A Companion Glossary of
Buddhist Terms and Proper Names
Aggregate
G. kaṃdha (kadha), P. khandha, S. skandhaḥ, C. 陰 (DĀ, MĀ, EĀ, SĀ, SĀ2).
The term “aggregate” was the label for the items in a list of five types of phenomena that constitute existence on Earth. These five were forms, feelings, conceptualizations, actions, and awareness. Each was referred to as an “aggregate” in the sense of a “conglomeration” or “category of things.” This sense of a multitude of individual things relates to the idea of accumulation and attachment to them being the source of rebirth and suffering.
The early Chinese translation of this term was 陰, which is also the yin of the Chinese concept of yin and yang. 陰 can mean many things that the Chinese associated with the female principle: cloudy or gloomy weather, shade or shadow, negative (vs. positive), the Moon (vs. the Sun), the shady side of a mountain or river, the back side (vs. the front), the spirit world, and so on. None of these readings seem appropriate for the Buddhist term aggregate.
However, we do get a sense of how 陰 was understood from a brief gloss in Li Shizheng’s (李師政, ca. 7th c. CE) Collected Names and Meanings of Dharma Subjects (法門名義集, T2124.54.195a27), which reads:
The five yins [aggregates]: Form, feeling, conception, action, and awareness. These five yins together form a sentient being. What is the form yin? Shaping and obstructing is form. Receiving is feeling. Provisional naming is conception. Producing and making is action. Discerning is awareness. What is the meaning of yin? Sheltering (陰蓋) and accumulating, they form a sentient being.
In this passage, 陰蓋 = 蔭蓋. 蔭 is a term that has a more specific meaning of being covered, concealed, or shaded, as when one is standing under a tree or in the undergrowth of a forest. A close equivalent Indic word for 蔭蓋 might be P/S. chāyā, which can mean “concealed,” “shaded,” and “reflection” and has the feminine gender. In this way, 陰 may have been intended to mean “shelter” or “concealment.” If true, it would not have been a direct translation of S. skandha but an Indic gloss or interpretation.
Later Chinese translations replaced 陰 with more literal equivalents of S. skandha such as 衆 (“multitude”) and 蘊 (“accumulation”), but these do not appear in the four Āgama collections.
Last Revised: 21 January 2025