Rupa
Encyclopedia
In Hinduism
and Buddhism
, rūpa (Sanskrit
; Pāli
; Devanagari
: ; ) generally refers to material objects, particularly in regards to their appearance.
In general, rūpa is the Buddhist
concept
of material form, including both the body and external matter.
More specifically, in the Pali Canon
, rūpa is contextualized in three significant frameworks:
In addition, more generally, rūpa is used to describe a statue, in which it is sometimes called Buddharupa
.
. Instead it means means both materiality and sensibility — signifying, for example, a tactile object both insofar as that object is made of matter and that the object can be tactilely sensed. In fact rūpa is more essentially defined by its amenability to being sensed than its being matter: just like everything else it is defined in terms of its function; what it does, not what it is. As matter, rūpa is traditionally analysed in two ways: as four primary elements (Pali, mahābhūta
); and, as ten or twenty-four secondary or derived elements.
and later Pali literature
, rūpa is further analyzed in terms of ten or twenty-three or twenty-four types of secondary or derived (upādā) matter. In the list of ten types of secondary matter, the following are identified:
If twenty-four secondary types are enumerated, then the following fifteen are added to the first nine of the above ten:
A list of 23 derived types can be found, for instance, in the Abhidhamma Pitaka's Dhammasangani
(e.g., Dhs. 596), which omits the list of 24 derived types' "heart-basis."
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, rūpa (Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
; Pāli
Páli
- External links :* *...
; Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
: ; ) generally refers to material objects, particularly in regards to their appearance.
Definition
According to the Monier-Williams Dictionary (2006), rūpa is defined as:- ... any outward appearance or phenomenon or colour (often pl.) , form , shape , figure RVRigvedaThe Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
. &c &c ... - to assume a form ; often ifc. = " having the form or appearance or colour of " , " formed or composed of " , " consisting of " , " like to " ....
Buddhism
In general, rūpa is the Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
concept
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
of material form, including both the body and external matter.
More specifically, in the Pali Canon
Pāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
, rūpa is contextualized in three significant frameworks:
- rūpa-khandha – "material forms," one of the five aggregates (khandhaSkandhaIn Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the skandhas or khandhas are any of five types of phenomena that serve as objects of clinging and bases for a sense of self...
) by which all phenomena can be categorized (see Fig. 1). - rūpa-āyatana – "visible objects," the external sense objects of the eye, one of the six external sense bases (āyatana) by which the world is known (see Fig. 2).
- nāma-rūpaNamarupaNāmarūpa is a dvandva compound in Sanskrit and Pali meaning "name and form ".-Nāmarūpa in Hinduism:The term nāmarūpa is used in Hindu thought, nāma describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and rūpa the physical presence that it manifests...
– "name and form" or "mind and body," which in the causal chain of dependent origination (paticca-samuppāda) arises from consciousness and leads to the arising of the sense bases.
In addition, more generally, rūpa is used to describe a statue, in which it is sometimes called Buddharupa
Buddharupa
Buddharūpa is the Sanskrit and Pali term used in Buddhism for statues or models of the Buddha.-Commonalities:...
.
Rūpa-khandha
Rūpa is not matter as in the metaphysical substance of materialismMaterialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
. Instead it means means both materiality and sensibility — signifying, for example, a tactile object both insofar as that object is made of matter and that the object can be tactilely sensed. In fact rūpa is more essentially defined by its amenability to being sensed than its being matter: just like everything else it is defined in terms of its function; what it does, not what it is. As matter, rūpa is traditionally analysed in two ways: as four primary elements (Pali, mahābhūta
Mahabhuta
Mahābhūta is Sanskrit and Pāli for "great element." In Buddhism, the "four great elements" are earth, water, fire and air...
); and, as ten or twenty-four secondary or derived elements.
Four primary elements
Existing rūpa consists in the four primary or underived (no-upādā) elements:- earthEarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
or solidity - fireFireFire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....
or heat - waterWaterWater is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
or cohesion - air or movement
Derived matter
In the Abhidhamma PitakaAbhidhamma Pitaka
The Abhidhamma Pitaka is the last of the three pitakas constituting the Pali Canon, the scriptures of Theravāda Buddhism....
and later Pali literature
Pali literature
Pali literature is concerned mainly with Theravada Buddhism, of which Pali is the traditional language.- India :Main article: Pali CanonThe earliest and most important Pali literature constitutes the Pali Canon, the scriptures of Theravada...
, rūpa is further analyzed in terms of ten or twenty-three or twenty-four types of secondary or derived (upādā) matter. In the list of ten types of secondary matter, the following are identified:
- eye
- ear
- nose
- tongue
- body
- form
- sound
- odour
- taste
- touch
If twenty-four secondary types are enumerated, then the following fifteen are added to the first nine of the above ten:
- femininity
- masculinity or virility
- life or vitality
- heart or heart-basis
- physical indications (movements that indicate intentions)
- vocal indications
- space element
- physical lightness or buoyancy
- physical yieldingness or plasticity
- physical handiness or wieldiness
- physical grouping or integration
- physical extension or maintenance
- physical aging or decay
- physical impermanence
- food
A list of 23 derived types can be found, for instance, in the Abhidhamma Pitaka's Dhammasangani
Dhammasangani
The Dhammasangani is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, where it is included in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.Translations:* A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, tr C. A. F...
