The Vijnanvada Conception Of ''Consciousness-Only''

Vijnanavada gets its name ("consciousness teaching", or "Consciousness-ism") from its theory of a psychological emanation from an original universal consciousness (usually called the Alaya-vijnana). It is in fact the only Buddhist school that incorporated emanationist ideas; especially in later, Sinicized form.

A similarity can be pointed out here with the eigh-teenth century Scottish empirical philosopher Bishop George Berkeley, who argued that no objective physical reality exists at all; the world being a sort of collective dream, and God as the over-consciousness holding the whole thing together. Not surprisingly, in the materialistically orientated West, Berkely's philosophy (which came to be called "Idealism", although it has little in common with the Idealism (Idea-ism) of Plato) did not really catch on.

The Alaya-vijnana is the universal storehouse consciousness, so-called because it is the repository of the vasanas, the impressions or tendencies carried over from past lives. As D. T. Suzuki ex-plains, "every act, mental or physical, leaves its seeds (bijas) behind, which is planted in the Alaya for future germination under favourable conditions" [[[Wikipedia:D. T. Suzuki|D. T. Suzuki]] Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, p.483].

Through the activity of vasanas, the seven individual consciousnesses - the five sense-consciousnesses, the manovijnana or mind-consciousness, and the klishto-manovijnana or "defiled mind-consciousness" - arise from the Alaya-vijnana like waves from the ocean [[[Chandradhar Sharma]], A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, pp.111].

Here the Alayavij-nana is no longer the Absolute but one of the facets of relative Consciousness; the repository of the vasanas or bijas. As Chatterjee explains, "none of these eight vijnanas is ultimate.

Consciousness is disturbed owing to the impact of a wrong idea", and once this is eliminated and the agitation calmed down, consciousness "regains its eternal quiescence" [Ibid p.107].

There is the parallel here with (and obviously a derivation from an early form of) Samkhya, in which the purusha or consciousness-principle is distinct from the principles of nature and psycho-physical existence (or prakriti).

The difference is that whereas Samkhya implies of multiplicity of consciousnesses, Yogachara, like Advaita Vedanta, refers to only one, which is also the underlying substratum of existence. It is not the case that Advaita influenced Yogachara however; more the reverse.

In the Yogachara psycho-metaphysics, it is the Klishto-manovijnana, or Manas, that is the cause of the false idea of a separate "I" or self or ego.

The Yogachara Idealism, pp.102-3]. Creation is therefore cyclic. The Alayavijnana is the receptacle of vasanas or impressions from past vijnanas, and in turn generates further vijnanas through the ripening of vasanas [Ibid p.88]. The cycle of karmic forces and their actualisation is an infinite one, like the cycle of the tree and its seed [Ibid p.107].

In its sequence of vijnanas there is an obvious parallel between Buddhist emanationism (Vijnanavada) and Hindu emanationism (Samkhya) with its unfolding tattwas.

But Vijnanavada or Yogachara replaces the Samkhyan dualism with monism by reuniting the disparate purusha and prakriti in the single Alaya-vijnana, but otherwise follows the Samkhyan ontology.

As in Samkhya there is the emanation from an original but undifferentiated universal state (Alayavijnana = Prakriti = Buddhi) through the mediating state of separative egotism (Klishto-manovijnana = Ahamkara) to manifold phenomenal reality (manas and the senses).

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