yogachara

Vijnanavada (often spelled Vigyanvad or Vijñānavāda) is a prominent school of Mahayana Buddhism that emerged in India around the 4th century CE. It is also widely known as Yogachara (the school of "yoga practice") because it emphasizes meditative techniques to realize its philosophical truths. 

The central doctrine of Vijnanavada is Vijnapti-matra or Citta-matra, which translates to “consciousness-only” or "mind-only." 

• Rejection of External Objects: The school asserts that the external world we perceive—objects, people, and the universe—does not exist independently of the mind.
• Mental Projections: Everything we experience is considered a projection or      modification of consciousness, similar to how objects in a dream appear real despite having no external basis.
• Ultimate Reality: According to Vijnanavada, the only thing that is truly real is consciousness itself; physical phenomena are merely "representations" within the mind. 

While earlier Buddhist schools recognized six forms of consciousness (five senses plus the thinking mind), Vijnanavada introduced two more to explain how karma and identity persist: 

1. Alaya-vijnana (Storehouse Consciousness): The most important concept, this serves as a "storehouse" for karmic "seeds" (impressions from past actions) that later sprout into our current experiences.
2. Manas (Defiled Mind): The faculty that creates the false sense of a permanent "self" or "I" by misinterpreting the storehouse consciousness as an ego. 

• Founders: The school was founded and systematized by the Buddhist brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu.
• Goal: The aim of its practice is to transform the "defiled" consciousness into "pure" wisdom (prajna) through meditation, eventually transcending the dualism of subject (the perceiver) and object (the perceived). 

Yogachara is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditation, as well as philosophical reasoning (hetuvidyā). Yogachara was one of the two most influential traditions of Mahayana Buddhism in India, along with Madhyamaka. 

The compound Yogācāra literally means "practice of yoga,” or "one whose practice is yoga," hence the name of the school is literally "the school of the yogins." Yogācāra was also variously termed Vijñānavāda (the doctrine of consciousness), Vijñaptivāda (the doctrine of ideas or percepts or Vijñaptimātratā-vāda (the doctrine of 'mere representation'), which is also the name given to its major theory of mind which seeks to deconstruct how we perceive the world. There are several interpretations of this main theory, which include various forms of idealism, as well as phenomenology or representationalism. Aside from this, Yogācāra also developed an elaborate analysis of consciousness (vijñāna) and mental phenomena (dharmas), as well as an extensive system of Buddhist spiritual practice, i.e. yoga. 

The movement has been traced to the first centuries of the common era and seems to have evolved as some yogis of the Sarvāstivāda and Sautrāntika traditions in north India adopted Mahayana Buddhism. The brothers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu (both c. 4-5th century) are considered the classic philosophers and systematizers of this school, while it is also traditionally attributed by Buddhist believers to the figure of Maitreya-nātha. Yogācāra was later imported to Tibet and East Asia by figures like Shantaraksita (8th century) and Xuanzang (7th-century). Today, Yogācāra ideas and texts continue to be influential subjects of study for Tibetan Buddhism and East Asian Buddhism.

Yogācāra philosophy is primarily meant to aid in the practice of yoga and meditation and thus it also sets forth a systematic analysis of the Mahayana path of mental training. Yogācārins made use of ideas from previous traditions to develop a novel analysis of conscious experience and a corresponding schema for Mahāyāna spiritual practice. Yogācāra sutras such as the Saṅdhinirmocana Sūtra developed various core concepts such as vijñapti-mātra, the ālaya-vijñāna (store consciousness), the turning of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti), the three natures (trisvabhāva), and emptiness. These form a complex system, and each can be taken as a point of departure for understanding Yogācāra.