The Manas, deriving its reason of consciousness from the Citta or Âlaya, reflects on it as well as on an external world, and becomes conscious of the distinction between me and not-me. But since this not-I or external world is nothing but an unfoldment of the Âlaya itself, the Manas must be said really to be self-reflecting, when it discriminates between subject and object. If the Âlaya is not yet conscious of itself, the Manas is, as the latter comes to realise the state of self-awareness. The Âlaya is perhaps to be compared in a sense to the Kantian “ego of transcendental apperception”; while the Manas is the actual center of self-consciousness. But the Manas and the Âlaya (or Citta) are not two different things in the sense that one emanates from the other or that one is created by the other. It is better to understand {133} the Manas as a state or condition of the Citta in its evolution. Now, the Manas is not only contemplative, but capable of volition. It awakens the desire to cling to the state of individuation, it harbors egoism, passion, and prejudice; it wills and creates: for Ignorance, the principle of birth-and-death, is there in its full force, and the absolute identity of Suchness is here forever departed. Therefore, the Manas really marks the beginning of concrete, particularising consciousness-waves in the eternal ocean of the All-Conserving Mind. The mind which was hitherto indifferent and neutral here acquires a full consciousness; discriminates between ego and non-ego; feels pain and pleasure; clings to that which is agreeable and shrinks from that which is disagreeable; urges activities according to judgments, false or truthful; memorises what has been experienced, and stores it all:--in short, all the modes of mentation come into play with the awakening of the Manas. According to Açvaghoṣa, with the evolution of the Manas there arise five important psychical activities which characterise the human mind. They are: (1) motility, that is the capability of creating karma; (2) the power to perceive; (3) the power to respond; (4) the power to discriminate; and (5) individuality. Through the exercise of these five functions, the Manas is able to create according to its will, to be a perceiving subject, to respond to the stimuli of an external world, to deliver judgments {134} over what it likes and what it dislikes, and finally to retain all its own “karma-seeds” in the past and to mature them for the future, according to circumstances.