Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c9.s3.5

c9.s3.5

By a division,¹ which seems to have no precedent in Brahmanical texts, and which has certainly no merit, logical or psychological, the individual is divided into five aggregates or groups (khandha), the Sanskrit equivalent of which means ‘body’ in the phrase Dharmaskandha in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad. The first is Rūpa, which denotes simply matter, or material quality, and covers the elements and their compounds; the term aggregate has obviously considerable appropriateness as applied to the complex admixture which makes up the human body, and it is clearly absurd to infer from it any conception of constant dynamic conditions in the body, which, indeed, is treated by the Canon as relatively stable and long-lived.