(e.g., Dhs. 596), which omits the list of 24 derived types' "heart-basis."
See also
- AbhidharmaAbhidharmaAbhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...
- ArūpaArupaIn Hinduism and Buddhism, arūpa , refers to formless or also non-material objects or subjects. Ether is somewhat arūpa, while the classical elements are rupa....
- BodyBodyWith regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
- ConsciousnessConsciousnessConsciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
- PerceptionPerceptionPerception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
s - SensationsSensation and perception psychologyIn psychology, sensation and perception are stages of processing of the senses in human and animal systems, such as vision, auditory, vestibular, and pain senses. These topics are considered part of psychology, and not anatomy or physiology, because processes in the brain so greatly affect the...
- Consciousness
- BuddharupaBuddharupaBuddharūpa is the Sanskrit and Pali term used in Buddhism for statues or models of the Buddha.-Commonalities:...
- Consciousness (Buddhism)
- NamarupaNamarupaNāmarūpa is a dvandva compound in Sanskrit and Pali meaning "name and form ".-Nāmarūpa in Hinduism:The term nāmarūpa is used in Hindu thought, nāma describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and rūpa the physical presence that it manifests...
(concept) - Skandhas
- SankhataSankhataSankhatas means mental creations in the Pali language. As explained by the dependent origination concept , sankhatas condition the consciousness and are conditioned by ignorance...
- SannaSannaThe Sanna is a tributary of the Vistula in Poland. Its source is in the village of Wierzchowiska II in Lublin Voivodeship, Galicia. It flows westward through a rural area. Then, it turns northward for a few kilometers until flowing into the Vistula near the city of Annopol. It is about 50 km...
- VedanaVedanaVedanā is a word in Sanskrit and Pāli traditionally translated as either "feeling" or "sensation." In general, vedanā refers to the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated...
- VijnanaVijnanaVijñāna or viññāa is translated as "consciousness," "life force," "mind," or "discernment."...
- Sankhata
- Substantial formSubstantial formA theory of substantial forms asserts that forms organize matter and make it intelligible. Substantial forms are the source of properties, order, unity, identity, and information about objects....
- Three marks of existenceThree marks of existenceThe Three marks of existence, within Buddhism, are three characteristics shared by all sentient beings, namely: impermanence ; suffering or unsatisfactoriness ; non-self .According to Buddhist tradition, a full understanding of these three can bring an end to suffering...
Sources
- BuddhaghosaBuddhaghosaBhadantācariya Buddhaghoṣa（Chinese: 覺音）was a 5th-century Indian Theravadin Buddhist commentator and scholar. His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga, or Path of Purification, a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Theravada understanding of the Buddha's path to liberation...
, Bhadantācariya (trans. from Pāli by Bhikkhu Ñāamoli) (1999). The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga. Seattle, WA: BPSBuddhist Publication SocietyThe Buddhist Publication Society is a charity whose goal is to explain and spread the doctrine of the Buddha. It was founded in Sri Lanka in 1958 by two Sri Lankan Buddhist laymen, A.S. Karunaratna and Richard Abeyasekera, and a European-born Buddhist monk, Nyanaponika Thera...
Pariyatti Editions. ISBN 1-928706-00-2.
- Hamilton, Sue (2001). Identity and Experience: The Constitution of the Human Being according to Early Buddhism. Oxford: Luzac Oriental. ISBN 1-898942-23-4.
- Monier-Williams, MonierMonier Monier-WilliamsSir Monier Monier-Williams, KCIE was the second Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, England...
(1899, 1964). A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-864308-X. Retrieved 2008-03-06 from "Cologne University" at http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/MWScan/index.php?sfx=pdf.
- Rhys Davids, Caroline A.F.Caroline Augusta Foley Rhys DavidsCaroline Augusta Foley Rhys Davids was an English Pāli language scholar and translator, and from 1923-1942 president of the Pali Text Society which was founded by her husband T. W. Rhys Davids whom she married in 1894.-Early life and education:...
([1900], 2003). Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, of the Fourth Century B.C., Being a Translation, now made for the First Time, from the Original Pāli, of the First Book of the Abhidhamma-Piaka, entitled Dhamma- (Compendium of States or Phenomena). Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0-7661-4702-9.
External links
- Thanissaro BhikkhuThanissaro BhikkhuṬhānissaro Bhikkhu, also known as Ajaan Geoff, is an American Buddhist monk of the Dhammayut Order , Thai forest kammatthana tradition. He is currently the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu is a notably skilled and prolific translator of the Pāli Canon...
(trans.) (2003). Maha-hatthipadopama Sutta: The Great Elephant Footprint Simile (MNMajjhima NikayaThe Majjhima Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the second of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism...
28). Retrieved 2008-03-06 from "Access to Insight" at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn028-tb0.html.