Vasubandhu stands within the Yogācāra tradition as a central architect of its philosophical vision, honored alongside Asaṅga as a principal founder and systematizer. Having first distinguished himself as a master of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, he later reoriented his formidable analytical skills toward Mahāyāna and Yogācāra, using that background to critique earlier Abhidharma systems and recast them in a new light. In this role he did not merely repeat inherited doctrines; he shaped and clarified them, giving Yogācāra a coherent, scholastic form that could be studied, debated, and transmitted across generations.

At the heart of his contribution lies the careful articulation of the “consciousness-only” (vijñapti-mātra) perspective, which treats all experienced phenomena as manifestations or representations within consciousness rather than as independently existing external objects. To make this vision philosophically precise, Vasubandhu elaborated the Yogācāra teaching of eight consciousnesses, including the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna) that preserves karmic seeds (bīja) and underlies the continuity of experience. He also systematized the doctrine of the three natures (trisvabhāva)—imagined, dependent, and perfected—as a way of explaining how deluded experience arises and how a purified apprehension of reality becomes possible.

Vasubandhu’s role is inseparable from his writings, which became touchstones for later Yogācāra thought. Works such as the *Viṃśatikā* (“Twenty Verses”) and *Triṃśikā* (“Thirty Verses”) set out the consciousness-only teaching in a concise yet penetrating form, while the *Abhidharmakośa*, though rooted in earlier Abhidharma, provided a crucial bridge by bringing rigorous analysis of mind and phenomena into dialogue with emerging Yogācāra insights. Through these texts, and through the commentarial traditions they inspired, Yogācāra gained a durable intellectual framework that could travel across cultures.

Seen in this light, Vasubandhu’s role is that of a spiritual philosopher who gathers diverse strands of Buddhist thought and weaves them into a unified vision centered on the workings of consciousness. By integrating Abhidharma analysis with Yogācāra’s emphasis on representation-only, seeds, and the three natures, he helped define what it means to approach liberation through a deep understanding of mind. His legacy is the image of Yogācāra as a disciplined path of inquiry into how experience is constructed and how, by transforming that very process, the possibility of awakening is opened.