Yogachara (IAST: Yogācāra; literally “yoga practice”; “one whose practice is yoga”) is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices
It is also variously termed Vijñānavāda (the doctrine of consciousness), Vijñaptivāda (the doctrine of ideas or percepts) or Vijñaptimātratā-vāda (the doctrine of ‘mere representation’), which is also the name given to its major epistemic theory
There are several interpretations of this main theory, some scholars see it as a kind of Idealism while others argue that it is closer to a kind of phenomenology or representationalism, aimed at deconstructing the reification of our perceptions
According to Dan Lusthaus, this tradition developed “an elaborate psychological therapeutic system that mapped out the problems in cognition along with the antidotes to correct them, and an earnest epistemological endeavor that led to some of the most sophisticated work on perception and logic ever engaged in by Buddhists or Indians
" The 4th-century Gandharan brothers, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, are considered the classic philosophers and systematizers of this school, along with its other founder, Maitreya
It was associated with Indian Mahayana Buddhism in about the fourth century, but also included non-Mahayana practitioners of the Sautrāntika school
Yogācāra continues to be influential in Tibetan Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism
However, the uniformity of a single assumed “Yogācāra school” has been put into question