with the S'unyavadins whom we have already described.
All the dharmas (qualities and substances) are but imaginary
constructions of ignorant minds. There is no movement in the
so-called external world as we suppose, for it does not exist. We
construct it ourselves and then are ourselves deluded that it exists
by itself (_nirmmitapratimohi_) [Footnote ref 1]. There are two functions
involved in our consciousness, viz. that which holds the perceptions
(_khyati vijnana_), and that which orders them by imaginary constructions
(_vastuprativikalpavijnana_). The two functions however mutually
determine each other and cannot be separately distinguished
(_abhinnalak@sa@ne anyonyahetuke_). These functions are set to work
on account of the beginningless instinctive tendencies inherent
in them in relation to the world of appearance
(_anadikala-prapanca-vasanahetukanca_) [Footnote ref 2].

All sense knowledge can be stopped only when the diverse

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[Footnote 1: _Lankavatarasutra_, pp. 21-22.]

[Footnote 2 _Ibid._ p. 44.]

146

unmanifested instincts of imagination are stopped
(_abhuta-parikalpa-vasana-vaicitra-nirodha_)
[Footnote ref 1]. All our phenomenal knowledge
is without any essence or truth (_nihsvabhava_) and is but a
creation of maya, a mirage or a dream. There is nothing which
may be called external, but all is the imaginary creation of the
mind (_svacitta_), which has been accustomed to create imaginary
appearances from beginningless time. This mind by whose movement
these creations take place as subject and object has no
appearance in itself and is thus without any origination, existence
and extinction (_utpadasthitibha@ngavarjjam_) and is called the
alayavijnana. The reason why this alayavijnana itself is said to be
without origination, existence, and extinction is probably this,
that it is always a hypothetical state which merely explains all
the phenomenal states that appear, and therefore it has no existence
in the sense in which the term is used and we could not
affirm any special essence of it.

We do not realize that all visible phenomena are of nothing
external but of our own mind (_svacitta_), and there is also the
beginningless tendency for believing and creating a phenomenal world
of appearance. There is also the nature of knowledge (which
takes things as the perceiver and the perceived) and there is also
the instinct in the mind to