In the Pañcavijñānakāyasaṃprayukta-bhūmi, the first chapter of the Basic Section (BS) of the Yogācārabhūmi, a statement, illustrated with an example of the arising of the visual consciousness, indicates that the arising of consciousness must be fully supplied with three necessary factors, that is, the faculty of sense, the object, and the attention (manaskāra, the function that directs consciousness towards its object). In the statement, both the two expressions “attention” and “visual consciousness” are affixed with the word tajja. Generally, tajja is regarded as a compound of tad + ja, with tad referring to the aforementioned statement. Thus tajja can be interpreted as “arisen from that.” Nevertheless, both the Chinese and Tibetan translations show different understandings when translating tajjo manaskāraḥ. Moreover, as Muroji Yoshihito points out, Vasubandhu explained tajja as “to make that arise” or “to arise in order of that.” Muroji also mentioned the statement in the BS, but did not pursue the matter further.
This article will focus on the statement in the BS and discuss an explanation found in the Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī of the Yogācārabhūmi, revealing that in the Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī, tajja is understood in its basic meaning as “arisen from that,” which offers a suggestion for the explanation of tajjo manaskāraḥ in the BS.
