ตาทิพย์ อภิญญา และนิพพาน: วิทยาศาสตร์ค้นพบอะไรในสัตว์โบราณ
Summary
The third eye appears in Hindu, Vajrayāna and Theravāda traditions, in the sense of insight, knowing and the divine eye.
Biologically, some animals really do have a parietal eye — the tuatara, some lizards, the monitor lizard familiar in Thailand — and in humans a trace may survive as the pineal gland.
The dhamma conclusion is that the divine eye and the higher knowledges are not what matters, because they are not liberation.
Key points
The organ genuinely exists in animals
The parietal eye is not a symbolic reading. It is a structure you can dissect.
The pineal gland is a trace, not an eye
It is light-sensitive and involved in sleep cycles, but it does not see.
The coincidence of position is interesting, not evidence
That belief and anatomy point to the same place is worth noticing rather than concluding from.
The higher knowledges are not the goal
The teaching is explicit that seeing past or future does not end suffering, and that is where the talk lands.