A study of Yogācāra cognitive models: From a successive to a simultaneous framework

This paper examines competing cognitive models in the Yogācāra tradition, focusing on the Yogācārabhūmi and later Yogācāra literature. The Basic Section (*Maulī Bhūmi) of the Yogācārabhūmi maintains that the five [types of] sensory consciousness (pañcavijñānakāya) and mental consciousness (manovijñāna) cannot arise within the same moment. Articulated through the five states of mind theory, this position constitutes the successive cognitive model. However, it faces difficulties in explaining multisensory simultaneity, the integrated perception of object-properties, and the fulfillment of our purposes (arthakriyā). By contrast, the Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī chapter and later Yogācāra philosophers develop the simultaneous cognitive modelin which sensory and mental consciousness function together toward the same cognitive object (ālambana). This study argues that these accounts reflect an evolving framework rather than a static opposition, as later Yogācāra thinkers revised earlier theories to address their explanatory limitations.