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Concept
Skandha
Summary
(Sanskrit) or (Pāḷi) means "heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings". In Buddhism, it refers to the five aggregates of clinging (), the five material and mental factors that take part in the rise of craving and clinging.
They are also explained as the five factors that constitute and explain a sentient being's person and personality, but this is a later interpretation in response to Sarvāstivādin essentialism. The 14th Dalai Lama subscribes to this interpretation.
The five aggregates or heaps of clinging are:
form (or material image, impression) ()
sensations (or feelings, received from form) ()
perceptions ()
mental activity or formations ()
consciousness ().
In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to the aggregates. This suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates. The Mahayana tradition asserts that the nature of all aggregates is intrinsically empty of independent existence.
(स्कन्ध) is a Sanskrit word that means "multitude, quantity, aggregate", generally in the context of body, trunk, stem, empirically observed gross object or anything of bulk verifiable with senses. The term appears in the Vedic literature.
The Pali equivalent word (sometimes spelled ) appears extensively in the Pali canon where, state Rhys Davids and William Stede, it means "bulk of the body, aggregate, heap, material collected into bulk" in one context, "all that is comprised under, groupings" in some contexts, and particularly as "the elements or substrata of sensory existence, sensorial aggregates which condition the appearance of life in any form". Paul Williams et al. translate as "heap, aggregate", stating it refers to the explanation of the psychophysical makeup of any being.
Johannes Bronkhorst renders as "aggregates". Damien Keown and Charles Prebish state that is ཕུང་པོ། in Tibetan, and the terms mean "collections or aggregates or bundles".
The Buddha teaches in the Pali Canon the five aggregates as follows:
"form" or "matter" (Skt., Pāli रूप (rūpa); Tib.
Official source
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