 The Twenty Verses is Vasubandhu’s most readable, and evidently analytic, philosophical text, and it has consequently drawn a significant degree of modern scholarly  attention.[34]  It begins with a simple statement, which Vasubandhu defends throughout the brief text and commentary: “Everything in the three realms is only appearance  (vijñaptimātra).”[35]  The three realms are the three states into which Buddhists believe living beings may be reborn. For all beings except for Buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas, the three realms make up the universe. Vasubandhu glosses this statement with citations from scripture that make it clear that he means to say that there no things (artha), only minds (citta) and mental qualities (caitta). He says that the experience of the three realms is like the appearance of hairs in front of someone with eye disease. It is the experience of something that does not exist as it appears. Although the term has a history of controversy among interpreters of Yogācāra, it seems safe to say that the Twenty Verses defends at least some form of idealism. (See the section on the controversy over Vasubandhu as idealist.)