Log in / create account Article Talk Read Edit View history Search Skandha From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about a term in Buddhist phenomenology. For the bodhisattva by a similar name, see Main page Skanda (Buddhism). Contents In Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the Featured content Translations of skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāli, aggregates in Current events English) are any of five types of phenomena that serve as skandha Random article objects of clinging and bases for a sense of self.[1] The Donate to Wikipedia English: aggregate, mass, heap Buddha teaches that nothing among them is really "I" or Interaction "mine". Pali: khandha Help In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one Sanskrit: कध (skandha) About Wikipedia identifies with or otherwise clings to an aggregate; hence, Community portal Burmese: suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to (IPA: [[WP:IPA for Burmese|[[kʰàɴdà]]]]) Recent changes aggregates. The Mahayana tradition further puts forth that 五蘊(T) / 五蕴(S) Contact Wikipedia ultimate freedom is realized by deeply penetrating the Chinese: (pinyin: w ǔyùn) Toolbox nature of all aggregates as intrinsically empty of independent existence. Japanese: 五蘊 Print/export Consciousness contacts form and reproduces a greater 오온 Korean: Languages reality, but in general the uninstructed reproduction of (RR: o-on) sensations, conceptions, and mental models becomes اﻟﻌﺮﺑﯿﺔ Shan: Česky painfully inadequate for the worldling. Outside of Buddhist ([khan2 thaa2]) Deutsch didactic contexts, "skandha" can mean mass, heap, pile, ཕང་པོ་་ open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Español [2] Tibetan: ཕང་པོ་་ bundle or tree trunk. The five aggregates are fully defined (phung po lnga) Français below. 한국어 Thai: ขันธ Contents [hide] Bahasa Indonesia Vietnamese: Ngũ uẩn Italiano 1 Definition Parts of a chariot Glossary of Buddhism 1.1 עברית view · talk · edit · Lietuvių 2 Theravada perspectives Nederlands 2.1 Suffering's ultimate referent 日本語 2.2 Future suffering's cause 2.3 Release through aggregate-contemplation Polski 3 Mahayanist perspectives Português 3.1 The intrinsic emptiness of all things Русский 3.2 Tangibility and transcendence Slovenčina 4 Vajrayana perspectives Српски / Srpski 4.1 The truth of our insubstantiality ไทย 4.2 Bardo deity manifestations Türkçe 5 Relation to other Buddhist concepts Tiếng Việt 6 References in Buddhist literature 中文 7 See also 8 Notes 9 Bibliography 10 External links 10.1 Theravada 10.2 Mahayana 10.3 Vajrayana Definition [edit] [3] Buddhist doctrine describes five aggregates: The Five Aggregates (pañca khandha) 1. "form" or "matter"[4] (Skt., Pāli rūpa; Tib. gzugs): according to the Pali Canon. open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com external and internal matter. Externally, rupa is the physical world. Internally, rupa includes the material mental f actors (cetasika) [5] body and the physical sense organs. form (rūpa) 2. "sensation" or "feeling" (Skt., Pāli vedanā; Tib. feeling tshor-ba): 4 elements (vedanā) [6] sensing an object as either pleasant or unpleasant (mahābhūta) [7][8] or neutral. 3. "perception", "conception", "apperception", "cognition", or "discrimination" (Skt. samjñā, Pāli ↓ contact perception saññā, Tib. 'du-shes): → (phassa) (sañña) registers whether an object is recognized or not (for ← instance, the sound of a bell or the shape of a tree). ↓ ↑ 4. "mental formations", "impulses", "volition", or "compositional factors" (Skt. samskāra, Pāli consciousness ← formation saṅkhāra, Tib. 'du-byed) : (viññāna) (saṅkhāra) all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, prejudices, compulsions, and decisions triggered by [9] an object. [10] 5. "consciousness" or "discernment" (Skt. vijñāna, Pāli viññāṇa[11], Tib. rnam-par-shes-pa): Form is derived from the Four Great Elements. [12][13] 1. In the Nikayas/Āgamas: cognizance, Consciousness arises from other aggregates. [14] that which discerns Mental Factors arise from the Contact of 2. In the Abhidhamma: a series of rapidly Consciousness and other aggregates. changing interconnected discrete acts of Source: MN 109 (Thanissaro, 2001) | diagram details cognizance.[15] 3. In some Mahayana sources: the base that supports all experience.[16] See Table 1 for examples of definitional references to the aggregates in Buddhist primary sources. In the Pāli Canon and the Āgamas, the majority of discourses focusing on the five aggregates discusses open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com them as a basis for understanding and achieving liberation from suffering, without describing relationships between the aggregates themselves.