Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c22.s2: 2. Cosmic and Individual Consciousness
Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c22.s2
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2. Cosmic and Individual Consciousness
c22.s2.1
In the form¹ in which it has deeply influenced Chinese and Japanese thought the doctrine of the Yogācāra or Vijñānavāda has a formal view of consciousness in its development which is far more positive than negative. We may regard the receptacle consciousness as the foundation both of the external and the internal world; it is the essence or energy that lies behind inanimate nature, the life that strives upwards in the vegetable world; in this aspect it is the form or essence of the material world. The next higher stage is that in which it attains sensation and perception, and distinguishes objects, a power possessed by animals and men; thus one phase of the underlying unity becomes aware of another, one current of another current in the stream of being. The power of sensation and perception develops; by retention, comparison, and association of impressions there arises thought and ideation, found only in the higher animals and man, while finally the highest order of sentient beings develops self-consciousness or reflection.
c22.s2.2
¹ Cf. McGovern, *Intr. to Mahāyāna Buddhism*, pp. 144 ff., Suzuki, MB. ch. vi. ; *Muséon*, v. (1904), 370 ff. In this aspect the Vijñānavāda is parallel to the Viçiṣṭādvaita school of Vedānta, while when the evolution is regarded as illusory it is parallel to the Vivartavāda.
c22.s2.3
This may be regarded as the cosmic evolution of consciousness; in the individual the process is traced from the receptacle consciousness in the following mode. The receptacle consciousness gives rise to the corresponding receptacle consciousness of the individual, as well as to the sense organs and sense objects. Then develops—from the influence of past impressions—the infected or defiled mind (*kliṣṭa-manas*), which distinguishes subject and object; fecundated by the receptacle consciousness, it becomes aware of a world as external, and confers on it mental determinations of form and shape. Then develops mind or normal consciousness (*mano-vijñāna*), which discriminates between the various phenomena, and it, fecundated by the receptacle consciousness, develops the conception of like and dislike, associating it with other matters as cause and effect, &c. Then come the five forms of consciousness corresponding to the sense organs, visual, oral, nasal, taste, and touch consciousness, which, fecundated by the receptacle consciousness, give the presentation of the world of experience. The interaction of the whole body of these factors is necessary for the knowledge of the world; without, for instance, sight consciousness there could be no vision of colour, but mind is necessary for the discrimination of phenomena; without the infected mind one could not discriminate form or size, and without the receptacle consciousness neither the individual nor the world would exist. Or, in the terminology of causation, mind is the cause proper (hetu), infected mind and the receptacle consciousness the conditions (pratyaya), and the experienced world the fruit. The ordinary mind sees in the infected mind the final reality; Bodhisattvas recognize beneath it the receptacle consciousness as its prius.