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Alaya-vijnana: Storehouse Consciousness Dr Amartya Kumar Bhattacharya hat we think, we do. Our mind considered important. There are innumerable determines our personality. This art­ philosophical schools of Buddhism but the four Wicle deals with the definition of person­ principal ones are: Madhyamika, with its doc­ ality according to Buddhism. Buddha says: ‘I say trine of shunya, nihilism; Vijnanavada, and its bhikkus that volition is action. Having thought, subjective idealism; Sautrantika, representation­ one acts through body, speech, and mind.’1 The ists; and, Vaibhasika, realists. Yogachara or Vijnanavada school of Mahayana Buddhism deals with human personality in great Buddha’s Teachings of Anatmata detail. Yogachara, which had its genesis in the Buddha, consistent with his teachings of condi­ PHOTO BY Samdhinirmochana Sutra (second century ce), tioned existence and the law of universal change, was largely formulated by Acharyas Asanga and denies through his doctrine of anatmata, or B Vasubandhu. TheSamdhinirmochana Sutra is nairatmya , the existence of a permanent Atman IYA S the seminal text of the Yogachara school. The unaffected by changes and which transmigrates CHATTERJEE Lankavatara Sutra (fourth century ce) is an­ from body to body. The Sanskrit word ‘Atman’, other very important text of this school. The the Pali word ‘Atta’, and the Chinese word ‘Shen’ Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra is also mean Self. The Buddhist wisdom, gained by 454 PB September 2012 Alaya­vijnana: Storehouse Consciousness 33 experience, is that the Atman is not found even According to Buddhism, nothing animate in the deepest meditative state, that is, even dur­ or inanimate is exempt from the law of change. ing samadhi. Further, subscription to a belief This is obvious from an inspection of the first in the Atman results in ahamkara, egoism, and and third of the Four Noble Truths enunciated attachment to mundane things. In its most fun­ by Buddha in the Dharmachakrapravartana damental sense, nairatmya implies selflessness, Sutra. The first noble truth says that life in the which has its external manifestation in selfless world is full of suffering; the third maintains action in order to benefit others. that it is possible to stop suffering. All changes In the course of yet another sermon, at imply suffering. ‘All things, Buddha repeatedly Shravasti in the Jetavana, Buddha says: ‘There teaches, are subject to change and decay’ (135). is an unborn, unchanging, uncreated, and un­ A person cannot step into the same river twice. conditioned. If there were not that, which is When one thing disappears, it conditions the unborn, unchanging, uncreated, and uncondi­ appearance of another thing, creating thus a tioned, there could not be any escape from what series of cause and effect. Everything is in a state is born, changing, created, and conditioned. But of ‘becoming’ something else the very next mo­ since there is an unborn, unchanging, uncreated, ment. A wheel cannot be separated from its and unconditioned, there is an escape from what movement. There is no static wheel ‘behind’ is born, changing, created, and conditioned.’ 2 the wheel in motion. Things change over time. With these words Buddha indicates the para- Everything originates in function of other fac­ martha-satya, ultimate Truth, which is nirvana. tors, that is, all things come into existence as the At another point Buddha mentions that bhava- result of an interaction of various causes. This trishna, desire for existence, is also one kind of law of pratitya-samutpada, dependent origina­ desire that keeps us bound. The existence of a tion, is central to Buddhism. For example, anger person depends on the collection of different cannot arise by itself, without a cause. Swami constituents: material body, immaterial mind, Vivekananda graphically describes the process and vijnana, formless consciousness, just as a of dependent origination: chariot is a collection of wheels, axles, shaft and so forth. The so­called individual ‘existence’ dis­ This body is the name of one continuous stream solves when the constituents break up. In the of matter—every moment we are adding ma­ Dhammapada it is said: ‘Sarva dharma anatma; terial to it, and every moment material is being all phenomena are not­self. ’ 3 ‘The conception thrown off by it—like a river continually flow­ of a Self is thus replaced here by that of an un­ ing, vast masses of water always changing places; broken stream of consciousness.’ 