Is chitta same as intellect?
Short answer: not exactly.
- Chitta (often called the mind or antahkaran) is the broad mental faculty that includes thoughts, feelings, memories, and the overall mental activity. It is the seat of awareness and consciousness handling perception, emotions, and mental impressions.
- Intellect (buddhi or prajna) is a more specific faculty within the chitta. It refers to reasoning, discrimination, and the ability to understand, judge, and decide.
In Jain texts, chitta is usually described as part of the inner organ (antar-kasha) that also includes manas (the mind), buddhi (intellect/discrimination), and ahankar (ego). They are closely related, but buddhi is a distinct faculty focused on understanding and judgment, while chitta is the broader mind-field that carries thoughts and impressions.
Differences between Digambar and Śvetāmbara traditions are subtle and mainly about terminology and emphasis, not a fundamental contradiction: both recognize chitta as the mental faculty and distinguish it from buddhi.
If you’d like, I can explain with specific suttas or verses from Jain scriptures to show how these terms are used in context.