1.1. System of Consciousnesses

[Full title: Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna: the essence of beings, (1): System of Consciousnesses]

Vijñāna is one of the important issues in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra and usually translated into English “consciousness”. Although the root Jña means “to know” “to perceive”, Vijñāna in Laṅkāvatārasūtra is not mere cognition or knowing, it is a system of eight consciousnesses or the aggregate of consciousness (vijñānaskandha), one of the five aggregates (skandhas) constituting human mind-body complex, and it is also the power or faculty of discrimination.

The Laṅkāvatārasūtra divides the system of consciousness into eight consciousnesses. According to the Sūtra, the mind is in its original nature silent, pure, and above the dualism of subject and object. However, with the rise of the wind of action, the waves are agitated over the tranquil surface of the mind. The original mind is now differentiated into eight Vijnanas: Ālayavijñāna, Manas, Manovijñāna, and the five sense Vijñānas; and instantaneously with this evolution, the whole universe comes into existence with its multitudinous forms and with its endless entanglements. The sūtra teaches that citta (Ālayavijñāna), Manas and Vijñāna have different meanings. It is called Ālayavijñāna when it accumulates and produces.

When it deliberates, it is called Manas, and when it discriminates, it is called Vijñāna.

Mind (citta) is the Ālayavijñāna, Manas is that which has reflection as its characteristic nature, it apprehends the various sense-fields, for which reason it is called a Vijñāna.^[1]

Explanation for the rise of the first five sense consciousnesses (eye, ear, nose, tongue, and skin or body,) the Laṅkāvatārasūtra gives the sample of the eyeconsciousness arisen by four reasons.

The other sense consciousnesses are also arisen by this way.

The reasons whereby the eye-consciousness arises are four. What are they? They are: (1) The clinging to an external world, not knowing that it is of Mind itself; (2) The attaching to form and habit-energy accumulated since beginningless time by false reasoning and erroneous views;(3) The self-nature inherent in the Vijñāna; (4) The eagerness for multiple forms and appearances. By these four reasons, Mahāmati, the waves of the evolving Vijñānas are stirred on the Ālayavijñāna which resembles the waters of a flood. The same [can be said of the other sense-consciousnesses] as of the eye-consciousness. This consciousness arises at once or by degrees in every sense-organ including its atoms and pores of the skin; the sense-field is apprehended like a mirror reflecting objects, like the ocean swept over by a wind. Mahāmati, similarly the waves of the mind-ocean are stirred uninterruptedly by the wind of objectivity; cause, deed, and appearance condition one another inseparably; the functioning Vijñānas and the original Vijñāna are thus inextricably bound-up together; and because the self-nature of form, etc., is not comprehended, Mahāmati, the system of the five consciousnesses (vijñānas) comes to function.^[2]

So the five first sense consciousnesses are constituted by four causes: 1. Ignorance, 2. Karma or habit energy, 3. Sense organs, and 4. Objects. If one of these conditions is lack, the consciousness disappears. In other words, consciousnesses are created by other conditions; they have no selves and do not come from any one creator.

Together with this system of the five sense vijñānas, there is the sixth consciousness, i.e., the Manovijñāna (i.e., the thinking function of consciousness), with which the objective world is distinguished and individual appearances are distinctly determined, and in this, the physical body has its source.^[3] Nevertheless, the Manovijñāna and other Vijñānas do not recognize that they are mutually conditioned and that they grow out of their attachment to the discrimination. Thus, the first six vijñānas continue to work mutually in discriminating the world. Manovijñāna also has a field of its own as the perceiving of both internal and external world. The functions of Manovijñāna sometimes are independent with the five Vijñānas and sometimes connect with five vijñānas.

