4.3. Types of Consciousness

[Full title: The Mādhyamika and the Yogācāra School (3): Types of Consciousness]

According to this school, there are two types of consciousness that is individual consciousness which is also known as Pravṛtti vijñāna and Absolute consciousness which is called Ālaya-vijñāna. According to this school, the world is the creation of absolute consciousness.

Individual consciousness again has seven kinds:—

1. The cakṣur-vijñāna (Eye -consciousness)
2. The śrotra-vijñāna (Ear-consciousness)
3. The ghrāna-vijñāna (Nose-consciousness)
4. The jīvha-vijñāna (Tongue-consciousness)
5. The kāya–vijñāna (Body-consciousness)
6. The mano-vijñāna (Mind-consciousness)
7. The kliṣṭa–manovijñāna (Defiled-Mind Consciousness). It is a sort of intermediary between the sixth Manovijñāna and the Ālaya.

The types of the consciousness are called so because they occur through the respective sense-organs. The eye-consciousness identifies colour and form, the ear-consciousness identifies sound, the nose-consciousness identifies smell, the tongue-consciousness identifies taste, the body–consciousness identifies touch, and the last the mind–consciousness identifies concepts and ideas. Defiled–mind consciousness deals with those ideas more or less as they come, without consciously or continuously making distinction between that which belongs to the self and that which belongs to non-self. This continuously making distinction is the work of defiled–mind consciousness, which, according to Yogācārins, works when a man is asleep or unconscious.

The Yogācāras School states four stages of cognitive operation of the eight consciousnesses. The first is Lakshanatvam which means objectiveness. It happens when there is a contact between consciousness and a particular object. The second stage is Dṛshtṛtvam which implies perception. It is the process by which Lakshanatvam is associated with the stage of the subjective awareness of the object. It is active and subjective while objectiveness is a passive operation. The third stage is Svāsākshitvam which means “proving by a witness”. Here consciousness examines and proves itself whether the outcome of perception is correct. The fourth and last stage is Sākshisvasākshitvam which means “proving a case”. At this stage consciousness checks or verifies the conclusions arrived at in the third stage.^[1]

The Absolute Consciousness (Ālaya vijñāna) is the basis of all individual consciousness. All individual consciousnesses are born in absolute consciousness and vanish into it. So, Individual consciousnesses are based on Absolute consciousness, desires can be stored in the form of seeds of all consciousness. In due course of time the seeds sprout out in practical world in the form of behaviour and again combine into ālaya. So in this sense Absolute consciousness is empirical separate self. All kinds of knowledge are left in it. It is the foundation of transmigration.^[2] Absolute consciousness is also called Citta and Tathāgatagarbha or the womb of the tathāgata, pregnant with all possibilities and throbbing with seeds of all vijñānas. The word “Citta” is derived from the root “cita” which means “to think”. Citta is the knowledge of an object.

In the Laṅkāvatāra, Absolute consciousness (ālayavijñāna) is said to be permanent , immortal and never changing store house of consciousness which underlies the apparent subject-object duality.^[3] It is declared to be one which transcends the subject-object duality which is beyond all the plurality of imagination, and which is to be directly realized by pure knowledge. The force behind creation is the beginningless tendency inspired by ignorance in the ālaya to manifest as itself as subject and object. The locus and the object of this tendency is the ālaya itself. Creation therefore is the result of this beginningless tendency inspired by ignorance which leads to plurality. Pravṛtti-vijñānas are manifestation of the ālaya. They are neither identical with nor different from ālaya. If they were identical with the ālaya then their destruction would also mean the destruction of the ālaya; and if they were different from ālaya then they would not arise out of it.^[4] Ālaya is like ocean and Pravṛtti–vijñānas are waves. Just as the waves stirred by the wind dance on the ocean, similarly the manifold individual consciousness stirred by the wind of objects which are the creation of ignorance, dance on ālaya. The waves are neither identical with nor different from the ocean, similarly the seven individual consciousnesses are neither identical with nor different from the ālaya. The plurality of the waves is the manifestation of the ocean; the manifold vijñānas are the manifestation of the ālaya. Ultimately there is not the slightest difference between the individual vijñānas and the ālaya. It is only by discursive intellect that the ālaya is compared to the ocean and vijñānas to the waves. Ultimately ālaya is indescribable and transcends all categories of the intellect.^[5]

