[Advaita-l] Chittam and Manas &c, defs:

[jiva das]

I believe that Shankara made a note about the quadri-form <mano-buddhi-cittAhaMkAra> as being fourfold like the <karpaNa>s of a quarter-dollar, not like the legs of a cow.Manas is one part of the quaternity; but manas also contains buddhi-cittam-ahaMkAra.

Ramana has somewhere mentioned this, but he makes Chittam the included part. 

How would you distinguish manas buddhi chittam and ahaMkAra in definitions? 


I myself see manas as the Hard Drive of the computer. 

Buddhi is the Software. If the Manas knows an apple, Buddhi finds distinctions like redness, roundness, tartness, and crispness. 

Chittam, as I read it, provides a preference about how sweet it is. Isherwood, in his co-translation with Prabhavananda of VCh, calls it "the Affective faculty": a western psychological term worth thinking about.

And there is ahaM-kAra, the "I-Form", as a-kAra is the form of the letter "a".


I would love to hear the views of you mahAvedAntinaH about these simple terms.


I touch your feet.


jd
 


saMtoSaH paramo lAbhaH sat-saGgaH paramA gatiH | 
vicAraH paramaM jJAnaM zamo hi paramaM sukham [Yoga Vasishtha 2.16.19] 
   = Contentment is the highest gain, Good Company the highest course, Enquiry the highest wisdom, and Peace the highest enjoyment.
http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/vasishtha/

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