The Śarīrārthagāthā (Tǐyì qiétā 體義伽他;‘dus pa’i don gyi tshigs su bcad pa) is a collection of canonical verses with accompanying commentary in the Yogācārabhūmi (Yúqié shī dì lùn 瑜伽師地論; rnal 'byor spyod pa'i sa), an encyclopedic text of India’s major Mahāyāna philosophical school. To date the Śarīrārthagāthā has not attracted much scholarly research and many interesting aspects have hitherto gone unnoticed that are worthy of further investigation. Some researchers have identified the sources of these verses, and a study by Enomoto (1989) is the most complete. In this dissertation, I have carried out further analyses based on the results found by these researchers. The initial topics are the place of the Śarīrārthagāthā verses in the formation of Buddhist texts (especially, aṅga classification) and the reason why early verses in particular were collected in the Śarīrārthagāthā. The work of Yìnshùn has provided significant information for the investigation of the above issues. He investigated the development and relationship between aṅga and Āgamas from texts during the period of early Buddhism to Mahāyāna. Moreover, the distinctive characteristics of the Śarīrārthagāthā verses have been investigated through a comparison with their parallels in other texts, with the aim of assessing the school affiliation of these texts. Also, three aspects pertaining to the development of the Śarīrārthagāthā have been discussed: (1) the status of the Śarīrārthagāthā in the development of the Yogacārabhūmi, (2) the reason why verse classification (uddāna) is treated differently in the Tibetan version compared to the Chinese and Sanskrit versions, and (3) why were these particular early Buddhist verses selected for inclusion in the Śarīrārthagāthā and not others.
