On the translation of "skandha" as "yin" 陰

[Mikhail Skovoronskikh]

Dear colleagues,

While my question concerns comparative Buddhology more than premodern Japanese studies, I wonder if anyone on the list familiar with this subject can give me a quick hint regarding the following curious translation choice.

It is a well-known fact that early Chinese translations of Buddhist texts favor the term "yin" 陰 when rendering the Sanskrit/prakrit "skandha," or "aggregate." In later translations, the same word is almost ubiquitously translated as "yun" 蘊, best illustrated by the famous 五蘊皆空 line from the Heart Sutra.

Now, I am really curious about why early translators chose "yin," literally "obscuration," to convey the meaning of "skandha," literally "heap, collection." Trying to find out the answer, I turned to some scholarship by Nattier and Mair, but couldn't locate a specific explanation. Nattier does discuss how unconventional (and erroneous) translations could arise from prakrit idiosyncrasies, but for such a fundamental term to be (mis?)-translated as "obscuration" there must have been some compelling reasons.

I wonder if any of you who work with Buddhist texts could chime in on this specific case. I will add, briefly, that doctrinally the rendering "obscuration" may make some sense in some contexts (the five aggregates obscuring or clouding the nirvāṇa-element, etc.), but it could also be rather confusing in light of the presence of some very compelling alternatives (kleṣa, āvaraṇa, ās(ś)rava, etc.). In any event, I would very much appreciate your help.

Best regards,

Mikhail Skovoronskikh

[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear Prof. Skovoronskikh,

You'll have to forgive me for the brevity of my reply as it's almost 6 AM on this side of the pond, but, as a bit of a shot in the dark, could there be a connection with the Scripture of the Five Kitchens, Revealed by Laozi (老子說五廚經)?

Even if it's not connected, I recommend Christine Mollier's Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China; particularly the first chapter on the Heavenly Kitchens.

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe

[Christopher Larcombe]

Professor Skovoronskikh,

An apposite chapter in a recent monograph by Professor Funayama Tōru 船山徹 (Kyoto University) may throw some clarifying light on the specific case you're enquiring about:

"Butten ga tsukuridashita jukugo". In chapt. 3 of Bukkyō kango gogi kaishaku (Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten, 2022), pp. 152 - 160.

http://www.rinsen.com/linkbooks/ISBN978-4-653-04516-8.htm

It includes a concise and dense discussion of the derivations of both J. go-on [五陰] and J. go-un [五蘊]. 

SUNY doesn't appear to have it. However, Princeton does (I presume it's available via inter-library loan):

https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99125543729606421

I can get a hold of a scan of the relevant chapter if you cannot obtain the book yourself.

Regards,

Christopher Larcombe 

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[萬井 良大]

Dear Mikhail,

I’m not well-versed in Buddhist studies, but early translators might have been influenced by cosmological frameworks such as yin-yang wuxing philosophy.

In that system, yin is sometimes associated with the accumulation or condensation of energy, while yang is linked to its dispersion or expansion.

If early translators were drawing on this conceptual background, they may have seen yin as a fitting metaphor for the aggregated nature of the skandhas.

Warm regards,

Yoshihiro Man’i

On 2025/11/16 7:58, Mikhail Skovoronskikh wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> While my question concerns comparative Buddhology more than premodern Japanese studies, I wonder if anyone on the list familiar with this subject can give me a quick hint regarding the following curious translation choice.
>

> It is a well-known fact that early Chinese translations of Buddhist texts favor the term "yin" 陰 when rendering the Sanskrit/prakrit "skandha," or "aggregate." In later translations, the same word is almost ubiquitously translated as "yun" 蘊, best illustrated by the famous 五蘊皆空 line from the /Heart Sutra/.

