Concept
Svasaṃvedana
Overview
In Buddhist philosophy, svasaṃvedana (also svasaṃvitti) is a term which refers to the reflexive nature of consciousness, or the awareness of being aware. It was initially a theory of cognition held by the Mahāsaṃghika and Sautrāntika schools while the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika school argued against it.
The idea was famously defended by the Indian philosopher Dignāga, and is an important doctrinal term in Indian Mahāyāna thought and Tibetan Buddhism. It is also often translated as self-cognition or self-apperception, and by Malcolm Smith as "one's own vidyā."
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
The nature is not formed from without as men make a table; this is also made with understanding, but through an understanding outside of this wood. This external form, which is called the understanding, immediately occurs to us in speaking of the understanding; but here the universal is meant, that which is the immanent nature of the object itself. The _νοῦς_ is thus not a thinking existence from without which…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what Svasaṃvedana is.
Now beings which, like plants, have no faculty for representation, are called unconscious, and we conceive this condition as only slightly differing from non-existence; since the only existence such beings have, is in the consciousness of others, as the representation of those others. They are nevertheless not wanting in what is primary in existence, the will, but only in what is secondary; still, what is…
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature
States what Svasaṃvedana is.
Thus far we have seen the theories of these Advaitist philosophers, how there is but one _Âtman_; there cannot be two. We have seen how in the whole of this universe there is but One Existence, and that One Existence when seen through the senses is called the world, the world of matter. When It is seen through the mind It is called the world of thoughts and ideas, and when It is seen as it is, then It is the One…
Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II
States what Svasaṃvedana is.
Philosophers who discussed Svasaṃvedana
Related ideas
- Cognition
- Hongzhi Zhengjue
- Dignāga
- Je Tsongkhapa
- Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana
- Kuiji
- Nyingma
- Vaibhāṣika
- Soteriology
- Sarvastivada
- Saṃsāra
- Tattvasiddhi Śāstra
- Dharmakirti
- Sōtō
- Dzogchen
- Gelug
- Xuanzang
- Jamgön Ju Mipham Gyatso
- Kamalaśīla
- Mahamudra
- Evan Thompson
- Abhidharma
- Svatantrika–Prasaṅgika distinction
- Śāntarakṣita
Place in the tradition
Part of Buddhist philosophy.