Skandha

(Sanskrit) or (Pāḷi) means 'heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings, clusters'. In Buddhism, it refers to the five aggregates of clinging (), the five material and mental factors that take part in the perpetual process of craving, clinging and aversion due to Avijja.

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, sense objects (or material image, impression) () sensations (or feelings of pleasure, pain, or indifference (both bodily and mental), created from the coming together of the senses, sense objects, and the consciousness) () perceptions (or the nature of recognizing marks — making distinctions) (, ) mental activity, formations, or perpetuations (, ) consciousness (or the nature of knowing) (, ).Skandha Encyclopædia Britannica (2013)

In classical Buddhist doctrine, ('unease, suffering') arises when one identifies with or clings to the aggregates. This suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates. All Buddhist traditions hold that the aggregates do not constitute a "self". In Mahayana philosophy, this is further expressed as the aggregates being empty of intrinsic, independent existence.

Etymology () 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 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 in Classical Tibetan, and the terms mean 'collections, aggregates, bundles'.

Description The Buddha teaches in the Pali Canon the five aggregates as follows: "form" or "matter" (Skt., Pāli (); Tib. (); Ch. ()): matter, body or "material form" of a being or any existence. Buddhist texts state of any person, sentient being and object to be composed of four basic elements or forces: earth (solidity), water (cohesion), fire (heat) and wind (motion). "sensation" or "feeling" (Skt., Pāli (); Tib. (); Ch. ()): sensory or hedonic experience of an object. It is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. "perception" (Skt. (), Pāli (), Tib. (); Ch. ()): sensory and mental process that registers, recognizes and labels (for instance, the shape of a tree, color green, emotion of fear). "mental formations" (Skt. (), Pāli (), Tib. (); Ch. ()): "constructing activities", "conditioned things", "volition", "karmic activities"; all types of mental imprints and conditioning triggered by an object. Includes any process that makes a person initiate action or act. "consciousness" (Skt. (), Pāli (), Tib. (); Ch. ()): "discrimination" or "discernment". Awareness of an object and discrimination of its components and aspects, and is of six types, states Peter Harvey. The Buddhist literature discusses this skandha as, In the Nikayas/Āgamas: cognizance,See, for instance, SN 22.79, "Being Devoured" (Bodhi, 2000b, p. 915). that which discerns.Peter Harvey, The Selfless Mind. Curzon Press 1995, page 143-146 In the Abhidhamma: a series of rapidly changing interconnected discrete acts of cognizance. In some Mahayana sources: the base that supports all experience.

Interpretation

Aggregates of personality The five aggregates are often interpreted in the later tradition as an explanation of the constituents of person and personality, and "the list of aggregates became extremely important for the later development of the teaching". According to this interpretation, in each – body, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness – there is emptiness and no substance.

According to Damien Keown and Charles Prebish, canonical Buddhism asserts that "the notion of a self is unnecessarily superimposed upon five skandha" of a phenomenon or a living being. The skandha doctrine, states Matthew MacKenzie, is a form of anti-realism about everyday reality including persons, and presents an alternative to "substantialist views of the self". It asserts that everything perceived, each person and personality, is an "aggregate, heap" of composite entities without essence.

According to Harvey, the five skandhas give rise to a sense of personality, but are (unsatisfying), impermanent, and without an enduring self or essence. Each aggregate is an object of grasping (clinging), at the root of self-identification as "I, me, myself". According to Harvey, realizing the real nature of , both in terms of impermanence and non-self, is necessary for nirvana. This "emptiness from personality" can be found in descriptions of the enlightened, perfected state of Arhat and Tathagata, in which there is no longer any identification with the five skandhas.

This "no essence" view has been a topic of questions, disagreements, and commentaries since ancient times, both in non-Buddhist Indian religions and Buddhist traditions. , Quote: We have seen how Buddhist thought criticizes the concept of an unchanging self as incoherent; however, both ancient and modern critics have argued that to do away with the self in the manner of Buddhist thought in fact creates insurmountable philosophical and moral problems.... We have seen how Buddhist thought breaks down an individual into five classes of physical and mental events known as or aggregates". The use of the concept to explain the self is unique to Buddhism among major Indian religions, and responds to Sarvastivada teachings that "phenomena" or its constituents are real. It also contrasts with the premise of Hinduism and Jainism that a living being has an eternal soul or metaphysical self.

In some early Buddhist texts, the individual is considered unreal but the skandha are considered real. But the skandha too are considered unreal and nonsubstantial in numerous other Buddhist Nikaya and Āgama texts.

