The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s8.40

v2.c40.s8.40

Vijñāna, discriminating knowledge, which is made a synonym of mind in the Pāli Canon, is sometimes merely a function of mind,¹³ but it also occurs not rarely in the older Upaniṣads with a distinct implication of a superior form of knowledge to the mere action of mind; thus hearing, thinking, and discriminating, or seeing, thinking, and discriminating, are enumerated, and in the final doctrine, which denies the possibility of knowing that which knows all, the term used is *vijñā*.¹ But this idea is not formally developed, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Upaniṣads.