The Mahayana account of Enlightenment as is found in the _Lalita-vistara_ (Chapter on “Abhisambodhana”) is more explicit as to the kind of mental activity or wisdom which converted the Bodhisattva into the Buddha. For it was through “_ekacittekshaṇa-samyukta-prajñā_” that supreme perfect knowledge was realised (_abhisambodha_) by the Buddha. What is this Prajñā? It is the understanding of a higher order than that which is habitually exercised in acquiring relative knowledge. It is a faculty both intellectual and spiritual, through the operation of which the soul is enabled to break the fetters of intellection. The latter is always dualistic inasmuch as it is cognisant of subject and object, but in the Prajñā which is exercised “in unison with one-thought-viewing” there is no separation between knower and known, these are all viewed (_ikshaṇa_) in one thought (_ekacitta_), and enlightenment is the outcome of this. By thus specifying the operation of Prajñā, the Mahayanists have achieved an advance in making clearer the nature of sambodhi: for when the mind reverses its usual course of working and instead of dividing itself externally, goes back to its original inner abode of oneness, it begins to realise the state of “one-thought-viewing” where Ignorance ceases to scheme and the Defilements do not obtain. Enlightenment we can thus see is an absolute state of mind in which no “discrimination” (_parikalpana_ or _vikalpa_), so called, takes place, and it requires a great mental effort to realise this state of viewing all things “in one thought.” In fact our logical as well as practical consciousness is too given up to analysis and ideation; that is to say, we cut up realities into elements in order to understand them; but when they are put together to make the original whole, its elements stand out too conspicuously defined, and we do not view the whole “in one thought.” And as it is only when “one thought” is reached that we have enlightenment, an effort is to be made to go beyond our relative empirical consciousness, which attaches itself to the multitudinosity and not to the unity of things. The most important fact that lies behind the experience of Enlightenment therefore is that the Buddha made the most strenuous attempt to solve the problem of Ignorance and his utmost will-power was brought forth to bear upon a successful issue of the struggle.