4 It must be kept yet all the same, we take up the whole thing in imagination, and call it the same river. What in mind that Buddha’s attitude is practical, and do we call the river? Every moment the water is his primary concern is the salvation of suffering changing, the shore is changing, every moment human beings. His silence in response to specu­ the environment is changing, what is the river lative metaphysical questions such as whether then? It is the name of this series of changes. the self is different from the body, whether it So with the mind. That is the great Kshanika survives death, whether the world is finite or in­ Vijnana Vada doctrine, most difficult to under­ finite, eternal or non­eternal, are called the great stand, but most rigorously and logically worked ‘indeterminate questions’. out in the Buddhistic philosophy.5 PB September 2012 455 34 Prabuddha Bharata Alaya-vijnana school. The fundamental concept of the Yoga­ From the psychological point of view a person is chara school may be expressed by the propos­ analysable into a collection of pancha- skandas, ition that the parinishpanna svabhava, perfected five aggregates:rupa , vedana, samjna, samskara, self­nature, is realized when a person pierces and vijnana, all of which are identified asanatma , through his or her parikalpita svabhava, im­ non­Self, by Buddha in the Anatma lakshana agined or illusory self­nature, and develops into Sutra. The first isrupa , form, and the last four are the ideal state of nirvana. categorized as nama, name. Vedana, sensations, Alaya-vijnana contains all the impressions of of the physical world of rupa are received by the past actions and future potentialities. It gives rise sense organs—the five physical sense organs and to thoughts, desire, and attachments, which bind the mind are called the six sensory bases; sen­ us to the fictitious external world. It is the basis of sations lead to samjna, perceptions, including our personality. It is also called the mula- vijnana, understanding and naming; this in turn leads to the base­consciousness from which awareness samskara, pre­dispositions or tendencies gener­ and perception spring. Alaya-vijnana is not the ated by impressions of past experiences; lastly bed of only attachments and suffering but it also vijnana , consciousness, which is at the root. contains the tathagatagarbha, Buddha­matrix, In the Yogachara, application of yoga, through which a person can become a Buddha. school the concept of alaya-vijnana—literally, Therefore, the real basis of one’s personality is the abode consciousness—is introduced. They the Buddha­like faculty called Buddha­dhatu,7 admit only a kind of reality that is of the na­ latent in every being. The difference between an ture of consciousness, and that objects, which enlightened being and a deluded one is that the appear to be material or external to conscious­ former has manifested his or her Buddha­dhatu, ness, are but ideas or states of consciousness. while the latter has not. Thus, broadly speaking, One difficult question posed to this doctrine is the Buddha­dhatu implies the ascertaining of this: how is it that the subject cannot create at that which allows a person to become a Bud­ will any object at any time? To explain this the dha. TheMahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra Vijnanavadins say that the subject is a stream of states that Buddha­dhatu is everlasting, pure, kshanika, momentary, consciousness and within and blissful. This work deals primarily with the the stream there lie buried the samskaras of all doctrine of Buddha­nature, which is imman­ past experiences. At a particular moment that a ent in all beings.8 In the same text it is said: samskara comes to the surface of consciousness, ‘That is why I [Buddha] speak about these four for which the circumstances are most favour­ things [dharma, meaning, wisdom, and import­ able, and attains maturity, that is, develops into embracing sutras] and say that they are the things immediate perception. The consciousness con­ to be depended upon. “Dharma” is “Dharmata”, sidered in its aspect of being a storehouse or sub­ “meaning” is saying that the Tathagata is Eternal stratum consciousness is called alaya-vijnana. and Unchanging, “Wisdom” is knowing that all This answers to the concept of Atman of other beings have Buddha­Nature (Buddhata), “grasp­ schools, with the difference that it is not one ing the meaning” means being well versed in all unchanging entity but a stream of continuously Mahayana sutras.’ 9 changing states.6 Hence this school is also called The Noble Eightfold Path leads to spirit­ the Chittamatravada or Vijnaptimatravada ual enlightenment, which is nothing but the 456 PB September 2012 Alaya­vijnana: Storehouse Consciousness 35 full manifestation of the Buddha­dhatu, or the is the meaning of your asking this at precisely Tathagata-dhatu, in a person. As the Yogacharas this moment?’ (Ibid.). lay stress on yoga practices, any person can de­ One reacts mentally because one is conscious velop the Buddha­dhatu through the appropri­ of something. Mental reactions are of two types: ate practice of meditation and become a Buddha. craving and aversion. It is evident that aversion The goal of life is to discover this reality, which is results in suffering, and that craving too results the basis of one’s personality. Avidya, ignorance, in suffering in the absence of the desired object.

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