Bhavaṅga (Pali, "ground of becoming", "condition for existence"), also bhavanga-sota and bhavanga-citta is a passive mode of intentional consciousness (citta) described in the Abhidhamma of Theravada Buddhism.
[1] It is an exclusively Theravada doctrine that differs from Sarvastivadin and Sautrantika theories of mind, and has been compared to the Mahayana concept of store-consciousness.
[10] Nyanatiloka Thera suggests that the bhavanga can be used to explain continuity of the personality in a lifetime, but that the nervous system could also be the register in which sense impressions are stored.
[11] Nyanatiloka sees the bhavanga as a type of unconscious mental process: “Herein since time immemorial, all impressions and experiences are, as it were, stored up or, better said, are functioning but concealed as such to full consciousness from where however they occasionally emerge as subconscious phenomena and approach the threshold of full consciousness.”[12]Other scholars like Steven Collins imply that this is a blank state of mind, empty with no content.
[14] One contemporary Theravada teacher, Ajahn Brahm, claims that bhavaṅga is an incorrect, and unhelpful interpretation of the Buddha's teaching on dependent origination.