Manasikara, Manasikāra, Mana-kara: 16 definitions
Introduction:
Manasikara means something in Buddhism, Pali, Hinduism, Sanskrit, Jainism, Prakrit. If you want to know the exact meaning, history, etymology or English translation of this term then check out the descriptions on this page. Add your comment or reference to a book if you want to contribute to this summary article.
In Buddhism
Theravada (major branch of Buddhism)
Manasikara refers to “examining an object by means of the mind” in a penetrative manner. Appropriate consideration (of a situation), enabling the developement of healthy actions (kusalass).
Manasikara (“attention”) represents one of the Sabbacittasadharana cetasikas.—Manasikara makes citta and other co-arising cetasikas to attend at the object concerned. Manasikara acts like a steerer and it directs citta and other cetasikas to the right object. Manasikara always arises with each arising citta.
1. Manasikāra (“attention”, “mental advertence” or “reflection”)—as a psychological term, attention belongs to the formation-group (sankhāra-kkhandha; s. Tab. II) and is one of the 7 mental factors (cetasika) that are inseparably associated with all states of consciousness (s. cetanā). In M. 9, it is given as one of the factors representative of mind (nāma) It is the mind's first 'confrontation with an object' and 'binds the associated mental factors to the object.' It is, therefore, the prominent factor in two specific classes of consciousness: i.e. 'advertence (āvajjana, q.v.) at the five sense-doors' (Tab. I, 70) and at the mind-door (Tab. I, 71). These two states of consciousness, breaking through the subconscious life-continuum (bhavanga), form the first stage in the perceptual process (citta-vīthi; s. viññāna-kicca). See Vis.M. XIV, 152.
2. Manasikāra—in a more general sense—appears frequently in the Suttas as yoniso-manasikāra, “wise (or reasoned, methodical) attention” or “wise reflection”. It is said, in M. 2, to counteract the cankers (āsava, q.v.); it is a condition for the arising of right view (s. M. 43), of Stream-entry (s. sotāpattiyanga), and of the factors of enlightenment (s. S. XLVI, 2.49,51). - 'Unwise attention' (ayoniso-manasikāra) leads to the arising of the cankers (s. M. 2) and of the five hindrances (s. S. XLVI, 2.51).
Theravāda is a major branch of Buddhism having the the Pali canon (tipitaka) as their canonical literature, which includes the vinaya-pitaka (monastic rules), the sutta-pitaka (Buddhist sermons) and the abhidhamma-pitaka (philosophy and psychology).
Mahayana (major branch of Buddhism)
Manasikāra (मनसिकार) refers to “thinking”, according to Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra (chapter 19).—Accordingly, “Furthermore, when generosity is practiced, the mind realizes a type of eight-fold noble Path (āṣṭāṅgikamārga): i) by believing in the fruit of generosity (dānaphala), right view (saṃyagdṛṣṭi) is obtained; ii) because the thinking (manasikāra) inherent in this right view is not disturbed, right concept (samyaksaṃkalpa) is obtained; iii) because physical activities are purified (kāyacaryā), right action is obtained (samyakkarmmanta); v) because reward (vipāka) is not sought after, right livelihood (samyagājīva) is obtained; [...]”.
Manasikāra (मनसिकार) refers to “mental efforts”, according to the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā: the eighth chapter of the Mahāsaṃnipāta (a collection of Mahāyāna Buddhist Sūtras).—Accordingly, “When this had been said, the Lord said to the Bodhisattva, the great being Gaganagañja: ‘[...] Just as the sky opens up a possibility for all living beings, in the same way, [the Bodhisattva] gives a gift to nourish all living beings. Just as the sky is without a concept of ‘mine’, in the same way, [the Bodhisattva] gives a gift free from all [selfish] mental efforts (sarva-manasikāra-vigata) toward all living beings. [...]’”.
