Vijñanavada an idealist school of Buddhist thought in India in the fourth century A.D. It engaged in lively debates on important epistemological and metaphysical issues with the Buddhist Madhyamika school (known for its relativistic and nihilistic views), with Buddhist realist schools, and with various Hindu philosophical systems of its time. Madhyamika philosophy used effective dialectic to show the contradictions in our everyday philosophical notions such as cause, substance, self, etc., but the Vijñanavada school, while agreeing with the Madhyamikas on this point, went further and gave innovative explanations regarding the origin and the status of our mental constructions and of the mind itself. Unlike the Madhyamikas, who held that reality is ’emptiness’ (sunyata), the Vijñanavadins held that the reality is consciousness or the mind (vijñana). The Vijñanavada school is also known as Yogacara. Its idealism is remarkably similar to the subjective idealism of Berkeley. Consistent with the process ontology of all the Buddhist schools in India, Vijñanavadins held that consciousness or the mind is not a substance but an ever-changing stream of ideas or impressions. See also BUD- DHIS. D.K.C.