In its so-called paravāda section, the Yogācārabhūmi (300–350 CE) presents and crit-icizes sixteen “allodoxies” (paravāda), predominantly non-Buddhist doctrines, practic-es and institutions, some of which had already been targeted in canonical texts such as the Brahmajālasūtra and the Śrāmaṇyaphalasūtra. The doctrines that were newly add-ed in the Yogācārabhūmi include Sāṅkhya ideas on causality, possibly in combination with ideas developed in the indigenous science of grammar, as well as orthodox Brah-manical conceptions of ritual violence, the castes and purification. The last among these allodoxies is labelled kautuka maṅgalavāda, i.e., “the doctrine of festive ceremonies and auspicious things,” which comes very close to the Western idea of “superstition” in its perceived opposition to reason. Quite unexpectedly though, what the Yogācārabhūmi criticizes under this name is astrology, both as a determinist theory of human destiny and as a body of propitiatory practices. In challenging superstition and astrology because of their incompatibility with reason and karmic determinism, the Yogācārabhūmi often echoes Sarvāstivāda works such as Kumāralāta’s Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā and the Saddhar-masmṛtyupasthānasūtra.
After tracing the genealogy of the Indian Buddhist treatment of superstitious beliefs and practices, the present paper proposes a critical edition of the kautukamaṅgala section, based on the text of the Sanskrit manuscript of the Yogācārabhūmi and its Tibetan and Chinese translations, and discusses its arguments against astral determinism.