Hurrah again @stephen 
Thank you for the clarification.
Regarding the SN 55.21 phrase you cite, I would say this translation is misleading and render kāyo rūpī as “The body, possessed of form…”. “Consists of”–as in, “the consistency of a thick soup or porridge”-- connotes something far more embedded in the concept of material composition than I feel rūpa was ever intended to communicate.
And this is precisely my point. I think there’s a danger of conflation of very different concepts when we use the English term “form” as the default translation for rūpa. “Fo.rm” in English is related the idea of a mold or molding something, as seen in the verb “to form.” (Admittedly, “form” can also imply an outer shape, but “shape” still connotes shaping something materially) Rūpa, on the other hand, relates to an appearance or image: there’s no connotation of anything tactile or of tangibility that I can see. I don’t know of any verb associated with rūpa other than the ruppati etymology which is obviously not historical and is more an example of Buddhist apologetics than a true etymology. (The word I’ve ever heard associated with rūpa was varpa, which supports my claim.) But, even there, an argument can be made for interpreting the break down as the breakdown of a (presumably subha) image rather than that of tangible matter.
So, to return to the translation given, I don’t see a singular image in this phrase, as you seem to; you appear to have subsumed both the images pertaining to the body–that of its having form and its being composed of the four great elements–under the same verb, “consists of”: “The body consists of form, of the four great elements.” I rather see this description of the body coming from two very different angles, and I think the grammar bears this out: the adjectival rūpī implies having or being possessed of a certain quality, referring to its appearance in this case; whereas bhūtika is a bit closer to the idea of “consisting of” something material, hence its very naturally being coupled with the four great material elements. As such, I would translate that phrase as “The body, having its [outer] appearance, composed of the four great material elements…”.
Edit: Sorry I didn’t address the MN 28 reference: I felt this was long enough. And I doubt reference to MN 28 would change my argument much.
The problem is assuming that it is meant to be a true etymology. It isn’t; it’s a pun. And given that it is a pun I would say it is more likely to be authentic. The Buddha used lots of puns (most of which don’t show well in translation) and unlike later tradition didn’t seem to be that concerned with etymology.
But if you agree a body is composed of the four elements, then that is basically the same as saying it is made of rupa. For rupa is often equivalent to the four elements. So it makes sense that when the suttas say “the body having rupa, composed of the four elements”, to interpret the two statements to mean the same thing.
Do read MN28. It is pretty clear that rupa goes beyond mere appearances.
It’s a shifting concept, that’s what makes it problematic to interpret and translate. We can’t pin it down to just the body, but we also can’t pin it down to just outer appearances.
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That is precisely what I said: we have no etymology.
This is why, in the “challenge” I proposed, that we discount vibhaṅga-type discurses, because they will, more than likely, be of the same sort as the rūpa/ruppati etymology. It would be best to restrict ourselves to suttas depicting rūpa in situ, so to speak. In fact, when you say,
I would heartily agree. And I would further say that the former meaning is restricted to the more exegetical suttas like SN 22.79, MN 128, and the like; while, in most if not all other contexts, the latter meaning is the primary if not exclusive meaning. Again, that was my “challenge.”
Peace.
Yes, this seems certainly so, an example of **niruktiḥ / nirukta.
I know that this is a scholarly forum and it is important, I get that. But for me suttas contain guiding words not so much definitions.
For example when someone experiences the beginnings of a strong pull of Samadhi such that changing one’s posture or even swallowing one’s own saliva ( to say nothing of being bitten by a mosquito) can suck them out… Here atleast there is something to be investigated. Sutamaya can be a aid in this but not the end-all.
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Exactly. It feels like to me that people here get lost in their own fabrications, like a dog chasing its own tail. Just way too much over analyzing leading to analysis paralysis.
It’s important to understand that views are a means to an end, not a rule of law, and also there will never be “a perfect view”. I think people who are waiting to arrive at “the perfect theoretical view” are going to wait forever. Often times I see people who pretend to be overly academic about the dhamma act very unwholesomy, quite nasty, and haven’t made any progress.
