Does the manas have a starting point?

Question: An arhat liberated in both ways (ubhayato-bhāga-vimutta) has the ability to extinguish the manas, causing the five aggregates and eighteen realms to disappear. After an arhat liberated in both ways has extinguished the manas, is it possible for the manas to arise again from the tathāgatagarbha? If that is possible, wouldn't the manas then have a point of beginning?

Answer: After nirvāṇa without remainder, when rebirth occurs again, the manas will of course have a point of beginning. Before entering nirvāṇa without remainder, however, there is no point of beginning, because beginningless kalpas ago there was already fundamental ignorance in the mind, and therefore the manas could not be extinguished.

When entering nirvāṇa without remainder, the manas is extinguished—who extinguishes the manas? Is there one who extinguishes the manas? If there is, then there is still a self, a master who decides. At the time of approaching nirvāṇa, if the manas has the thought "I want to extinguish myself," with such a mental intention, then attachment has not been severed, and one cannot enter nirvāṇa without remainder. If the tathāgatagarbha were to extinguish the manas, then the tathāgatagarbha would have the nature of a master, possessing that kind of self-nature belonging to the seven consciousnesses, and would no longer be the tathāgatagarbha of selflessness. Only when the manas has abandoned all hopes, with not even the mental factors manifesting, and the tathāgatagarbha, having no alternative, can no longer transmit seeds—only then can the manas itself disappear.