Indriya (literally "belonging to or agreeable to Indra") is the Sanskrit and Pali term for physical strength or ability in general, and for the senses more specifically.
The term literally means "belonging to Indra," chief deity in the Rig Veda and lord of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven (also known as Śakra or Sakka in Buddhism) hence connoting supremacy, dominance and control, attested in the general meaning of "power, strength" from the Rig Veda.
[16] The Pali commentaries remark that these five qualities are "faculties" when used to control their spheres of influence, and are "powers" when unshakeable by opposing forces.
[18] In the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the notion of indriya is expanded to the twenty-two "phenomenological faculties" or "controlling powers" (Pali: bāvīsati indriyāni)[19] which are: According to the post-canonical Visuddhimagga, the 22 faculties along with such constructs as the aggregates, sense bases, Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination are the "soil" of wisdom (paññā).
[21] At times in the Pali Canon, different discourses or Abhidhammic passages will refer to different subsets of the 22 phenomenological faculties.