It’s important to be flexible with interpretations. As the Gotami sutta says, if a view results in dispassion and letting go, it’s in accordance with the true dhamma. That’s all one really needs, they don’t need to understand every translation, nuance, variance, inflection, or comparable philosophy. So if your translation and understanding of rupa doesn’t fall into the paradigm of the four noble truths, it’s probably not going to aid in dispassion.
I translate rūpa as “appearance” rather than “form”. As far as I can see, this works.
The early Buddhists had no conception of the microscopic world, let alone the nanoscopic. We cannot explain science in terms of Buddhism or vice versa without serious anachronism.
NB: here you (and most of the others) are just giving translations that are based on the assumption that rūpa = body. You haven’t made the case that we must read rūpa as “body” in these examples. You have simply repeated the dogma that Theravādins do read rūpa as “body”. There is a difference.
But don’t feel bad, because no one has made the case, they have all just restated the dogmatic conclusion. And most of the further comments have now wandered off onto unrelated topics.
A number of answers have cited the catu mhābhūta as necessitating the reading. But there is plenty of evidence , from Vism for example, that these were defined phenomenologically, e.g. paṭhavī is the quality of resistance; āpo the quality of coherence, tejo the quality heat, and vāyu the quality of movement (Buddhaghosa’s list is slightly different). The list of limbs and organs offered in meditations on rūpa are examples of where we experience “resistance” rather than examples of a substantive earth element. So the idea that citing the mahābhūta is some kind of proof that rūpa means body is still based on the axiom that “rūpa means body” i.e. the definition is tautological.
Someone mentioned the etymology connecting rūpa to ruppati “harm, destroy”. Sadly, this is nonsense. This “etymology”, which comes from the Khajjanīya Sutta is wrong and rūpa is not related in any (grammatical) way to √rup (Skt rupyati) “to suffer pain”. A sanskrit version of the passage in Aṣṭasāhasrikā uses the denominative rūpayati which is more plausible: the action of appearance is “appearing” (rūpayati). I wrote about this in my published article Studying the Heart Sutra.
The etymology of rūpa is uncertain: but the original meaning is certainly along the lines of “visible form, visage, (good) looks, appearance”. Moreover, the Chinese translation of rūpa is quite consistently (from the earliest times) sè 色, which means “outward appearance, visible form; colour”.
Another critique was that rūpa means completely different things in difference contexts. In my view, this is a post hoc accommodation with Theravāda dogma which does equate rūpa with “body”. In my reading rūpa always means the same thing, i.e. “appearance”, but sometimes it is used specifically for visual appearances and sometimes generally for sensual appearances.
No doubt the body has a role to play in perception, but in the āyatana and dhātu ontologies, the body (kāya) is specifically the organ of touch, which perceives phenomena of sensing tangibles (phoṭṭhabba). I say again: rūpa is to the eye as sound is to the ear; as phoṭṭhabba is to the body. Kāya and rūpa are not in the same category in these cases: one is an organ of sensing, and one is an object of sensing. If rūpa goes with anything it is phoṭṭhabba not kāya.
I still haven’t seen any passage where we must read rūpa as “body”. Or seen any logical argument in favour of reading “body”.
Hi,
It’s not that one-sided in the suttas, though. The element of water [here being the external, not internal] is said to sweep away villages, and an example is the water in the ocean. This is to me clearly not merely what “we experience”. It refers to something in the world out there.
And the internal elements are not defined as the experience of the limbs and organs, but as those very things themselves. For example:
Anything that’s water, watery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, saliva, snot, synovial fluid, urine, or anything else that’s water, watery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This is called the interior water element.
I don’t know how we are to read passages such as this as “the experience” of these things. It clearly refers to the things in and of themselves.
I quoted before “the rūpa of mortals gets old”. How do you interpret this? How do appearances “get old”?
Somebody else quoted:
Concerning this body, he of vast wisdom has taught that when three things are given up, you’ll see this form discarded.
This is first of all almost a straight synonymity between kāya and rūpa. This passage also refers to death. I don’t see how appearances die nor “are discarded”, which here refers to leaving behind the body.
