Asanga’s teaching can be seen as unfolding in distinct yet organically related phases, moving from a broadly Abhidharma and Mahāyāna orientation toward a fully articulated Yogācāra vision. In his early period, he stands within the Sarvāstivāda and general Mahāyāna milieu, working with traditional analyses of mental factors, gradations of the path, and bodhisattva ethics. At this stage, the focus rests more on systematic description of mind and practice than on a sharply defined “consciousness-only” philosophy. Works associated with this period, such as portions of the *Bodhisattvabhūmi* and the more synthetic layers of the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha*, emphasize the bodhisattva path, the perfections, and detailed classifications of mental states without yet fully crystallizing the later Yogācāra metaphysics.

A decisive turning point is traditionally linked to visionary encounters with Maitreya, through which Asanga’s reflection on experience takes on a distinctly Yogācāra shape. Here the doctrine of vijñapti-mātra, or “representation-only,” comes to the fore, together with the elaboration of the eightfold model of consciousness, including the ālayavijñāna as storehouse of karmic seeds. This middle phase also sees the articulation of the three natures (imagined, dependent, and perfected), which provide a subtle map of how deluded experience is constructed and how it may be purified. In texts like the *Yogācārabhūmi* and more developed strata of the *Mahāyānasaṃgraha*, these ideas are no longer scattered insights but form an increasingly coherent framework for understanding both psychology and the path.

In his mature teaching, Asanga brings these strands together into a comprehensive soteriological system that unites ethics, meditation, and philosophical analysis. The ālayavijñāna is refined as both the repository and the basis to be transformed, while the theory of seeds explains how deep tendencies shape experience and how they can be reoriented. Detailed treatment of mental factors, the bodhisattva stages, and the transformation of the basis (āśrayaparāvṛtti) shows a concern not merely with theory but with the concrete process by which grasping at subject and object is undone. Later Yogācāra-oriented treatises associated with his name present a path in which “mind-only” is not a dry abstraction, but a practical key for realizing the perfected nature and the knowledge of a buddha.

Seen as a whole, the evolution of Asanga’s teaching moves from traditional scholastic analysis and broad Mahāyāna concerns toward a sophisticated philosophical psychology centered on the transformation of consciousness. Early, relatively open syntheses give way to a sharper Yogācāra perspective, and this in turn matures into an integrated vision where doctrine, meditative cultivation, and the bodhisattva ideal mutually illuminate one another. Through this trajectory, the emphasis shifts from merely describing the elements of experience to showing how those very elements, rightly understood, can become the means of complete awakening.