ĀLAYA-VIJÑĀNA (Tib., kun gzhi rnam par shes pa; Chin., a lai ye shi) is the Sanskrit term denoting, roughly, "storehouse" consciousness, a conception of unconscious mental processes developed by the Yogācāra school of Indian Buddhism in the third to fifth centuries CE. Ālaya-vijñāna appears in such "Yogācāra" scriptures as the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, but is most systematically treated in the scholastic treatises of Asaṅga (c. 315–390) and Vasubandhu (c. mid-fourth to mid-fifth centuries). It originally addressed problems surrounding the continuity of karmic potential (karma-upacaya) and the latent afflictions (anuśaya) that had been generated by the abhidharma emphasis upon momentary, manifest processes of mind. How, after all, could these two essential aspects of one's samsaric existence—the potential for karma to ripen and...