Nāmarūpa ( sa, नामरूप) is used in Buddhism to refer to the constituents of a living being: ''nāma'' is typically considered to refer to the mental component of the person, while ''rūpa'' refers to the physical. ''Nāmarūpa'' is a

dvandva A dvandva ('pair' in Sanskrit) is a linguistic compound in which multiple individual nouns are concatenated to form an agglomerated compound word in which the conjunction has been elided to form a new word with a distinct semantic field. For ins ...

compound in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the la ...

and

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhi ...

meaning "name (nāma) and form (rūpa)". ''Nama'' (name) and ''Rupa'' (form) is the simple worldly identity of any form by a name both of which are considered temporal and not true identity with the nameless and formless ‘reality’ or ‘Absolute’ in Hinduism that has manifested as maya. In Buddhism the loss of all names and forms leads to the realization of the Ultimate reality of ‘Shunyatha’ or ‘Emptiness’ or Nirvana “Naked Truth” removed of Maya.

In Buddhism

This term is used in Buddhism to refer to the constituents of a living being: ''nāma'' refers to the mental, while ''

rūpa Rūpa () means "form". As it relates to any kind of basic object, it has more specific meanings in the context of Indic religions. Definition According to the Monier-Williams Dictionary (2006), rūpa is defined as: :* ... any outward appearance ...

'' refers to the physical. The Buddhist ''nāma'' and ''rūpa'' are mutually dependent, and not separable; as ''nāmarūpa'', they designate an individual being. Namarupa are also referred to as the five skandhas, "the psycho-physical organism", “mind-and-matter,” and “mentality-and-materiality”.

Psycho-physical constituents

In the

Pali Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During ...

, the Buddha describes ''nāmarūpa'' in this manner (English on left,

on right): Elsewhere in the

, ''nāmarūpa'' is used synonymously with the five aggregates.Rhys Davids & Stede, ''op cit''.

Empty of self

In keeping with the doctrine of anātman/ anatta, "the absence of an (enduring, essential) self", ''nāma'' and ''rūpa'' are held to be constantly in a state of flux, with only the continuity of experience (itself a product of

dependent origination A dependant is a person who relies on another as a primary source of income. A common-law spouse who is financially supported by their partner may also be included in this definition. In some jurisdictions, supporting a dependant may enab ...

) providing an experience of any sort of conventional 'self'.

Part of the cycle of suffering

Nāmarūpa is the fourth of the Twelve Nidānas, preceded by consciousness (Pali: '' viññāna''; Skt.: ''vijñana'') and followed by the six sense bases (Pali: '' ''; Skt: '). Thus, in the

Sutta Nipata The ' () is a Buddhist scripture, a sutta collection in the Khuddaka Nikaya, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. Sections The ''Sutta Nipāta'' is divided into five sections: Uraga Vagga ("The Chapter on the Serpent") Cūla Vagg ...

, the Buddha explains to the Ven. Ajita how samsaric

rebirth Rebirth may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Film * ''Rebirth'' (2011 film), a 2011 Japanese drama film * ''Rebirth'' (2016 film), a 2016 American thriller film * ''Rebirth'', a documentary film produced by Project Rebirth * ''The R ...

ceases:

In Hinduism

The term ''nāmarūpa'' is used in

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

thought, ''nāma'' describing the spiritual or essential properties of an object or being, and ''rūpa'' the physical presence that it manifests. These terms are used similarly to the way that '

essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

' and '

accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researche ...

' are used in

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing t ...

to describe

transubstantiation Transubstantiation (Latin: ''transubstantiatio''; Greek: μετουσίωσις ''metousiosis'') is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the ...

. The distinction between nāma and rūpa in Hindu thought explains the ability of spiritual powers to manifest through inadequate or inanimate vessels - as observed in possession and oracular phenomena, as well as in the presence of the divine in images that are worshiped through pūja. Nāma Rupatmak Vishva is the Vedanta (a school of Sanatana Dharma/ Hinduism) term for the manifest Universe, viz. The World as we know it. Since every object in this World has a Nāma and Rupa, the World is called Nāma Rupatmak Vishva. The Paramātma (or Creator) is not manifest in this Nāma Rupatmak Vishva but is realized by a Sādhaka(student) by means of

Bhakti ''Bhakti'' ( sa, भक्ति) literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity".See Monier-Williams, ''Sanskrit Dictionary'', 1899. It was originally used in Hinduism, referring to de ...

(devotion),

Karma Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...

(action), Jnana (knowledge),

Yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-conscio ...

(Union, a Hindu school), or a

combination In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations). For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are th ...

of all of these methodologies.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Ireland, John D. (trans.) (1983). ''Ajita-manava-puccha: Ajita's Questions'' ( Sn 5.1), from ''The Discourse Collection: Selected Texts from the Sutta Nipata'' (WH 82). Kandy:

Buddhist Publication Society The Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) is a publishing house with charitable status whose objective is to disseminate the teaching of Gautama Buddha. It was founded in Kandy, Sri Lanka in 1958 by two Sri Lankan lay Buddhists, A.S. Karunaratna a ...

. Retrieved 2007-06-20 from "Access to Insight" (1994) at https://web.archive.org/web/20140812121236/http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.5.01.irel.html. * Rhys Davids, T.W. & William Stede (eds.) (1921-5). ''The Pali Text Society’s Pali–English Dictionary''. Chipstead: Pali Text Society. A general on-line search engine for the PED is available at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/. * Sri Lanka Buddha Jayanti Tipitaka Series (SLTP) (n.d.). ''Buddhavaggo'' ( SN 12.1). Retrieved 2007-06-20 from "METTANET - LANKA" at http://metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/3Samyutta-Nikaya/Samyutta2/12-Abhisamaya-Samyutta/01-Buddhavaggo-p.html. * Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (1994). ''Ajita-manava-puccha: Ajita's Questions'' ( Sn 5.1). Retrieved 2007-06-20 from "Access to Insight" at https://web.archive.org/web/20141226013717/http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.5.01.than.html. * Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (1997). ''Paticca-samuppada-vibhanga Sutta: Analysis of Dependent Co-arising'' ( SN 12.2). Retrieved 2007-06-20 from "Access to Insight" at https://web.archive.org/web/20060512063953/http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn-12-002-tb0.html. {{Buddhism topics Hindu philosophical concepts Twelve nidānas Sanskrit words and phrases