viññāṇaṁ — Concordance

1. 1 Viññāṇa Viññāṇa

   PTS Pali-English Dictionary (Rhys Davids & Stede, 1921-25)

   Entry ID

   lex:pli:Viññāṇa

   Normalized headword

   vinnana

   Entry locator

   Viññāṇa

   Display posture

   not reported

   Entry body

   served

   Audit

   pending_source_review

   Review

   source_pending

   Short gloss · not a complete definition

   neuter (as special term in Buddhist metaphysics) a mental quality as a constituent of individuality, the bearer of (individual) life, life-force (as extending also over rebirths), principle of conscious life, general consciousness (as function of mind and matter), regenerative force animation, mind

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   neuter (as special term in Buddhist metaphysics) a mental quality as a constituent of individuality, the bearer of (individual) life, life-force (as extending also over rebirths), principle of conscious life, general consciousness (as function of mind and matter), regenerative force animation, mind as transmigrant, as transforming (according to individual kamma) one individual life (after death) into the next. (See also below, c & d). In this (fundamental) application it may be characterized as the sensory and perceptive activity commonly expressed by “mind.” It is difficult to give any one word for v., because there is much difference between the old Buddhist and our modern points of view, and there is a varying use of the term in the Canon itself. In what may be a very old Sutta SN.ii.95 v. is given as a synonym of citta (q.v.) and mano (q.v.), in opposition to kāya used to mean body. This simpler unecclesiastical unscholastic popular meaning is met with in other suttas. E.g. the body (kāya) is when animated called sa-viññāṇaka (q.v. and cp. viññāṇatta). Again v. was supposed, at the body’s death, to pass over into another body ( SN.i.122 ; SN.iii.124 ) and so find a support or platform (patiṭṭhā). It was also held to be an immutable persistent substance, a view strongly condemned ( MN.i.258 ). Since, however, the persistence of v. from life to life is declared ( DN.ii.68 ; SN.iii.54 ), we must judge that it is only the immutable persistence that is condemned. V. was justly conceived more as “minding” than as “mind.” Its form is participial. For later variants of the foregoing cp. Mil.86 ; Pv-a.63 , Pv-a.219 . Ecclesiastical scholastic dogmatic considers v. under the categories of (a) khandha; (b) dhātu; (c) paṭiccasamuppāda; (d) āhāra; (e) kāya. V. as fifth of the five khandhas (q.v.) is never properly described or defined. It is an ultimate. But as a factor of animate existence it is said to be the discriminating (vijānāti) of e.g. tastes or sapid things ( SN.iii.87 ), or, again, of pleasant or painful feeling ( MN.i.292 ). It is in no wise considered as a condition, or a climax of the other incorporeal khandhās. It is just one phase among others of mental life. In mediaeval dogmatic it appears rather as the bare phenomenon of aroused attention, the other khandhās having been reduced to adjuncts or concomitants brought to pass by the arousing of v. ( Cpd. 13), and as such classed under cetasikā, the older sankhārakkhandha- as dhātu , v. occurs only in the category of the four elements with space as a sixth element, and also where dhātu is substituted for khandha ( SN.iii.10 ) In the chain of causation ( Paṭicca-samuppāda ) v. is conditioned by the saṅkhāras and is itself a necessary condition of nāma-rūpa (individuality). See e.g. SN.ii.4 , SN.ii.6 , SN.ii.8 , SN.ii.12 etc.; Vin.i.1 ; Vism.545 sq. = Vb-a.150 Vism.558 sq.; Vb-a.169 sq.; Vb-a.192 ■ At SN.ii.4 = SN.iii.61 viññāṇa (in the Paṭicca-samuppāda) is defined in a similar way to the def n under v- ṭṭhiti (see c), viz. as a quality peculiar to (& underlying) each of the 6 senses: “katamaṃ viññāṇaṃ? cha-y-ime viññāṇa-

No etymology pointer was returned for this lemma. This reflects the holdings here, not evidence about the word’s history.