Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c9.s3.4

c9.s3.4

Intellect (*viññāṇa*) is undoubtedly the chief term which comprehensively covers mental phenomena in the Canon, as might be expected from the earlier Brahmanical tendency to use the word in this generic way. It represents such unity as there is in the self of experience. Synonymous with Viññāṇa, according to Buddhaghosa and to usage, are Citta and Manas, but there are obvious preferences in use; Viññāṇa often occurs in special connexion with sense cognition; Manas again is, in accordance with Brahmanical usage, preminently the intellectual function of consciousness, and Citta the introspective aspect of self-examination, but these are only nuances. From Brahmanical tradition the compound Nāma-rūpa serves to denote spirit and matter, specialized normally to denote the concrete individual, in which both are united, while the old term self (attā) constantly occurs in those phrases which are the source of its reflexive use in grammar, when the person is divided mentally into a dominant part and its object.