MABS 01-Pali Nikaya TeachingsTeaching of five Aggregates (Pañcakkhandhā)

Rev. Dr. Wadinagala Pannaloka

2020

PGIPBS (PPT- 1)

Objectives

• 1. The student should be able to understand the purpose of the teaching

• 2. Analyze Definitions

• 3. Analyze each Aggregate

Introduction

• The teaching of five aggregates (pancakkhandha) purports to illustrate that selflessness (anatta) is the reality

• In pre-Buddhist thought, there was the belief that apart from the mind and body, there is a self (atman) which functions as the support (substance/substratum) for the experience.

• The Atman expresses the qualities of the Brahmapadartha, eternity and imperishability.

Cont.

• The method to examine the ultimate nature of human experience ( five aggregates) is analysis (vibhajana/vibhajjavāda). In the first step, human personality is divided into five collections:

• 1. Rūpa- (Form)

• 2. Vedanā ( Feelings-sensation)

• 3. Saññā (perceptions)

• 4. Sankhāra ( volitional activities)

• 5. Viññāṇa ( Consciousness)

Etymology of the term ‘ Khandha’

The term khandha (or its Sanskrit equivalent, skandha) was already

used in pre-Buddhist and pre-Upanisadic literature.

I. The Nirukta, an Old etymology text gives the meaning “the branches of a tree" since they "are attached to the tree.

II. Some later pre-Buddhist texts, such as the Chandogya Upanisad, use the word skandha in the sense of "branches" referring to the three branches of duty: trayo dharmaskandhāh yajñah adhyayanamdānam

Khandha in Suttas

In the Pali canon, the suttas use the word khandha to refer to a "mass" of fire and of water (aggikkhandha and udakakkhandha).1 This usage is widespread in Paliliterature to reference to the "mass of suffering" (dukkhakkhandha).2

1. S. iv, 179.

2. Vin. i, 1; S. ii, 95; S. iii, 14; A. i, 77; A. v, 184

Cont.

The word khandha is also used refer to the concept of "division," in the sense of a variety of constituent groups.

The Dīghanikaya mentions four khandha: morality (sīla),

concentration (samādhi), wisdom (paññā) and release (vimutti) ( See: D. iii. 229)

Pañcakkhandha as Unique usage

• In both pre-Buddhist and Buddhist literature, the number of meanings associated with the term khandha is striking.

• However, the most important usage of the term in Pali canonical literature is in the sense of the pañcakkhandhā, "the five aggregates.“

• It also must be stressed that this particular definition of the term is non-existent in currently available pre-Buddhist literature, whether Upanisadic or Vedic.

• See: Identity and Experience by Sue Hamilton

Pre-Buddhist Analysis of human Personality

Early Brahmana and Upanishad has analyzed the human personality into five constituent elements.

The Taittiriya Upanisad elaborates a division of the individual (purusah) into five different selves (atma):

I. the self made of food (annarasamayah)

II. the self made of organic activities ((atmapranayah)

III. the self made of the mind (atmamanomayah)

Cont.

• IV. the self made of cognition (atmavijnanamayah)

• V. the self made of bliss (atmanandamayah)- here means the Brahma –the Bliss

all of these are relatively similar to the five Pali khandha.

(The Taittiriya Upanishad presents a very world-affirming philosophy, because each level of self is described in a positive way, and Brahman itself is referred to emphatically as the nature of Bliss (Ananda). Thus, one begins

with Life (or "food", referring perhaps to the ecological web) and attains to Bliss).

Later , in Hindu philosophy the doctrine of five self was changed as doctrine of ‘five sheaths’ relating to the concept of maya).

Cont

Atman

• Atman is the Self, the eternal center of consciousness, which was never born and never dies. In the metaphor of the lamp and the lampshades, Atman is the light itself, though to even describe it as that is incomplete and incorrect. The deepest light shines through the koshas, and takes on their colorings.

• Atman, the Self, has been best described as indescribable.

• Upanishads

• Ātman is a central idea in all of the Upanishads, and "know your Ātman" is their thematic focus. These texts state that the core of every person's self is not the body, nor the mind, nor the ego, but "Ātman", which means "soul" or "self".Atman is the spiritual essence in all creatures, their real innermost essential being. It is eternal, it is the essence, it is ageless. Atman is that which one is at the deepest level of one's existence.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

• The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad describes Atman as that in which everything exists, which is of the highest value, which permeates everything, which is the essence of all, bliss and beyond description. In hymn 4.4.5, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad describes Atman as Brahman (universal absolute; supreme soul), and associates it with everything one is, everything one can be, one's free will, one's desire, what one does, what one doesn't do, the good in oneself, the bad in oneself.

