Five aggregates
| Translations of skandha |
|
|---|---|
| English | aggregate, mass, heap |
| Pali | खन्ध (khandha) |
| Sanskrit | स्कन्ध (skandha) |
| Bengali | স্কন্ধ (skandha) |
| Burmese |
ခန္ဓာ (ငါးပါး)။ (IPA: [kʰàɴdà]) |
| Chinese |
(T) / (S) (Pinyin: yùn) |
| Japanese |
(rōmaji: go'un) |
| Khmer | |
| Korean |
(RR: on) |
| Shan |
ၶၼ်ႇထႃႇ ([khan2 thaa2]) |
| Tibetan |
ཕུང་པོ་ལྔ་ (phung po lnga) |
| Thai | |
| Vietnamese | |
| Glossary of Buddhism | |
Skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāḷi) means "heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings". In Buddhism, it refers to the five aggregates concept that asserts five factors constitute and completely explain a sentient being’s mental and physical existence. The five aggregates or heaps are: form (or matter or body) (rupa), sensations (or feelings, received from form) (vedana), perceptions (samjna), mental activity or formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vijnana).
The skandhas refute the idea of a "being or individual", and complements the anatta doctrine of Buddhism which asserts that all things and beings are without self. The anatta and "five aggregates" doctrines are part of the liberating knowledge in Buddhism, wherein one realizes that the "being" is merely made up of a temporary grouping of five aggregates, each of which are "not I, and not myself", and each of the skandha is empty, without substance.
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. The use of the skandhas concept to explain the self is unique to Buddhism among major Indian religions. It is not shared by Hinduism and Jainism, which believe that a living being has an eternal soul or metaphysical self.
Skandha (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 Khandha (sometimes spelled Kkhanda) 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".
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