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Tattva 16 — The Mind (Manas)

The coordinating mind: it gathers the senses' input and turns it into coherent perception.

Manas is the processing mind — the faculty that takes the raw input of the senses, organizes it into recognizable perceptions, and shuttles attention from one thing to the next. It is the busy coordinator between the senses and the higher faculties of ego and intellect. Together with intellect (buddhi) and the I-maker (ahaṃkāra), manas completes the threefold 'inner instrument' of cognition.

How it traveled

  1. Chāndogya Upaniṣad
    Kuru-Pañcāla region · -700
    explains

Key passages(14)

Chāndogya Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

Very high

'Mind (manas) is better than speech. For as the closed fist holds two amalaka or two kola or two aksha fruits, thus does mind hold speech and name. For if a man is minded in his mind to read the sacre

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Tarka-saṃgraha · Annaṃbhaṭṭa

High

Upadeśasāhasrī · Ādi Śaṅkara

High

Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)

High

Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

High

When it is said, that 'he made three for himself,' that means that he made mind, speech, and breath for himself. As people say, 'My mind was elsewhere, I did not see; my mind was elsewhere, I did not

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Haṭhayoga-pradīpikā · Svātmārāma

High

Kaṭha Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

High

Know the Self to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect (buddhi) the charioteer, and the mind the reins.

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Paramārthasāra · Abhinavagupta

High

Chāndogya Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

High

'As a bird when tied by a string flies first in every direction, and finding no rest anywhere, settles down at last on the very place where it is fastened, exactly in the same manner, my son, that min

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Bhagavad-gītā · Vyāsa (Yoga-bhāṣya commentator)

High

The great Elements, Egoism, Intellect, as also the Unmanifested (Mulâ Prakriti), the ten senses and the one (mind), and the five objects of the senses; desire, hatred, pleasure, pain, the, aggregate,

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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

High

'Yagnavalkya,' he said, 'with how many deities does the Brahman priest on the right protect to-day this sacrifice?' 'By one,' replied Yagnavalkya. 'And which is it?' 'The mind alone; for the mind is e

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Praśna Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

Moderate

The earth and its subtile elements, the water and its subtile elements, the light and its subtile elements, the air and its subtile elements, the ether and its subtile elements; the eye and what can b

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Tantrasāra · Abhinavagupta

Moderate

Vijñāna-bhairava · Anonymous (Bhairava Āgama / Tantra)

Moderate