deal from the older system, into the tenets of which he may have been initiated. It is, however, so mixed up with Sivaism and Tantrika magic and superstitions, that the work defeats its own end, notwithstanding its remarkable dialectical subtilty" (TG 323).

    Aryasangha (Sanskrit) The Founder of the first Yogacharya School. This Arhat, a direct disciple of Gautama, the Buddha, is most unaccountably mixed up and confounded with a personage of the same name, who is said to have lived in Ayodhya (Oude) about the fifth or sixth century of our era, and taught Tantrika worship in addition to the Yogacharya system.
    Those who sought to make it popular, claimed that he was the same Aryasangha, that had been a follower of Sakyamuni, and that he was 1,000 years old. Internal evidence alone is sufficient to show that the works written by him and translated about the year 600 of our era, works full of Tantra worship, ritualism, and tenets followed now considerably by the "red-cap" sects in Sikhim, Bhutan, and Little Tibet, cannot be the same as the lofty system of the early Yogacharya school of pure Buddhism, which is neither northern nor southern, but absolutely esoteric.
    Though none of the genunine Yogacharya books (the Narjol chodpa) have ever been made public or marketable, yet one finds in the Yogacharya Bhumi Shastra of the pseudo-Aryasangha a great deal from the older system, into the tenets of which he may have been initiated. It is, however, so mixed up with Sivaism and Tantrika magic and superstitions, that the work defeats its own end, notwithstanding its remarkable dialectical subtilty. How unreliable are the conclusions at which our Orientalists arrive, and how contradictory the dates assigned by them, may be seen in the case in hand.
    While Csoma de Koros (who, by-the-bye, never became acquainted with the Gelukpa (yellow-caps), but got all his information from "red-cap" lamas of the Borderland), places the pseudo-Aryasangha in the seventh century of our era; Wassiljew, who passed most of his life in China, proves him to have lived much earlier; and Wilson (see Roy. As. Soc., Vol. VI., p. 240), speaking of the period when Aryasangha’s works, which are still extant in Sanskrit, were written, believes it now "established, that they have been written at the latest, from a century and a half before, to as much after, the era of Christianity".
     At all events since it is beyond dispute that the Mahayana religious works were all written far before Aryasangha’s time - whether he lived in the "second century B.C.", or the "seventh .A.D." - and that these contain all and far more of the fundamental tenets of the Yogacharya system, so disfigured by the Ayodhyan imitator - the inference is that there must exist somewhere a genuine rendering free from popular Sivaism and left-hand magic.