According to Yogācāra, what is important is only the consciousness,^[6] and apart from it, the external or physical worlds do not have any existence. And if one admits the existence of physical world, then it cannot be known. But if the object is not understood as apart from mental knowledge, all problems and difficulties are removed. Therefore, they state that all objects or things that are external to mind are only mental modifications. So, knowledge is important to know the things since they do not have any existence apart from knowledge and it is misapprehension to know or grasp or see things different from knowledge. For example-as in dreams things appear to be external and yet they are in the mind, in the same manner, when one is in the state of wake, things are seen to be external despite of being in the mind. This school tries to prove that external things or objects do not have any existence on the ground of momentariness or flux. An object or a thing which one wants to know can be known when it is created but that object is also ceased the very next moment of their creation. Thus, the creation and knowledge of objects must be acquired at the same moment. But it is not possible, because cause, that is creation and effect that is knowledge cannot be happened at the same moment. So, the object which is seen as external is only a mental idea. The mind consisting of a stream of different kinds of ideas is the only reality.

Now the question can arise against this view of Yogācāra. If a thing is merely an idea of mind, then why it does not appear, disappear and change as desired? To answer this question, Yogācāra says that the consciousness is like a stream in which the past experiences exist in the form of impression and whenever there is a favourable condition for a certain impression, the same impression appears and results into knowledge. For instance-memory which has many impressions that exist in the mind and at a particular moment only a particular impression that is require is recalled.

Yogācāra also rejects the empirical self or the ego as ultimate reality. According to them, all pains and sufferings are because of self that is born out of ignorance and it must be overcome. According to Asaṅga and Vasubandhu this empirical self or the ego is not real. What is real is only pure and absolute consciousness. The empirical self can never be real, unreal, both real and unreal. It is only one’s illusion. Therefore, liberation or nirvāṇa which is the ultimate aim can destroy this illusion. Ālayavijñāna or absolute consciousness is permanent, immortal and can never change. It is the store house of consciousness that underlies the duality between subject-object. It is the ultimate reality in which all categories combine and which destroys all the defects of the mind. By becoming one with this ultimate reality, a Bodhisattva attains the last meditation (chaturtha-dhyāna) and ever dwells in the blissful Brahman.

The Yogācāras discusses many inconsistencies that arise with the external object. According to them, if we admit that there is any external object then one needs to admit that it must be either partless, which means atomic or composite which means composed of many parts. But the problem is that, we cannot perceive either atoms or composite thing like a jug. The reason one cannot see composite thing is that we cannot perceive all the sides and parts of the object at the same time.^[7] For Yogācāra, these problems will not arise if the object be nothing other than consciousness, because the question of parts and whole does not arise with regard to consciousness. The next problem with existence of external object is that the consciousness of the object cannot arise before the object or afterwards, because the object, being momentary in nature vanishes very soon when it arises. According to those, who admit the external object being the cause of consciousness cannot be simultaneous with consciousness. We cannot say that the object can be known by consciousness after it has ceased to exist. For in that case, the object being in the past, there cannot be any knowledge that is immediate or perception of it. Perception of present objects, as we must admit always to have, remains, therefore, unexplained if objects are supposed to be external to the mind. This problem will not arise, if the object be supposed to be nothing other than consciousness.

The Yogācāra thought is called idealism as they state that there is only one kind of reality that is the nature of consciousness which is known as vijñāna and the things which look material or external to consciousness are merely ideas of consciousness in real. This theory is known as subjective idealism because according to it, the existence of a thing seen is not different from the subject or the perceiving mind. The Yogācāra are so called because they believe in the practice of yoga through which one can realise the truth of reality.^[8]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Y. Sōgen, op.cit., p.233.

[2]:

Ibid., p.237.

[3]:

Laṅkāvatāra, pp. 42-43.

[4]:

Laṅkāvatāra, p.38.

[5]:

A.K. Chatterjee, op.cit., p.107.

[6]:

H. Nakamura, Indian Buddhism, p.306.

[7]:

S. Chatterjee & D. Datta, op.cit., p.138.

[8]:

D.N. Shastri, op.cit, p. 42.