The Extension and Rejection of Self-Cognition in the Saṃdhinirmocana-Sūtra: A Study of Self-Cognition in Pre-Dignāga Yogācāra Under the Scope of the No-Cognition Sentence

While contemporary scholarship has extensively focused on self-cognition in Dignāga and post-Dignāga Yogācāra traditions, early Yogācāra discussions of this theme remain comparatively understudied. Focusing primarily on the Vijñaptimātra Passage of the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra (SNS) and secondarily on the Mahāyānasaṃgraha (MSA), this paper advances three core arguments. First, the vijñaptimātra theory substantially broadens the scope of self-cognition by integrating inner object-directed cognitive activities into its framework, establishing what this paper terms the “broad sense of self-cognition.” In contrast to the Vaibhāṣika’s Outside-Model (OM), which separates object-directed cognition from self-cognition, the vijñaptimātra framework establishes an alternative Inside-Model (IM) of cognitive operation. The IM further accommodates a narrower form of self-cognition alongside its broad counterpart. Accordingly, the vijñaptimātra doctrine fundamentally reorganizes the classical structure of self-cognition theory. Second, the SNS advances a radical “no-cognition sentence” that universally negates all cognitive activities and thereby rejects this expanded mode of self-cognition. Nevertheless, this radical stance generates several textual tensions and theoretical contradictions, which undermine its validity. Third, the MSA rephrases the no-cognition sentence by using the verb “grasp.” By integrating the trisvabhāva (three natures) doctrine with vijñaptimātra, this new expression restricts the scope of negation exclusively to cognitive activities grounded in the parikalpita-svabhāva (mere illusory nature), while validating cognitive operations pertaining to the paratantra-svabhāva (dependent nature). Meanwhile, according to the IM, these cognitive operations precisely constitute broad-sense self-cognition. Accordingly, through a comparative analysis of these two divergent expressions of the no-cognition sentence, this paper elucidates the doctrinal shift between SNS and MSA attitudes toward expanded self-cognition.