9. The Five Aggregates (pañcakkhandha)

The five aggregations (pañcakkhandhā) are major categogies that the Nikāyas use to analyze human experience. From a psychological point of view, man is regarded as a combination of five aggregates.

The five aggregates:

(i) material form (rūpa), the physical component of experience;

(ii) feeling (vedanā), the ‘affactive tone’ of experience–either pleasant, painful or neutral;

(iii) perception (saññā), the identification of things through their distinctive marks and features;

(iv) volitional formations (saṅkhārā), a term for the multifarious mental factors involving volition, choice, and intention; and

(v) consciousness (viññāṇa), cognition arisen through any of the six sense faculties; that is, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind.

The Majjhima Nikāya explains the five aggregates as follows:

(a) The aggregate of material form (rūpa) compounding a man includes the physical body with its sense faculties as well as external material objects (physical world).

The material form is said to derive from four great elements, namely:

1. the earth;
2. the water;
3. the fire; and
4. the air.

These four great elements are the cause and condition for the manifestation of the material form aggregate affected by clinging. This means the universe itself is a part of a human’s body; just because human’s thought is limited by the view of self and by the limit of five sense organs, so he cannot see this (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 28.5; 109.9);

(b) The aggregate of feeling (vedanā) is the affective element in experience, either pleasant or painful, or neither-painful-norpleasant. Feeling has contact as the cause and condition for its manifesttation. With the arising or cessation of contact including eye-contact, earcontact, nose-contact, tongue-contact, body-contact and mind-contact, there is arising or cessation of feeling respectively (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 9.42);

(c) The aggregate of perception (saññā) is the factor responsible for noting the qualities of things and also accounts for recognition and memory. The perception aggregate includes perception of body, of sound, of odour, of taste, of tangibles, and of mental objects;

(d) The aggregate of volitional formations (saṅkhāra) has ignorance as the cause and condition of its manifestation. With the arising or cessation of ignorance, there is arising or cessation of formations respectively; and

(e) The aggregate of consciousness (viññāṇa) is the basic awareness of an object indispensable to all cognition.

Consciousness consists of six sense faculties:

1. eye-consciousness;
2. ear-consciousness;
3. nose-consciousness;
4. tongue-consciousness;
5. body-consciousness; and
6. mind-consciousness (manoviññāṇa).

Mind-consciousness includes consciousness of mental images, abstract ideas, and internal states of mind, as well as the consciousness in reflection upon sense objects. Formations are as the cause and condition of manifestation of consciousness, with the arising or cessation of volitional formations, there is arising or cessation of consciousness respectively (see Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 9.58).

In the Khandhasaṃyutta (Samyutta Nikāya, Sutta number22), the examination of the five aggregates is critical to the Buddha’s teaching for at least four reasons. First, the five aggregates are the ultimate referent of the first noble truth, the noble truth of suffering, and since all four truths revolve around suffering, understanding the aggregates is essential for understanding the Four Noble Truths as a whole. Second, the five aggregates are the objective domain of clinging and as such contribute to the causal origination of future suffering. Third, clinging to the five of wisdom needed to remove clinging is precisely clear insight into the true nature of the aggregates.

The Buddha himself declares that:

“So long as I did not directly know as they really are the five aggregates subject to clinging in four phases, I did not claim to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with its devas, Māra, and Brahmā, in this population with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans. But when I directly knew all this as it really is, then I claimed to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with... its devas and humans.

And how, monks, are there four phases? I directly knew form, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation. I directly knew feeling... perception... volitional formations... consciousness, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation.

(Samyutta Nikāya, Sutta number 22.56)

Based on the Samyutta Nikāya, Sutta number 22.56 above, the five aggregates can be displayed in the table below:

Table 2: The Five Aggregates (Samyutta Nikāya, Sutta number 22.56)

Aggregate	Content	Condition	Simile
form	four great elements and form derived from them	nutriment	a lump of foam
feeling	six classes of feeling: born of contact through eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind	contact	a water bubble
perception	six classes of perception: of forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile objects, and mental phenomena	contact	a mirage
volitional formations	six classes of volition: regarding forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile objects, and mental phenomena	contact	a banana-tree trunk
consciousness	six classes of consciousness: eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue-, body-, mind-consciousness	name-and-form	a magical illusion

In the interrelation between the five aggregates and the twelve elements of Dependent Origination, the first and the second factor (ignorance and volitional formation) of twelve elements are included in the formations of the five aggregates; consciousness itself is the consciousness aggregate; mentality-materiality is said to hold whole five aggregates; sixfold base is equal to the material form aggregate; contact and feeling are included in the feeling aggregate; craving, clinging, and being/existence are included in the perception aggregate; birth, ageing and death are the arising and the cessation of five aggregates. Thus, the arising and the cessation of the five aggregates can be seen the arising and the cessation of the twelve linked elements and vice versa. Similarly, the operation of the twelve factors really is the operation of the five aggregates; and therefore, one who realizes that operation can realizes what a man really to be.

What is called a man is nothing but the twelve elements or the five aggregates. In other words, it is “the five aggregates affected by clinging are called personality” (Majjhima Nikāya 44.2).

Because the nature of the five aggregates is feeble, unstable and dependent, the existence is, therefore, impermanent (anicca); and whatever impermanent is suffering; whatever impermanent and suffering is non-self; and whatever impermanent, suffering, and non-self is very unfounded to be regarded as: “this is mine, this I am, this is my self” (Majjhima Nikāya 35.20).

Bhikkhu, material form is impermanent, feeling is impermanent, perception is impermanent, formations are impermanent, consciousness is impermanent. Bhikkhu, material form is not self, feeling is not self, perception is not self, formations are not self, consciousness is not self. All formations are impermanent; all things are not self.

(Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 35.4, 109.15; 147.3. See also Samyutta Nikāya, Sutta number 22.59).

In general, man is the five aggregates, and the five aggregates are present as the entire truth of suffering as described in the first Noble Truth “…in short, the five aggregates affected by clinging are suffering” (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 9.15). This discloses that the essence of every existence in both the world and man which we identify with and hold to as the basis for happiness, under the light of right view are really the basis of the suffering. In transitory conditionality of the five aggregates there is existence of man and universe, but due to the impermanent and instability characteristic of the five aggregates, the human life is really insecure and unstable. And such a cycle of saṃsāra is endlessly run to all beings in whom ignorance and craving remain. Each new life comes again to bring them the suffering of new birth, ageing, illness, and death. The suffering of man is ended if and only if desires and craving for the five aggregates in them end. And this is attained only if one has right view of the true essence of life in order to really see that the five aggregates is suffering, impermanent, and non-self. Just by knowing and seeing thus regarding these five aggregate, his desire and lust for them would be abandoned; his mind is liberated from the taints, attaining the destruction of the taints (Majjhima Nikāya, Sutta number 64.9; 75.24).