[17] Nonetheless, from some canonical discourses, a causal relationship between the five aggregates can be derived.[18] The following (illustrated in the figure to the right) exemplify such relational attributes:[19] Form (rūpa) arises from experientially irreducible physical/physiological phenomena.[20] Form—in terms of an external object (such as a sound) and its associated internal sense organ (such as the ear)—gives rise to consciousness (viññāṇa • vijñāṇa).[21] The concurrence of an object, its sense organ and the related consciousness (viññāṇa • vijñāṇa) is called "contact" (phassa • sparśa).[22][23][24] From the contact of form and consciousness arise the three mental (nāma) aggregates of feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā• saṃjñā) and mental formation (saṅkhāra • saṃskāra).[25][26] The mental aggregates can then in turn give rise to additional consciousness that leads to the arising of additional mental aggregates.[27] In this scheme, form, the mental aggregates,[28] and consciousness are mutually dependent.[29] Other Buddhist literature has described the aggregates as arising in a linear or progressive fashion, from form to feeling to perception to mental formations to consciousness.[30] Parts of a chariot [edit] In the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha is recorded as saying "A 'chariot' exists on the basis of the aggregation of parts, even so the concept of 'being' exists when the five aggregates are available."[31] Thus just as the concept of "chariot" is a reification, so too is the concept of "being." The same analysis is applicable to the parts of the chariot; they too are unsubstantial in that they are causally produced, just like the chariot as a whole.[32] The most explicit denial of the substantiality of the components of the being in the early texts is one that was quoted by later prominent Mahayana thinkers: All form is comparable to foam; all feelings to bubbles; all sensations are mirage-like; dispositions are like the plantain trunk; consciousness is but an illusion: so did the Buddha illustrate [the nature of the aggregates].[33] open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com Nagarjuna used ideas of this kind in the agamas to refute the Sarvastivada conception of reality.[32] The simultaneous non-reification of the self and reification of the skandhas has been viewed by some Buddhist thinkers as highly problematic.[34] In the early texts, the scheme of the five aggregates is not meant to be an exhaustive classification of the human being: rather it describes various aspects of the way an individual manifests.[35] The chariot metaphor is not an exercise in ontology, but rather a caution against ontological theorizing and conceptual realism.[36] Part of the Buddha's general approach to language was to point towards its conventional nature, and to undermine the misleading character of nouns as substance-words.[37] The skandha analysis of the early texts is not applicable to arahants. A tathāgata has abandoned that clinging to the personality factors that render the mind a bounded, measurable entity, and is instead "freed from being reckoned by" all or any of them, even in life. The skandhas have been seen to be a burden, and an enlightened individual is one with "burden dropped".[38] See also: Tathagata#Inscrutable Theravada perspectives [edit] Bhikkhu Bodhi (2000b, p. 840) states that an examination of the aggregates has Part of a series on a "critical role" in the Buddha's teaching for multiple reasons, including: Buddhism 1. Understanding the Four Noble Truths: The five aggregates are the "ultimate referent" in the Buddha's elaboration on suffering (dukkha) in his First Noble Truth (see excerpted quote below) and "since all four truths revolve around suffering, understanding the aggregates is essential for understanding the Four Noble Truths as a whole." 2. Future Suffering's Cause: The five aggregates are the substrata for Outline · Portal clinging and thus "contribute to the causal origination of future suffering." History 3. Release: Clinging to the five aggregates must be removed in order to Timeline · Councils achieve release. Gautama Buddha Below, excerpts from the Pāli literature will bear out Bhikkhu Bodhi's Later Buddhists open in browser PRO version Are you a developer? Try out the HTML to PDF API pdfcrowd.com [39] assessment. Dharma or concepts Suffering's ultimate referent [edit] Four Noble Truths Five Aggregates In the Buddha's first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, he provides Impermanence a classic elaboration on the first of his Four Noble Truths, "The Truth of Suffering" Suffering · Non-self (Dukkhasacca):[40] Dependent Origination Middle Way · Emptiness The Noble Truth of Suffering [dukkha], monks, is this: Birth is suffering,