Manas-vijnana is the seventh of the eight consciousnesses taught in Yogacara

Yogacara

Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...

 Buddhism, the higher consciousness

Higher consciousness

Higher consciousness, also called super consciousness , objective consciousness , Buddhic consciousness , cosmic consciousness, God-consciousness and Christ consciousness , are expressions used in various spiritual traditions to denote the consciousness of a human being who has reached a...

 that localizes experience through thinking.

Overlapping Pali terms for "mind"

According to Bhikkhu Bodhi

Bhikkhu Bodhi

Bhikkhu Bodhi , born Jeffrey Block, is an American Theravada Buddhist monk, ordained in Sri Lanka and currently teaching in the New York/New Jersey area...

, the post-canonical Pali commentary

Atthakatha

Atthakatha refers to Pali-language Theravadin Buddhist commentaries to the canonical Theravadin Tipitaka. These commentaries give the traditional interpretations of the scriptures. The major commentaries were based on earlier ones, now lost, in Old Sinhalese, which were written down at the same...

 uses the three terms viññāa, mano

Manas (early Buddhism)

Manas is one of three overlapping terms used in the nikayas to refer to the mind, the others being citta and viññāṇa. Each is sometimes used in the generic and non-technical sense of "mind" in general, and the three are sometimes used in sequence to refer to one’s mental processes as a whole...

and citta

Citta

Citta was one of the chief lay disciples of the Buddha. He was a wealthy merchant from Savatthi. His life and character were so pure that near his death, had he wished to be a chakravartin, it would've been granted. However, he turned down this wish as it was temporal...

as synonyms for the mind sense base (mana-ayatana); however, in the Sutta Pitaka

Sutta Pitaka

The Sutta Pitaka is the second of the three divisions of the Tipitaka or Pali Canon, the Pali collection of Buddhist writings, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism...

, these three terms are generally contextualized differently:

• Viññāa refers to awareness through a specific internal sense base, that is, through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind. Thus, there are six sense-specific types of Viññāa. It is also the basis for personal continuity within and across lives.
• Manas
  Manas (early Buddhism)
  Manas is one of three overlapping terms used in the nikayas to refer to the mind, the others being citta and viññāṇa. Each is sometimes used in the generic and non-technical sense of "mind" in general, and the three are sometimes used in sequence to refer to one’s mental processes as a whole...
  
  refers to mental "actions" (kamma), as opposed to those actions that are physical or verbal. It is also the sixth internal sense base (ayatana), that is, the "mind base," cognizing mental sensa (dhammā) as well as sensory information from the physical sense bases.
• Citta
  Citta
  Citta was one of the chief lay disciples of the Buddha. He was a wealthy merchant from Savatthi. His life and character were so pure that near his death, had he wished to be a chakravartin, it would've been granted. However, he turned down this wish as it was temporal...
  
  includes the formation of thought, emotion and volition; this is thus the subject of Buddhist mental development (bhava
  Buddhist meditation
  Buddhist meditation refers to the meditative practices associated with the religion and philosophy of Buddhism.Core meditation techniques have been preserved in ancient Buddhist texts and have proliferated and diversified through teacher-student transmissions. Buddhists pursue meditation as part of...
  
  ), the mechanism for release.

Various descriptions of "Manas-vijnana"

• One of the primary functions of Manas-vijnana is to perceive the subjective position of the store consciousness
  Store consciousness
  The Eight Consciousnesses are concepts developed in the tradition of the Yogacara school of Buddhism...
  
    and erroneously regard it as one's own ego
  Ego (religion)
  In psychology, 'Ego' is presumed as one of the three parts of psychic apparatus defined by Sigmund Freud's structural model. It is also defined by various religions across the world where slight differences also occur in their conceptions...
  
  , thereby creating ego attachment
  Upadana
  Upādāna is a word used in both Buddhism and Hinduism.*In Buddhism, upādāna is a critical link in the arising of suffering.*In Hinduism, upādāna is the material manifestation of Brahman.-Buddhism:...
  
  .

• The basic nature of Manas-vijnana is that of thought
  Thought
  "Thought" generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination...
  
  .

• There is a difference between the "thought" of this seventh consciousness, Manas-vijnana, and the sixth consciousness "thought" of cognition.

• Not consciously controllable, Manas-vijnana is said to be a mind of a realm that gives rise to contradiction of conscious decisions, and to incessant self-love.

• Manas-vijnana can be described as "the consciousness which sees the limits of human variation from within".

• Manas-vijnana consciousness is also described as the place where good and evil are eternally accumulated.

• Manas-vijnana consciousness is theorized as the connecting realm between the mano-consciousness and the ālayavijñāna. (citation or clarification needed)

• Manas-vijnana as the seventh consciousness is the basis of human existence, which unceasingly continues and changes, and serves as the ground for the sixth consciousness of cognition.

• Per the Lankavatara Sutra
  Lankavatara Sutra
  The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is a sutra of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The sūtra recounts a teaching primarily between the Buddha and a bodhisattva named Mahāmati...
  
  , part II of the Introduction, the Manovijñāna, or "that which knows thought", is directly related to an inner faculty known as "Manas". "Manas" is a strong power that attaches to the result of thinking. From this viewpoint one could discern that the "thought-consciousness", that part of the mind that is conscious of thought, also has the power to "velcro" itself to a completed thought process. This would explain the human difficulty of observing one's own thoughts, as the "manas" or "velcro" must first be detached, so to speak.

• See also "The Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism" entry for "mano-consciousness".