Buddhi


Buddhi is a Vedic Sanskrit word that means the intellectual faculty and the power to "form and retain concepts, reason, discern, judge, comprehend, understand".

Etymology

Buddhi is derived from the Vedic Sanskrit root Budh, which literally means "to wake, be awake, observe, heed, attend, learn, become aware of, to know, be conscious again". The term appears extensively in Rigveda and other Vedic literature. Buddhi means, states Monier Williams, the power to "form, retain concepts; intelligence, reason, intellect, mind", the intellectual faculty and the ability to "discern, judge, comprehend, understand" something.
Buddhi is a feminine Sanskrit noun derived from *budh, to be awake, to understand, to know. The same root is the basis for the more familiar masculine form Buddha and the abstract noun bodhi.
Buddhi contrasts from manas which means "mind", and ahamkara which means "ego, I-sense in egotism".

Usage

In Sankhya and yogic philosophy both the mind and the ego are forms in the realm of nature that have emerged into materiality as a function of the three gunas through a misapprehension of purusha . Discriminative in nature, buddhi is that which is able to discern truth from falsehood and thereby to make wisdom possible.