Vāsanā
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Vāsanā (Sanskrit; Devanagari: वासना) is a behavioural tendency or karmic imprint which influences the present behaviour of a person. It is a technical term in
Indian philosophy Indian philosophy consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The philosophies are often called darśana meaning, "to see" or "looking at." Ānvīkṣikī means “critical inquiry” or “investigation." Unlike darśan ...
, particularly
Yoga Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...
, as well as
Buddhist philosophy Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian Indian philosophy, philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the Philosophy, philosophical investigations and Buddhist logico-episte ...
and Advaita Vedanta.


Nomenclature, orthography and etymology

''Vāsanā'' (Devanagari: वासना, ) and its near
homonym In linguistics, homonyms are words which are either; '' homographs''—words that mean different things, but have the same spelling (regardless of pronunciation), or '' homophones''—words that mean different things, but have the same pronunciat ...
''vasana'' (Devanagari: वसन) are from the same Indo-European linguistic root, sharing a common theme of 'dwelling' or 'abiding'. * ''Vāsanā'' (Devanagari: वासना): ** Past impressions, impressions formed, the present consciousness of past (life) perceptions; ** The impression of anything in the mind, the present consciousness formed from past perceptions, knowledge derived from memory, the impressions remaining in the mind; ** Thinking of, longing for, expectation, desire, inclination. * ''Vasana'' (Devanagari: वसन): cloth, clothes, dress, garment, apparel, attire, dwelling or abiding.


Buddhism

Keown (2004) defines the term generally within Buddhism as follows:
"vāsanā (Skt.). Habitual tendencies or dispositions, a term, often used synonymously with bīja (‘seed’). It is found in Pāli and early Sanskrit sources but comes to prominence with the Yogācāra, for whom it denotes the latent energy resulting from actions which are thought to become ‘imprinted’ in the subject's storehouse-consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna). The accumulation of these habitual tendencies is believed to predispose one to particular patterns of behaviour in the future."
Sandvik (2007: unpaginated) states that: D.T. Suzuki (1930) in The Lankavatara Sutra, connects vasana to its other meaning, 'infusing': "Discrimination is the result of memory (vasana) accumulated from the unknown past. Vasana literally means "perfuming," or "fumigation," that is, it is a kind of energy that is left behind when an act is accomplished and has the power to rekindle the old and seek out new impressions. Through this "perfuming," reflection takes place which is the same thing as discrimination, and we have a world of opposites and contraries with all its practical consequences. The triple world, so called, is therefore the shadow of a self-reflecting and self-creating mind. Hence the doctrine of "Mind-only" (cittamdtra)." p.96


Cheng Weishi Lun

Lusthaus states that the '' Cheng Weishi Lun'' (Chinese: 成唯識論), a commentary on
Vasubandhu Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; floruit, fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential Indian bhikkhu, Buddhist monk and scholar. He was a philosopher who wrote commentary on the Abhidharma, from the perspectives of th ...
's '' Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā'', lists three types of vāsanā, which are synonymous with 'bija' or 'seeds': # Vāsanā of 'names and words' or 'terms and words (Chinese: ming-yen hsi-chi'i) which equates to 'latent linguistic conditioning'. These seeds, planted in the 'root consciousness' (Sanskrit: alaya-vijnana) by 'terms and words' are the 'causes' (Sanskrit: hetu) and 'conditions' (Sanskrit: pratyaya) of each 'conditioned or caused element or phenomena' (Sanskrit: samskrita dharma). There are two forms: ## 'Terms and words indicating a referent' (Chinese: piao-yi ming yen) through which a mindstream is able to express (Chinese: ch'uan) meanings (yi, artha, referent) by differentiation of vocal sounds (Chinese: yin-sheng ch'a-pieh); and ## 'Terms and words revealing perceptual-fields' (Chinese: hsien-ching ming wen), through which a mindstream discerns (Sanskrit: vijnapti, upalabdhi) perceptual-fields (Sanskrit: visaya) as ' phenomena of mind' (Sanskrit: citta dharma; caitta dharmas). # Vasanas of self-attachment (Sanskrit: atma-graha-vasana; Chinese: wo-chih hsi-ch'i) denoting the false attachment to the seeds of 'me' and 'mine'. # Vasanas which link streams-of-being (Sanskrit: bhavanga-vasana; Chinese: yu-chih hsi-ch'i) denoting the karmic seeds, 'differently maturing (Sanskrit: vipaka) that carry over (Chinese: chao) from one stream-of-being to another in the Three Worlds (Sanskrit: '' Triloka''). The bhavanga (linkage from one stream-of-being to the next) is of two types: ## Contaminated yet advantageous (Sanskrit: sasrava-kusala; Chinese: yu-lou shan) that is actions (Sanskrit: karma) which produce desirable (Chinese: k'e-ai) fruits; and ## Disadvantageous, that is actions which produce undesirable fruits.


Bon & Dzogchen

Bag chags are important in Bonpo soteriology, especially the view of the Bonpo
Dzogchen Dzogchen ( 'Great Completion' or 'Great Perfection'), also known as ''atiyoga'' ( utmost yoga), is a tradition of teachings in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Bön aimed at discovering and continuing in the ultimate ground of existence. The goal ...
pa, where it is fundamentally related to the key doctrines of ' Primordial Purity' ( As Karmay relates in his English rendering of the Bonpo text 'Kunzi Zalshay Selwai Gronma' () from the Tibetan:Samten Karmay 1988, 2007: p. 183


Hinduism


Vaishanavism

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (5.11.5) (also known as the Bhagavata
Purana Puranas (Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
(1995 Editio ...
), a principal text for the
Vaishnava Vaishnavism () ), also called Vishnuism, is one of the major Hindu traditions, that considers Vishnu as the sole supreme being leading all other Hindu deities, that is, '' Mahavishnu''. It is one of the major Hindu denominations along wit ...
tradition of Sanatana Dharma employs the term 'vasana': A satisfactory English rendering has not yet been sourced, but the import is that the 'imprinted-volitions-of-mind' (vāsanātmā), whether pious or impious, are conditioned by the Gunas. The gunas propel the mind into different 'formations' (rūpa-bhedam). The 'mind' ( atma) is the master of the sixteen material elements. Its 'refined or coarse quality' (antaḥ-bahiṣṭvam) determines the mind-formations of manifestation (tanoti).


Advaita Vedanta

A vasana literally means 'wishing' or 'desiring', but is used in Advaita in the sense of the sub-conscious or latent tendencies in one’s nature. Writing from an Advaita Vedanta perspective, Waite refers to a model offered by Edward de Bono:


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vasana Advaita Vedanta Habits Sanskrit words and phrases Theravada