The term “amalavijñāna”, in its original meaning, is “consciousness without taint”. Yet, some modern scholars observe that Paramārtha tends,whether in its translaton or commentaries, to interpret the connotation of “amalavijñāna” as containing some of the thoughts of “Tathāgatagarbha” or being “Tathāgatagarbha” itself. In this paper, I try to inspect the conception of amalavijñāna according to Paramārtha’s translations as well as the commentaries. I have found, in the works such as Jueding zang lun 決定藏論, Zhuanshi lun 轉識論, San wuxing lun 三無性論, that the conception of amalavijñāna contains the meaning of “conversion of the basis” (āśrayaparāvṛtti) and the idea of “the nonconceptual awareness” (nirvikalpajñāna) which means consciousness and its objects are all vanished. The term also holds the meaning of fundamentally pure mind (prakṛtiviśuddhacitta) in Shiba kong lun 十八空論. According to these texts, I think that Paramārtha, based on the doctrine of the Yogācāra, translates the “conversion of the basis” (āśrayaparāvṛtti) as “amalavijñāna” to mean the state of nonconceptual awareness (nirvikalpajñāna) when consciousness and its objects are all vanished. In the Shiba kong lun 十八空論, Paramārtha explained the emptiness (śūynatā) by referring to “amalavijñāna” as “fundamentally pure mind” (prakṛtiviśuddhacitta). In terms of the historical development of Buddhist texts, the usage of emptiness, explained as the idea of “the light and pure of the mind’s nature” (prakṛtiś cittasya prabhāsvarā, 心性的明淨) in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, is no different from the thoughts of the Yogācāra school. Therefore I conclude that the usage of term “amalavijñāna” by Paramārtha and the thoughts of Yogācāra school is in concord.