Someone mentioned the etymology connecting rūpa to ruppati “harm, destroy”.
I can’t remember anybody claiming it to be a true etymology. Rather, it’s a pun. The point, though, is not the etymology but how the text explains rūpa. It says rūpa is harmed by mosquitos and cold etc. This most naturally refers to the body, not to appearances, would you agree?
The idea of rūpa referring to the living body is also found in the Upanisads, though not as clearly:
“For as long as one breathes with breath so long there is form; that is shape. And when breath departs he is left useless, having become just like a log, [and] no form whatever [is left]” (JU 3.32.2)
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Isn’t your standard for evidence going against your proposition way too high here? Like, you’re never forced to read anything in a particular way, you can do whatever you want 
Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to ask for passages where rupa as body or substance makes more sense than your own favored translation, given the context?
It just seems like you’ve set up your proposition for survival from the start.
Like, it seems to me you are not really interested in counter-evidence to your proposition.
IMO, “no one was able to definitely disprove my proposition” is a poor heuristic for judging the validity of your proposition. Hypotheses are never definitely proved or disproved anyway. Ideally, the evidence is weighed against a background of several plausible explanations of the same phenomena.
You would learn much more from steel-manning the arguments against your proposition 
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It’s common in the West to reduce sense to the visual field, so much so that it is a well known academic bias in all theory. With the sensory turn in academics, now over 20 years old, much work in the field is now related to haptics (touch), of which, as I mentioned earlier, my supervisor opened up the field with her book on haptics in film (Skin of the Film) and has led it now for over 20 years, sound (led by Michael Chion, which is coming up fast), with explorations into smell (MRI imaging studies on this have been most productive) and breath (Luce Irigaray with her early forays, based on her interest in yoga).
Depends what you mean by “case”. I don’t read suttas in order to gather concrete evidence for matters of textual criticism. I was merely providing reading that points to what is likely correct based on themes regarding both kāya and rūpa found in dozens of suttas: that of inevitable decay and loss of that which is dear. This is - for me - more than enough to go by; and by that I mean, it is more than enough to get a general idea about how these are to be regarded (whether in terms of elements, aggregates or sense bases), which is more than enough for me to pursue them as such in practice. Because as we all know, to know whether or not what we read is “correct”, we must alter the lifestyle in terms of virtue and sense restraint, and press for the insight that would confirm it.
So, I think this discussion is about far more than the specifics of the OP, but is one of reliability, believability, and what qualifies as worthy of pursuit. But it all depends on what we are attempting to accomplish. Say someone is a master topographer and cartographer, and based on information gathered from surveyors is able to produce a map of such high quality that it would be able to guide a traveler on the safest path from one side a dangerous mountain range to another. On this journey the traveler would be required to climb rock and snow, navigate steep slopes and deal with bitterly cold temperatures, but with the help of the map will have the best chance of finding the safest route. What is the traveler’s best course of action upon receiving the map? Should the traveler stay put and become a master topographer and cartographer in order to understand the craft of map making? Or should the traveler prepare for field navigation, climbing and cold weather survival? Indeed, the traveler must posses the skills to understand what the map is indicating, but the traveler’s goal is to reach the other side of the mountain range - attaining the skill level of the map maker may not even require they walk out the door. In the same way, the map maker doesn’t need to know anything at all about climbing equipment or survival, but only what indicates a hazardous condition for those who may actually walk out the door and try to cross the mountains. This analogy is not entirely perfect, but I’m sure you catch my drift.
So, are we trying to create the perfect text or are we looking for what we need to develop the well-reasoned faith necessary to then alter the lifestyle in the hopes to gain liberation? When the ascetics of old left the household, did they all do so because they had already become “enlightened” or did many do it because they were disenchanted with the dusty household life and had been inspired by the prospect of something more? Raṭṭhapāla of MN 82, refused to eat until his parents allowed him to go forth, for no other reason than he was inspired and had tremendous faith in the prospect of success.