Aggregates of experience and grasping According to Thanissaro, the Buddha never tried to define what a "person" is, though scholars tend to approach the skandhas as a description of the constituents of the person.. (Snodgrass asserts that the term literally means "heap", and the concept refers to the teaching accepted by all Buddhist schools that "the personality is an aggregate of five constituent parts," referring back to publications from the 1930s to the 1950s.) He adds that almost any Buddhist meditation teacher explains it that way, as Buddhist commentaries from about the 1st century CE onwards have done. In Thanissaro's view, however, this is incorrect, and he suggests that should be viewed as activities, which cause suffering, but whose unwholesome workings can be interrupted.Thanissaro Bhikkhu (2010), The Five Aggregates. A Study Guide

Rupert Gethin also notes that the five skandhas are not merely "the Buddhist analysis of man", but "five aspects of an individual being's experience of the world... encompassing both grasping and all that is grasped".

Mathieu Boisvert states that "many scholars have referred to the five aggregates in their works on Buddhism, [but] none have thoroughly explained their respective functions". According to Boisvert, the five aggregates and dependent origination are closely related, which explains the process that binds us to samsara. Boisvert notes that the pancha-upadanakkhanda(five aggregates of clinging) does not incorporate all human experience. Vedana may transform into either niramisa or nekkhamma-sita vedana (vedana which is not harmful) or into amisa or gehasita vedana (a "type of sensation [which] may act as an agent bringing about the future arising of craving and aversion"). This is determined by . According to Boisvert, "not all belong to the sanna-skandha". The wholesome recognise the three marks of existence (dukkha, anatta, anicca), and do not belong to the sanna-skandha. Unwholesome is not "conducive to insight", and without proper , the "person is likely to generate craving, clinging and becoming". As with , "not all sankhara belong to the sankharaskandha", since not all sankhara produce future effects.

According to Johannes Bronkhorst, the notion that the five aggregates are not self has to be viewed in light of debates about "liberating knowledge", the knowledge of Ātman (eternal soul) which was deemed liberating by the Vedic traditions. Bronkhorst notes that "knowledge of the self plays no useful role on the Buddha's path to liberation". What is important is not to grasp at the forms, sounds, odors, flavors, objects, and mental properties which are perceived with the six sense organs (these include mind as the sixth sense organ). The insight that the aggregates are not self aids in letting go of this grasping.

Miri Albahari also objected to the usual understanding of the skandhas as denoting the absence of any "self". Albahari argued that the khandhas do not necessarily constitute the entirety of the human experience, and that the Hindu concept of Ātman is not explicitly negated by Pāli Canon. According to , "anattā is best understood as a practical strategy rather than as a metaphysical doctrine". To Albahari, Nibbāna is an ever-present part of human nature, which is gradually "uncovered" by the cessation of ignorance.

Eighteen dhātus A related analysis of experience and personality taught in the Buddhist sutras and Abhidharma systems (including Pali Abhidhamma, Vaibhāṣika and Mahayana Abhidharma alongside the five aggregates is the eighteen s (Sanskrit: , the main "elements" of existence). These eighteen aspects of experience: six external bases, six internal bases, and six consciousnesses, function through the five aggregates. They are often grouped together with the aggregates into the following grouping: "skandhas, āyatanas and dhātus," which comprises the basic Buddhist Abhidharma analysis of personal identity and experience.

The eighteen elements are the following:

The six sense objects () are:

visible forms () sounds () smells () tastes () textures () mental objects ()

The six sense faculties () are:

eye faculty () ear faculty () nose faculty () tongue faculty () body faculty () mental faculty ()

The six sense consciousnesses () are:

eye-consciousness () ear-consciousness () nose-consciousness () tongue-consciousness () body-consciousness () mind-consciousness ()

These s can be arranged into six triads, each triad composed of a sense object, a sense organ, and sense consciousness.

In Theravada Abhidhamma

The Early Buddhist schools developed detailed analyses and overviews of the teachings found in the sutras, called Abhidharma. Each school developed its own Abhidharma. The best-known is the Theravāda Abhidhamma, but the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma was historically very influential, and has been preserved partly in the Chinese Āgama.

Six sense bases

The internal and external sense bases together form the "six sense bases". In this description, found in texts such as Salayatana samyutta, the coming together of an object and a sense-organ results in the arising of the corresponding consciousness.

According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, the Theravada tradition teaches that the six sense bases accommodate "all the factors of existence"; it is "the all", and "apart from which nothing at all exists", and "are empty of a self and of what belongs to the self".