Abstract:
Yogācāra viññānavada was one school of Buddhism that originated during 04 B.C. They
emphasized a very specific philosophical point of view on the existence of environmental facts.
Yogācāra school of Buddhism looked at the world as a mere representation of the
consciousness. It means that the world and its surrounding is only a concept created by man in
his mind. For example, the person who is suffering from eye disease sees the ball of hair as a
moon circuit. In the same manner, the man who adheres to defilements looks at the external
world and atmosphere as real. This is called mere representation of the consciousness
(viñaptimātratā).This matter was explained by Yogācāra depending on the early Buddhist
causality. According to Yogācāra there are three evolutions of mind as pravurti
viññāna,manana viññāna and ālaya viññāna. The dynamic process of these three evolutions of
mind cause to create mere concepts on the external world and the defilements that originated
through the above process exists throughout the Saṁsāra. Further, Yogācāra viññānavavadins
emphasized three natures of all the phenomena. They are 1)parikalpita, 2)paratantra and
3)pariniṣpanna. In this category parikalpita means universal nature of phenomena or
appearance of phenomena. Paratantra means understanding of fact that cause the origin of
above phenomena and pariṣispanna means realization of true nature of phenomena
(environmental fact) as mere representation of consciousness. Thus according the above factors
Yogācāra viññānavavadins’ attitudes toward the environmental fact is, that every phenomenon
is a mere concept created in the mind itself. Through this teaching they emphasized nonsubstantiality
of the individual and non-substantiality of elements. Therefore they are known as
Dharmavadins.
