The precise connotations of the term vary among the Buddhist traditions whose discourse is centered on epistemological concerns, such as in Abhidharma and Yogâcāra, or in Tathāgatagarbha-influenced works such as the Laṅkâvatāra-sūtra, the Awakening of Faith, or the Vajrasamādhi-sūtra. For example, in translations of Yogâcāra works, and in later East Asian Consciousness-only treatises, this character most commonly (but not always) refers to the sixth consciousness 意識 (mano-vijñāna), as distinguished from the seventh consciousness (manas), which is usually rendered with 意.

There is a variety of grouped classifications of the term, including connotations as

1. 一識 that all things are the one mind, or are metaphysical;
2. 二識 discriminating the ālaya-vijñāna or primal undivided condition from the mano-vijñāna or that of discrimination;
3. 三識 in the Laṅkâvatāra-sūtra, fundamental, manifested, and discriminate;
4. 五識 in the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith 起信論, i.e. 業識, 轉識, 現識, 知識, and 相續識;
5. 六識 the cognitions of the six organs of sense;
6. The eight consciousnesses 八識, i.e. the perceptions of the six organs of sense, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body (or touch), and mind, together with manas, interpreted as 意識 the consciousness that attaches to a notion of self, on which the other six depend; the eighth is the ālayavijñāna 阿賴耶識, in which is contained the seeds of all phenomena and which loses none 無沒, or nothing;
7. there is also the 'appropriating consciousness'  阿陀那識 (ādāna), which is in Yogâcāra proper, a precursory notion of for the ālayavijñāna, but has varying interpretations in the range of Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha schools of the 6-8th century in China.
8. In the Tathāgatagarbha tradition there developed the notion of an unsullied consciousness called amalavijñāna 阿摩羅識, which ended up being numbered in some texts as the ninth, pure, i.e. non-phenomenal consciousness 眞如識.
9. The esoterics add that all phenomena are mental and all things are the one mind, hence the one mind is 無量識 unlimited mind or knowledge, every kind of knowledge, or omniscience. vijñāna is one of the twelve nidānas.