Skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāḷi) means "heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings, clusters".
The Pali equivalent word Khandha (sometimes spelled Kkhanda)[5] 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".
[1][note 2] Paul Williams et al. translate skandha as "heap, aggregate", stating it refers to the explanation of the psychophysical makeup of any being.
[2] Damien Keown and Charles Prebish state that skandha is ཕུང་པོ། in Tibetan, and the terms mean "collections or aggregates or bundles".
[5][2] 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.
[14] 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".
[22] According to Harvey, the five skandhas give rise to a sense of personality,[23] but are dukkha (unsatisfying), impermanent, and without an enduring self or essence.
[31][note 1] This "emptiness from personality" can be found in descriptions of the enlightened, perfected state of Arhat and Tathagata,[32] in which there is no longer any identification with the five skandhas.
[note 14] 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.
[22][33] The use of the skandhas concept to explain the self is unique to Buddhism among major Indian religions,[34][35] and responds to Sarvastivada teachings that "phenomena" or its constituents are real.
[39][note 15] 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".
[40] According to Boisvert, the five aggregates and dependent origination are closely related, which explains the process that binds us to samsara.
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.
The Early Buddhist schools developed detailed analyses and overviews of the teachings found in the sutras, called 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.
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.
[52] The Theravada Buddhist meditation practice on sense bases is aimed at both removing distorted cognitions such as those influenced by cravings, conceits and opinions, as well as "uprooting all conceivings in all its guises".
[note 20] The Abhidhamma and post-canonical Pali texts create a meta-scheme for the Sutta Pitaka's conceptions of aggregates, sense bases and dhattus (elements).
[60][67] According to Boisvert, "the function of each of the aggregates, in their respective order, can be directly correlated with the theory of dependent origination—especially with the eight middle links.
"[68] Four of the five aggregates are explicitly mentioned in the sequence, yet in a different order than the list of aggregates, which concludes with viññāṇa • vijñāna:[69] The interplay between the five-aggregate model of immediate causation and the twelve-nidana model of requisite conditioning is evident, for instance both note the seminal role that mental formations have in both the origination and cessation of suffering.
The four domains are:[71] According to Grzegorz Polak, the four upassanā have been misunderstood by the developing Buddhist tradition, including Theravada, to refer to four different foundations.
According to Polak, the four upassanā do not refer to four different foundations of which one should be aware, but are an alternate description of the jhanas, describing how the samskharas are tranquilized:[76] The Mahayana developed out of the traditional schools, introducing new texts and putting other emphases in the teachings, especially shunyata and the Bodhisattva-ideal.
Its basic text is the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, written by Nagarjuna, who refuted the Sarvastivada conception of reality, which reifies dhammas.
[80] The Yogacara school further analysed the workings of the mind, elaborated on the concept of nama-rupa and the five skandhas, and developed the notion of the Eight Consciousnesses.
The aggregates convey the relative (or conventional) experience of the world by an individual, although Absolute truth is realized through them.
Suzuki notes: When the sutra says that the five Skandhas have the character of emptiness..., the sense is: no limiting qualities are to be attributed to the Absolute; while it is immanent in all concrete and particular objects, it is not in itself definable.