I’m not saying that textual criticism is not a worthy venture, but we can’t expect that ambiguity is as much as an issue for one person as it is for another. It all depends on what we plan to do with the evidence.
Just a suggestion …
If discussions, like this one, about the meaning of key terms (like rūpa) could somehow be made visible when the dictionary entry for the term is selected (SuttaCentral), this could potentially be very beneficial to everyone seeking to understand the meaning of the Buddha’s teachings.
If rūpa referred to appearance then it seems all would be mentality. If all was mentality then it seems the distinctions inherent in the five aggregates would be unnecessary. All that would exist is consciousness because everything, including feeling, perception & formations, would also be “appearance”.
Also, if rūpa was “appearance”, then it seems such “appearance” would be different for each mind. But that does not seem to be the case. For example the rupa of each person is the same:
Rāhula, the interior earth element is said to be anything hard, solid, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, undigested food, feces, or anything else hard, solid, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual.
MN 62
Pathavī is a concrete noun, as are the other elements. We are then given a list of things which are the earth element, or water element. For example:
“Whatever internally, belonging to oneself, is water, watery, and clung-to, that is, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, spittle, snot, oil-of-the-joints, urine, or whatever else internally, belonging to oneself, is water, watery, and clung-to: this is called the water element.”
So blood is the water element. Anything that is “watery” is the water element. If the elements were qualities we should see abstract nouns such as “solidity” rather than adjectives such as “kakkhaḷaṁ” or “kharigataṁ”. When we see then the 4 elements in terms of the body, it’s not by way of qualities (abstract nouns) but by way of adjectives and concrete nouns. The air element in the body is your breath, bowl winds and so on. They are the air element. The point then in seeing that the internal and external air element is simply “air element” is to see that what you are made out of is the same as what out there is made out of. It’s merely a temporary arrangement of this stuff that gives you your form, and it’s only by clinging to it that it’s “your body” compared to “their body”. In truth both are simply earth, water, fire and air element. It’s only when you get to the Abhidhamma and commentaries that they shift completely to qualities. This is because the Ābhidhammikas, I suspect, wanted to remove substance from experience (very good) but still wanted to keep some kind of Realism (not so good), leading to a paradoxical system where qualities (hardness, redness), the sabhāva-dhammas, are said to “truly exist”.
Another critique was that rūpa means completely different things in difference contexts. In my view, this is a post hoc accommodation with Theravāda dogma which does equate rūpa with “body”. In my reading rūpa always means the same thing, i.e. “appearance”, but sometimes it is used specifically for visual appearances and sometimes generally for sensual appearances.
Isn’t that how non-technical language works though? I mean, in everyday speech we talk of our bodies, or a student body or a body of water. All of this involves the word “body”, but it means something different in each case.
I still haven’t seen any passage where we must read rūpa as “body”. Or seen any logical argument in favour of reading “body”.
Nāmarūpa is said to “develop”, “take shape” and “grow up”. This is obviously referring in part to our physical body (in the sarīra sense).
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It is, and I’d like to add that nobody said that the meanings are “completely” different. Obviously the way one looks (i.e. the appearance) is related to one’s body (i.e. the “form”).
And it is also no surprise that the sense of sight (i.e. rūpa as object) is most closely connected to what the ancient Indians believed the world to be made out of (i.e. four elements). These are not disconnected ideas. It’s just hard to relate to from a modern point of view.
Here are some other suttas to consider:
- Thig5.8: “I gave birth to ten sons in this form (rūpa), this bag of bones.”
- SN22.56: “Form originates from food. When food ceases, form ceases.”
- Compare with SN47.42: “The body originates from food. When food ceases, the body ends.”
- MN50: “My body was a human form (rūpa)”
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Perhaps this whole inquiry is not nearly as complicated as it seems…
Rupa means kaya often, not always.
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My thanks to everyone who provided examples that they believe disprove my proposition. I will work through these examples over coming months to see if anyone actually has turned up anything useful.
I’ll leave you with this. In Pāḷi, rūpa is to cakkhu as sadda is to sota; and as phoṭṭhabba is to kāya.
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