Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c21.s2.9

c21.s2.9

We have here in effect the series of the Sautrāntikas, but there is developed a contrast between the originating or receptacle intelligence (*ālayavijñāna*), and the individual intellectual experiences of the process (*pravṛtti-vijñāna*), which clearly opens the way to a different conception of the final character of reality. On the strictly orthodox view³ the receptacle thought may be held to be nothing but a collective expression for the whole series of particular thoughts, or to put it in another light the receptacle intelligence at any moment consists of the actual particular intellectual action together with all the potencies latent in it, for, as with the Sautrāntikas, the intellectual moment is charged with impressions of the whole of the experience of the apparent individual from time immemorial. This view may be supported by the doctrine that the receptacle intelligence has no origination, duration, or destruction, which is an apt enough description of what is merely a collective expression, and does not denote any special concrete reality. The same impression may be derived from the comparison of the relation of the particular intellectual moments with the waves of the sea of the receptacle intellect. Intelligence appears under diverse aspects; as Citta it accumulates action, as mind it synthesizes, as Vijñāna it forms judgements, as sense it has consciousness of objects.¹ But this idea admits also of allowing a greater measure of reality and universality to the receptacle intellect;² we may treat it as parallel with the Vedantic absolute, and regard its infection and its development as parallel to that of the absolute under the influence of nescience. Or from another point of view we may hold that the flux of intellectual moments does not actually infect the receptacle intelligence, but is comparable to an image reflected in a mirror which remains untouched by it, or to a sound echoed by the rocks which suffer themselves no change. Thus the receptacle intelligence would be akin to the person (puruṣa) of the Sāṃkhya.