vinnana

viññāṇa

substantif (masculin) : connaissance discriminante, discernement ; habituellement traduit en français par conscience

déclinaison : thème en -a
étymologie : verbe vijānāti
commentaire : par rapport aux autres termes évoquant les fonctions psychiques, mano représente surtout la fonction intellectuelle, rationnelle et conceptuelle, alors que viññaṇā est lié aux fonctions sensorielles et que citta représente plutôt la perception subjective “primaire” du sujet conscient. Dans le lexique de l'Abhidhamma, les trois termes s'emploient pourtant de manière strictement équivalente. Étymologiquement, viññaṇā est un acte de connaissance (ñāṇa), à la fois attention et prise de conscience (plutôt que “conscience” seule), qui discrimine (vi-) un objet sensoriel ; il participe donc activement à la construction d'un “sujet” par rapport aux “objets” des sens. Si, dans les textes anciens, le Buddha insiste sur le caractère éphémère de cette “prise de conscience apparaissant en dépendance des facultés sensorielles” (5 sens physiques et 6e sens mental), viññaṇā sera ultérieurement conçu comme un élément essentiel dans le processus de renaissance et, donc, de l'individualité.

Pali-English Dictionary, TW Rhys Davids & William Stede

(extrait ; lire la totalité : https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/pali_query.py?qs=viññāṇa&searchhws=yes&matchtype=exact)

viññāṇa (nt.) [fr. vi+jñā; cp. Vedic vijñāna cognition] (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 S 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 (S i.122; iii.124) and so find a support or platform (patiṭṭhā). It was also held to be an immutable, persistent substance, a view strongly condemned (M i.258). Since, however, the persistence of v. from life to life is declared (D ii.68; S 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. Miln 86; PvA 63, 219.

Dictionnaire Héritage du Sanscrit, Inria, Gérard Huet (dir.)

vijñāna [act. vijñā_1] n. connaissance, savoir, discernement, compréhension, intellect ; science | phil. connaissance sacrée, science infuse | bd. la connaissance discriminante, un des 5 agrégats [skandha] de l'ego ; c'est la 3e cause de souffrance [pratītyasamutpāda] | bd. conscience en tant que réalité absolue — ifc. connaissance de, compréhension de <iic.> || pali viññāṇa.