Manasikāra (मनसिकार) refers to “one’s attention”, as contrasted to Amanasikāra—the practice of meditation meaning “not directing the mind’s attention” (toward anything that involves conceptual fabrication and the duality of perceiver and perceived)—i.e., withdrawing attention from “characteristic signs” so reality is known non-conceptually. [...] In his Amanasikārādhāra, Maitrīpa analyzes amanasikāra also as "mental engagement (manasikāra) for which the letter a [in front of it] is the main [focus]." When it is understood thus—that one directs one’s attention (manasikāra) to the letter a as the main [focus]—“a” can no longer be the simple privative, but must stand for a more profound negation, such as the one implied by emptiness or non-origination (anutpāda). In his conclusion of the Amanasikārādhāra, Maitrīpa even equates the privative a, and thus nonarising and emptiness, with ‘luminosity’; and manasikāra with the tantric concept of ‘self-empowerment’. In final analysis, amanasikāra not only means to withdraw one’s attention from the characteristic signs of conceptually created duality, but the privative a also stands for ‘nonarising’ and ‘luminosity’; and manasikāra for ‘self-empowerment [within this luminosity]’.
Mahayana (महायान, mahāyāna) is a major branch of Buddhism focusing on the path of a Bodhisattva (spiritual aspirants/ enlightened beings). Extant literature is vast and primarely composed in the Sanskrit language. There are many sūtras of which some of the earliest are the various Prajñāpāramitā sūtras.
General definition (in Buddhism)
Manasikāra (Pāli), derived from manasi (locative of mana thus, loosely, "in mind" or "in thought") and karoti ("to make" or "to bring into") and has been translated as "attention" or "pondering" or "fixed thought".
Languages of India and abroad
Pali-English dictionary
manasikāra : (m.) ideation; consideration.
manasikāra (မနသိကာရ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[mana+kāra．karaṇaṃ kāro,manasamiṃ kāro manasikāro．vibhāvinī．1va6．manasikāroti cetta aluttasamāso pubbenivāsotiādīsu viya．maṇimañjū,1．319．rū,nhā．199．rū,ṭī．151．nirutti,nhā．44．]
[မန+ကာရ။ ကရဏံ ကာရော၊ မနသမိံ ကာရော မနသိကာရော။ ဝိဘာဝိနီ။ ၁ဝ၆။ မနသိကာရောတိ စေတ္တ အလုတ္တသမာသော ပုဗ္ဗေနိဝါသောတိအာဒီသု ဝိယ။ မဏိမဉ္ဇူ၊ ၁။၃၁၉။ ရူ၊နှာ။၁၉၉။ ရူ၊ဋီ။၁၅၁။ နိရုတ္တိ၊နှာ။၄၄။]
[Pali to Burmese]
manasikāra—
(Burmese text): စိတ်၌ထားခြင်း၊ နှလုံးသွင်းခြင်း၊ မနသိကာရ။ မူရင်းကြည့်ပါ။
(Auto-Translation): Holding in the mind, breathing in, not knowing the present. Please look at the original.
Pali is the language of the Tipiṭaka, which is the sacred canon of Theravāda Buddhism and contains much of the Buddha’s speech. Closeley related to Sanskrit, both languages are used interchangeably between religions.
Sanskrit dictionary
Manasikāra (मनसिकार).—m. (= Pali id.; to prec.; also manasī-, manas-kāra, qq.v.), fixing in mind, mental concentration, (especially intense) attention, thought, notice; especially with yoniśaḥ or ayoniśaḥ, qq.v. for examples; nāpi nirgamana-°ram utpādayanti Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 72.15, nor do they put their minds on going out (lit. produce putting of the mind on…); na duḥkha- manasikāra saṃjñām utpādayanti Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 78.5; asmṛtya-°kāra- tāyai Lalitavistara 34.15, to the keeping in mind of what is not memorable; dharma-°kāreṇa Lalitavistara 179.8; tathāgatagaurava- manasi° Lalitavistara 370.1; manasikārāmanasikāratvāt Lalitavistara 422.13, because it cannot be reflected upon by mental reflection; uddeśa-yoga-°kārān (°kāra-viśeṣān) (ud)gṛhya Divyāvadāna 18.12, 17; tato 'sya bhagavatā °kāro dattaḥ Avadāna-śataka i.284.12, then the Lord gave him (the power of) mental concentration, and similarly 348.1; ii.68.10 (not any ‘task’ as Speyer renders; Feer also wrongly); nānya-°kāraḥ Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā 56.17, [bahuvrīhi], having no other thought in mind; evaṃrūpaiḥ saṃjñā-°kāraiḥ Daśabhūmikasūtra 56.27; other, miscellaneous cases, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 103.11; Mahāvastu ii.278.7; Mahāvyutpatti 1926; Lalitavistara 180.21; Divyāvadāna 180.21; 236.20; 240.1; 407.3; Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra 7.3; Gaṇḍavyūha 177.3; 241.24.