Cont.

• That Atman (self, soul) is indeed Brahman. It [Ātman] is also identified with the intellect, the Manas (mind), and the vital breath, with the eyes and ears, with earth, water, air, and ākāśa (sky), with fire and with what is other than fire, with desire and the absence of desire, with anger and the absence of anger, with righteousness and unrighteousness, with everything — it is identified, as is well known, with this (what is perceived) and with that (what is inferred). As it [Ātman, self, soul] does and acts, so it becomes: by doing good it becomes good, and by doing evil it becomes evil. It becomes virtuous through good acts, and vicious through evil acts. Others, however, say, "The self is identified with desire alone. What it desires, so it resolves; what it resolves, so is its deed; and what deed it does, so it reaps.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.5

Comparison of five Atma and Aggregates

• The rūpakkhandha could correspond to the "self made of food" since the Dīghanikaya describes rūpa as "being made of the four great elements which consist of gross food (Tiṭṭhatu evāyam Poṭthapāda oḷāriko attā rūpi cātummahābhūtiko kabalinkārāhāarabhakkho ) -(D. i. 186)

• The saññākkhandha and the viññāṇakkhandha could respectively be associated with the self made of mind and the self made of consciousness.

• The sankhārakkhandha could also be related to the self made of organic activities since the sankharakkhandha is described in the Majjhimanikaya as including the "in and out breathing”(Assāsapassāsā ... kāyasankharo (M. i, 301) while the self made of organic activities resembles the Upanisadic meaning of prāṇa, the vital breath.

• Only vedanākkhandha and the self made of bliss seem not to correspond.

Stcherbatsky

• Stressing the similarity between the Buddhist and Upanisadicinterpretation of the components of the individual, Stcherbatsky said:

• This difference [between the Buddhist and Upanisadic aggregates] bears witness of the enormous progress achieved by Indian philosophy during the time between the primitive Upanisads and the rise of Buddhism. In the Buddhist system we have a division of mental faculties into feeling [vedanā], concept [saññā], will [sankhāra] and pure sensation [viññāṇa], in which modern psychology would not have much to change.

Cont: manas key similarity

• In the Upanisads it is a very primitive attempt, giving breath, speech, sense of vision, sense of audition and intellect as elements. But one point of similarity remains: the last, and evidently, the most important element is in both cases manas. The macrocosm, or the Universal Soul, is likewise analyzed by the Upanisads into five component elements. In the number of the Buddhist skandha and in the position of manas (= vijnana). among them we probably have the survival of an old tradition.

Difference

• Yet the context in which pañcakkhandha is used in the Dhammacakkappavattanasutta implies connotations such as impermanence and no-self, both of which are incongruent with the brahmanic tradition.

Materialistic Analysis of Human Personality

• In the Indian tradition, not only the Brahmanic tradition but also the Materialistic schools produced an analysis of human being.

• Ajita Kesakambali’s Theory: four elements

• This human being is composed of the four great elements, and when one dies the earth part reverts to earth, the water part to water, the fire part to fire, the air part to air, and the faculties pass away into space. (D.I.56)

Pakudha Kaccayana : Seven Elements

• Pakudha Kaccayana :

• these seven things are not made or of a kind to be made, uncreated, un- productive, barren, false, stable as a column. They do not shake, do not change, obstruct one another, nor are they able t6 cause one aqother pleasure, pain, or both. What are the ' seven?

Cont.

• The earth-body,

• the water-body,

• the fire-body,

• the air- body,

• pleasure

• pain

• the life-principle (Jiva) D.I.56

Cont.

• These seven are not made. . .Thus there is neither slain nor slayer, neither hearer nor proclaimer, neither knower nor causer of knowing. And whoever cuts off a man's head with a sharp sword does not deprive anyone of life, he just inserts the blade in the intervening space between these seven bodies."

Sources for Reading

1. Entry on ‘Khandha’ in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism

2. Identity and Experience by Sue Hamilton

3. A History of Buddhist Philosophy by D.J.Kalupahana

4. Mahā-hatthipadopama sutta (MN)

5. Mahāpuṇṇama Sutta (MN)

6. Mahā Rāhulovāda sutta (MN)

7. Khajjanīya Sutta , Khandha Vagga of SN

8. Khandha Sutta , Khandha Vagga of SN

9. Cūla-vedalla Sutta (MN)