Three concepts of Buddhist philosophy: «thought», «mind», «consciousness» (the problem of translation)
Anastasia Strelkova
Sententiae March 31, 2026 DOI: 10.31649/sent40.02.030 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Thought Mind Consciousness Citta Manas Vijñāna Emptiness Śūnyatā Ākāśa |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that translating Buddhist terms on consciousness requires comparing Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese traditions and translating the whole system, not isolated terms, to avoid incompatibility. |
Abstract
The paper analyses the three main concepts of Buddhist philosophy of consciousness and considers the problem of their translation into Ukrainian. The author shows that it is necessary to compare the terms related to different Buddhist traditions’ (Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese and al.) in order to adequately translate them into modern languages. The analysis of a passage (II.34) from Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa in various translations points out the necessity to translate a whole system of Buddhist terminology, but not the separate terms taken individually, in order to avoid the incompatibility of translated terms with each other. The study uses the author’s original approach to the Buddhist «philosophy of emptiness». The Author interprets it in a wider sense as a union of three constituents: «emptiness of things», «emptiness of concepts» and «emptiness of consciousness». The paper demonstrates that all three terms, in their primary meaning, refer to the «thought-mind-consciousness» as substance, whose ontological substratum is «emptiness»-ākāśa. At the same time every one of these terms has a range of its own meanings and nuances which either do not overlap or even are antonymous by sense.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | 1995 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |