Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Nāgārjuna – 119
The commentary shows us the philosopher Vasubandhu also as a
humorous evangelist and the book is otherwise justly attributed to
him. Here is an illustration:
Buddhist humour
“A jackal used to follow a lion because it yearned for the remnants
of flesh devoured by him. Once upon a time the lion was hungry, and
having killed a large bear, called upon the jackal to carry it. Now as
the jackal was too feeble to bear the load and at the same time was
afraid lest the lion in his anger should put it to death, could not make
up its mind to agree to the demand. But it knew that the lion was
proud and said: “In order to carry this burden two things are
necessary, to groan and to bear the load. I cannot do both at the same
time. You must take up one of the two.” As the lion was proud and
was not willing to groan, he asked the jackal to groan and agreed to
carry the load himself. Accordingly the lion bore the burden and the
jackal followed groaning after the lion. Just in the same way I bear
the burden of the preaching of the doctrine, but you are only in the
position of assenting and say “That is so.”
Schiefner op. cit. p. 58; for Vasubandhu’s Gāthāsaṁgraha, Mélanges
Asiatiques, VII (Bulletin XXIV, St. Petersburg, 1878) p. 559 ff [99]
Opponent of Saṁkhyā philosophy
As a philosopher Vasubandhu also wrote a discourse to combat the
Saṁkhyā philosophy. It is called Paramārtha Saptati or Seventy
Verses of Supreme Verity. The Sanskrit original has perished, but it