The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1601 page)

 
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(Skt.,
m
la
, ‘root’, +
vijñ
na
, ‘consciousness’). A doctrine characteristic of the
Mah
s
ghika
school of early Indian Buddhism. As a consequence of the centrality of the teachings on impermanence (
anicca
), and notself (
an
tman
), it was felt necessary in the developing Buddhist systems to account for mental continuity in individuals, particularly between one existence and another, and after deep meditational trances, without committing the essentialist fallacy of
Upani
adic
teachers who posited a permanent soul (
tman
). The notion of a basic consciousness (
m
lavijñ
na
) is the solution arrived at by the Mah
s
ghikas. It is an anticipation of the distinctive Yog