DHARMIC SEEDS IN THE GROUND OF CONSCIOUSNESS: BOTANICAL COGNITIVE METAPHORS OF THE ĀLAYAVIJÑĀNA IN THE MAHĀYĀNASAṂGRAHA (original) (raw)

In Buddhist literature the application of metaphors and other affiliated forms of comparison are significant. The current study examines the core concept of the Yogācāra tradition, the ālayavijñāna, through the working of metaphoric models associated with it. Specifically, employing the method of Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) within the textual framework of the first chapter of Asanga’s Mahāyānasaṃgraha. The metaphors under investigation in this study are predominantly “dead metaphors” within the Buddhist traditions. Hence, by examining their metaphoric structures and functions, they are essentially being revived to their original metaphoric state and conceptualization and to gain insight about their effect on the subject matter of the ālayavijñāna. CMT proposes that metaphors are cognitive in nature. They create meaning by bringing two concepts, a topic and vehicle, into contact with each other, causing their distinct meanings to interact, where relationships from the vehicle field are transferred to the topic domain to construct relationships in it. This mapping of vehicle to topic functions for individual terms through semantic fields, but also their relationships through grammatical syntactic analysis. Findings from the current thesis show that the major metaphoric model employed by the Yogācāra tradition for explicating the concept of the ālayavijñāna is a botanical model. The vehicle field of “seeds” (bīja), the growth of the plant life, the “granary”, “field” and “ground” are utalized as topic domain which express the relationship between the potentiality of dharmas and the ālayavijñāna. The cognitive aspect of metaphors found in the text sustains networks of meanings and characteristics of ālayavijñāna, as well as confines and delimits the framework in which one understands its function. The purposeful employment of botanical metaphors for the ālayavijñāna reveals implications unique to this system of thought. Through cognitive metaphor analysis, the current thesis proposes to gain an understanding into how ancient Buddhist practitioners and intellectuals understood, constructed and conveyed the dynamics of consciousness with the use of metaphors, as well as what cognitive implications and effects of these metaphors have on the understanding of a present day reader.

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