Accounts of Asaṅga’s life and work suggest that the emergence of Yogācāra did not occur in an atmosphere of easy acceptance. His articulation of a “consciousness-only” perspective and the doctrine of ālaya-vijñāna placed him in tension with several established Buddhist currents. Sarvāstivādin and other Abhidharma-based scholars, committed to a more realist understanding of dharmas, resisted his reconfiguration of their categories and his reinterpretation of scriptural material. At the same time, some Madhyamaka-oriented thinkers regarded certain Yogācāra formulations as risking a subtle reification of consciousness and thus as problematic for a rigorous understanding of emptiness.

These philosophical disagreements were not merely abstract debates; they were embedded in institutional and curricular structures. Monastic centers shaped by long-standing Abhidharma traditions were understandably cautious toward a system that sought to revise their foundational frameworks and to integrate Mahāyāna sūtras into a new, systematic analysis. Efforts to present the three natures and the storehouse consciousness as coherent and orthodox required sustained defense against accusations of deviation from the Buddha’s teaching. The very complexity of Asaṅga’s system, as seen in works like the Yogācārabhūmi and Mahāyānasaṃgraha, reflects an ongoing need to anticipate objections and clarify misunderstandings.

Traditional narratives also preserve a more inward dimension to these challenges. They describe Asaṅga’s prolonged struggle in practice and contemplation prior to the full clarification of his vision, including difficulty in realizing emptiness in a way that would ground and illuminate his path. This motif of initial non-recognition, culminating only after years of effort, can be read as mirroring the broader resistance his ideas encountered in the religious and intellectual climate of his time. In that sense, the obstacles he faced were both external—philosophical, doctrinal, institutional—and internal, as the work of insight itself demanded perseverance before it could bear fruit for others.