Ālaya-vijñānaṁ
ālaya-vijñānaṁ
vijñānaṁ
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Edgerton (2004:II:196) notes the common Sanskrit meaning of ālaya as "home" or "habitation" and the Buddhist technical meaning as "firm basis, fundamental base". Kochumuttom (2008:135) translates ālayavijñāna as "store-consciousness". Suzuki (1999:390) translates ālayavijñāna as "the all-conserving mind" and provides citations to use of the phrase in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, where it appears frequently. Edgerton notes Laṅk 2.13 in particular: "looking on the waves of the sea, stirred in the range (viṣaye) of the wind of the active vijñāna and the ocean of the basal vijñāna, and looking on the minds (of the people there)". In that passage ālayavijñāna ("the basal vijñāna") is the ocean and pravṛttivijñāna the wind which sirs it. Edgerton cites Lamotte's translation of the compound ālaya-vijñāna as "connaissance-réceptacle" or "basic, fundamental, underlying vijñāna" where ālaya means "ultimate basis", identified sometimes with citta and opposed to manas.
Williams (2009:97) translates ālaya-vijñāna as "substratum consciousness".
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