While the Manovijñāna may be considered equivalent to the intellect, the seventh consciousness -Manas is conative and affective besides being intellectual. So, Manas is sometimes called “Manas in defilement” (Klishṭamanas)^[4] because all defilements arise from Manas. The term Manas derives from the root man meaning “to think”, “to imagine”, “to intend”.^[5] Manas is the special term in the system of Vijñānas that has no suffix Vijñāna attached at its end, and it is often confused with Manovijñāna (the sixth consciousness). In the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, Manas plays important role in the operation of the system of consciousnesses.

The function of Manas is essentially to reflect upon the Ālayavijñāna and to create and to discriminate subject and object from the pure oneness of the Ālayavijñāna:

“Depending upon the Ālayavijñāna, the Manas arises; allied with the Citta and Manas, the Vijñāna arises.”^[6]

“The Manas is evolved along with the notion of an ego and its belongings, to which it clings and on which it reflects. It has no body of its own, nor its own marks; the Ālayavijñāna is its cause and support. Because the world which is the Mind itself is imagined real and attached to as such, the whole psychic system evolves mutually conditioning. Like the waves of the ocean, Mahāmati, the world which is the mind-manifested, is stirred up by the wind of objectivity, it evolves and dissolves. Thus, Mahāmati, when the Manovijñāna is got rid of, the seven Vijñānas are also got rid of.^[7]

Thus, the seventh consciousness ‘Manas’arises itself from the ground of the Ālayavijñāna, but turns back, takes Ālayavijñāna as its object, its ego (self), and continuously thinks about the self to which it is attached. According to the Xuanzang‘s Cheng Wei Shi Lun (Discourse on the Perfection of Consciousness-only), the Manas taking Ālayavijñāna as its self based on the four basic defilements (mūlakleśas): self-delusion (ātmamoha; wo-chi), self-view (ātmadṛṣṭi; wo-jian), self-esteem (ātmamāna; wo-man), and self-love (ātmasneha; wo-ai).^[8] These four mūlakleśas associated with Manas are defiled dharmas because they are hindrance to the enlightenment and liberation. Attached on misconception of the Ālayavijñāna as the self, Manas evolves the dualism of subject and object out of the absolute unity of the Ālayavijñāna. Through Manas, Manovijñāna and indeed all the other Vijñānas begin to operate.

The following verses describe the evolution of the eight Vijñānas:

Like waves that rise on the ocean stirred by the wind, dancing and without interruption,

The Ālaya-ocean in a similar manner is constantly stirred by the winds of objectivity, and is seen dancing about with the Vijñānas which are the waves of multiplicity.

Dark-blue, red, [and other colours], with salt, conch-shell, milk, honey, fragrance of fruits and flowers, and rays of sunlight; They are neither different nor not-different: the relation is like that between the ocean and its waves. So are the seven Vijñānas joined with the Citta (mind).

As the waves in their variety are stirred on the ocean, so in the Ālaya is produced the variety of what is known as the Vijñānas.

The Citta, Manas, and Vijñānas are discriminated as regards their form; [but in substance] the eight are not to be separated one from another, for there is neither qualified nor qualifying.

As there is no distinction between the ocean and its waves, so in the Citta there is no evolution of the Vijñānas.

Karma is accumulated by the Citta, reflected upon by the Manas, and recognised by the Manovijñāna, and the visible world is discriminated by the five Vijñānas.^[9]

Thus, eight Vijñānas are actually the differentiated manifestation of the unique original pure and quiet mind, so they are originally pure also.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

, p. 234 (Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, p. 278)

[2]:

Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, p. 40 (Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, p. 44).

[3]:

Ibid.

[4]:

Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, p. 178.

[5]:

Ibid.

[6]:

, p. 109 (Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, p. 127).

[7]:

Ibid.

[8]:

Taisho Tripiṭaka (CBETA 2011) [T31n1585], pp. 22a27-22b02: 謂我癡我見并我慢我愛.是名四種.我癡者謂無明.愚於我相迷無我理故名我癡.我見者謂我執於非我法妄計為我.故名我見.我慢者謂倨傲.恃所執我令心高舉.故名我慢.我愛者謂我貪.

[9]:

, p. 109 (Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, p. 127).