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The eightfold network of primary consciousnesses
All surviving schools of buddhist thought accept – "in common" – the existence of the first six primary consciousnesses (Sanskrit: , ). The internally coherent school associated with Maitreya, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu, however, uniquely – or "uncommonly" – also posits the existence of two additional primary consciousnesses, ' and ', in order to explain the workings of karma. The first six of these primary consciousnesses comprise the five sensory faculties together with mental consciousness, which is counted as the sixth. According to Gareth Sparham, "The ' doctrine arose on the Indian subcontinent about one thousand years before Tsong kha pa. it gained its place in a distinctly system over a period of some three hundred years stretching from 100 to 400, culminating in the ', a short text by Asaṅga (circa 350), setting out a systematic presentation of the  doctrine developed over the previous centuries.  It is the doctrine found in this text in particular that Tsong kha pa, in his Ocean of Eloquence, treats as having been revealed in toto by the Buddha and transmitted to suffering humanity through the  founding saints (Tib. shing rta srol byed): Maitreya [-nātha], Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu."While some noteworthy modern scholars of the Gelug tradition (which was originally founded by Tsongkhapa's reforms to Atisha's Kadam school) assert that the ' is posited only in the Cittamatra philosophical tenet system, all non-Gelug schools of Tibetan buddhism maintain that the ' is accepted by the various Madhyamaka schools, as well. The eightfold network of primary consciousnesses – ' in Sanskrit (from compounding ', "eight", with , "primary consciousness"), or  –  is roughly sketched out in the following table.