Study Report 6

We have discussed the outline of the Chapter on Terms (Paññattivāra). Now, let us go to the text.

Abhidhammapiṭake

Yamakappakaraṇaṃ

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa
Veneration to That Exalted, the Arahat, the Fully Self-Enlightened.

The 2nd Division of Yamaka: Pairs on Aggregates (Khandhayamakaṃ)

The 1st Chapter of Pairs on Aggregates (Khandhayamakaṃ) in summary:
Summary Chapter on Terms (Paññattivāro uddeso)

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Pali Text:
Pañcakkhandha: rūpakkhandho vedanākkhandho saññākkhandho saṅkhārakkhandho viññaṇakkhandho.

Translation:
(There are) five aggregates: matter aggregate, feeling aggregate, perception aggregate, mental formation aggregate and consciousness aggregate.

Guide:
In the Suttas the Buddha usually analyzes a being or individual into five types of ultimate realities, the five aggregates (Pañcakkhandha).

In the Abhidhamma teaching the ultimates are grouped into the four categories enumerated in the text.
The first three – consciousness, mental factors, and matter – comprise all conditioned realities.
The five aggregates of the Suttanta teaching fit within these three categories.

The aggregate of consciousness (viññaṇakkhandha) is here comprised by consciousness (citta), the word citta generally being employed to refer to different classes of consciousness distinguished by their concomitants.
The middle three aggregates are, in the Abhidhamma, all included within the category of mental factors (cetasikas), the mental states that arise along with consciousness performing diverse functions.

The Abhidhamma enumerates fifty-two mental factors:
The aggregate of feeling is feeling mental factor.
The aggregate of perception is perception mental factor.
The aggregate of mental formations (saṅkhārakkhandha) of the Suttas is finely subdivided into fifty mental factors.
The aggregate of matter is, of course, identical with the Abhidhamma category of matter, which will later be divided into twenty-eight types of material phenomena.
To these three types of reality, which are conditioned, is added a fourth reality, which is unconditioned. That reality, which is not included in the five aggregates, is Nibbāna, the state of final deliverance from the suffering inherent in conditioned existence.