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Manasīkāra (मनसीकार).—(to prec.) = manasi°: Kāśyapa Parivarta 71.8 (prose), see s.v. yoniśaḥ.
Manasikāra (मनसिकार):—[=manasi-kāra] [from manasi > man] m. taking to heart, [Lalita-vistara]
Manasikāra (मनसिकार):—(nom. act. von manasi kar) m. Beherzigung [Loiseleur Deslongchamps] zu [Amarakoṣa 1, 1, 4, 11.] [BURNOUF] in [Lot. de Lassen’s Anthologie b. l. 413.]
Manasikāra (मनसिकार):—m. Beherzigung , attentio animi [Lalitavistarapurāṇa 218,2.6.]
Manasikāra (in Sanskrit) can be associated with the following Chinese terms:
1) 念行 [niàn xíng]: “to think over practices”..
2) 行念 [xíng niàn]: “practices and thoughts”..
Sanskrit, also spelled संस्कृतम् (saṃskṛtam), is an ancient language of India commonly seen as the grandmother of the Indo-European language family (even English!). Closely allied with Prakrit and Pali, Sanskrit is more exhaustive in both grammar and terms and has the most extensive collection of literature in the world, greatly surpassing its sister-languages Greek and Latin.
Prakrit-English dictionary
Maṇasīkara (मणसीकर) in the Prakrit language is related to the Sanskrit word: Manasikṛ.
Prakrit is an ancient language closely associated with both Pali and Sanskrit. Jain literature is often composed in this language or sub-dialects, such as the Agamas and their commentaries which are written in Ardhamagadhi and Maharashtri Prakrit. The earliest extant texts can be dated to as early as the 4th century BCE although core portions might be older.
See also (Relevant definitions)
Partial matches (+0): Manasi, Mana, Kara.
Starts with (+23): Manasikara Sutta, Manasikarabahula, Manasikarabhimukha, Manasikarabhumi, Manasikarahetu, Manasikarahetuka, Manasikarajanana, Manasikarajananapanna, Manasikarakala, Manasikarakamma, Manasikarakatha, Manasikarakicca, Manasikarakkhana, Manasikarakosalla, Manasikarakusalata, Manasikaramagga, Manasikaramukha, Manasikaranirodha, Manasikaranirutti, Manasikarapada.
Full-text (+160): Amanasikara, Kubbamana, Kayiramana, Ayoniso, Yonisomanasikara, Aviparitamanasikara, Dhatumanasikara, Karayamana, Patikkulamanasikara, Moghamanasikara, Manasikarakamma, Manasikarakala, Manasikaravela, Kammatthanamanasikara, Manasikarakicca, Manasikaramukha, Manasikaravidhi, Manasikaravidhana, Uppaditamanasikara, Adinavamanasikara.
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Search found 38 books and stories containing Manasikara, Mana-kara, Mana-kāra, Manasi-kara, Manasi-kāra, Manasikāra, Manasīkāra, Maṇasīkara; (plurals include: Manasikaras, karas, kāras, Manasikāras, Manasīkāras, Maṇasīkaras). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Advayavajra-samgraha (Sanskrit text and English introduction) (by Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri)
Chapter 21 - Amanasikaradhara < [Sanskrit texts of the Advayavajra-samgraha]
Chapter 6 - Caturmudra < [Sanskrit texts of the Advayavajra-samgraha]
Patthana Dhamma (by Htoo Naing)
Chapter 25 - Atthi paccayo (or presence condition)
Chapter 12 - Nissaya paccayo (or dependence condition)
Cetasikas (by Nina van Gorkom)
Chapter 7 - Vitality And Attention < [Part I - The Universals]
Chapter 9 - Determination And Energy < [Part II - The Particulars (pakinnaka)]
Chapter 12 - Zeal < [Part II - The Particulars (pakinnaka)]
Abhidhamma in Daily Life (by Ashin Janakabhivamsa) (by Ashin Janakabhivamsa)
Factor 7 - Manasikara (attention) < [Chapter 4 - Cetasikas Associated With Both Good And Bad Cittas (mind)]
Chapter 4 - Cetasikas Associated With Both Good And Bad Cittas (mind)
Vipassana Dipani (by Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw)
Abhidhamma in Daily Life (by Nina Van Gorkom)