>
> Now, I am really curious about why early translators chose "yin," literally "obscuration," to convey the meaning of "skandha," literally "heap, collection." Trying to find out the answer, I turned to some scholarship by Nattier and Mair, but couldn't locate a specific explanation. Nattier does discuss how unconventional (and erroneous) translations could arise from prakrit idiosyncrasies, but for such a fundamental term to be (mis?)-translated as "obscuration" there must have been some compelling reasons.
>

> I wonder if any of you who work with Buddhist texts could chime in on this specific case. I will add, briefly, that doctrinally the rendering "obscuration" may make some sense in some contexts (the five aggregates obscuring or clouding the nirvāṇa-element, etc.), but it could also be rather confusing in light of the presence of some very compelling alternatives (/kleṣa/, /āvaraṇa/, /ās(ś)rava/, etc.). In any event, I would very much appreciate your help.
>
> Best regards,
> Mikhail Skovoronskikh
>

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[Mikhail Skovoronskikh]

Dear all,

Thank you very much for the valuable suggestions. I have especially high hopes for the relevant chapter in Prof. Funayama's book. I'll place an ILL order for it right away.

Best regards,

Mikhail Skovoronskikh

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pmjs/691977a2.170a0220.ff030.8461%40mx.google.com.

[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear Prof. Skovoronskikh,

I would be interested in seeing the chapter that Christopher Larcombe refers to, however, my theoretical point has perhaps been made clearer by Yoshihiro Man’i.

To expand upon it a little further, Eric M. Greene, across two separate footnotes within Doctrinal Dispute in the Earliest Phase of Chinese Buddhism: Anti-Mahāyāna Polemics in the Scripture on the Fifty Contemplations (2000), remarks,

n. 50: The earliest Chinese Buddhist translations use the word yin 陰, “dark," to translate skandha, a rendering that has long been a source of puzzlement given its seeming lack of connection to the literal meaning of skandha as "heap" or "aggregate" (Tang [1938] 2001: 1.167; Link 1976: 69, n. 33; Zurcher 1991: 292). Presented as the "dark" components of a human being, this translation makes of the skandhas a set of impurities that must be cast off. As noted by Peng Ziqiang (2000: 43-52), this does in fact fit with how An Shigao's translations (where the word is first used) often present them. It also matches well with the sense here in the Fifty Contemplations, where these "dark elements" are argued to be defilements that impede liberation.

n. 87: In addition to the more usual yin 陰 (see above n. 50), the Yin chi ru Jing also translates skandha as zhong 種 and sometimes (as here) combines the two translations as yin zhong 陰種. Though zhong probably was originally intended to mean "class" or "category" (Ui 1971: 186), a reasonable translation of skandha, the commentary appears to read it to mean "seed."

Link: https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3269005

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe

[Mikhail Skovoronskikh]

Dear Leonardo and everyone,

These are very informative footnotes, and they do strengthen the "obscuration" hypothesis. I will make sure to share relevant excerpts from Professor Funayama's chapter here once I've got a hold of it. Let's see whether his findings shed more light on the matter.

In the meantime, I can't help but share a brief quote from the Mohe zhiguan (Chapter 5), which strongly suggests that the "obscuration" interpretation was accepted by Zhi Yi himself:

陰者，陰蓋善法，此就因得名。又陰是積聚，生死重沓，此就果得名。

"Aggregates (yin) obscure wholesome dharmas [that lead to enlightenment]; this is a designation applied according to cause. Aggregates also refer to accumulation. Since birth and death are repeatedly [experienced by beings], this is a designation applied according to effect/fruit."

Please forgive my clunky rendering--I have no access to Prof. Swanson's monumental translation, and am not familiar with Zhi Yi's idiom. But it appears to be the case that he understands yin as meaning, etymologically, both "obscuration" and "accumulation," and I think the latter supports Dr. Man'i's conjecture. To paraphrase Zhi Yi's position in simpler terms, aggregates are called yin (obscurations) because their presence "obscures" wholesome dharmas and practices that lead to liberation (cause argument); they are also yin (accumulations), visible manifestations of our repeated wandering in saṃsāra (effect/fruit argument).

Best regards,

Mikhail Skovoronskikh

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pmjs/9a93d11a-1c9f-4a62-9015-c0ca27c23750n%40googlegroups.com.

[Mikhail Skovoronskikh]

Dear colleagues,

To follow up on our discussion, I have received a copy of the relevant pages in Prof. Funayama's book from ILL and reviewed his argument. To state the conclusion first, Prof. Funayama's investigation is a preliminary one and doesn't conclusively solve the problem. To quote just one passage,

 As for the reason [why yin was chosen to translate "skandha"], my investigation has not yet reached a stage where a definitive answer can be given, but the thinking [behind this translation choice] appears to have associated "piling up" with "obscuring the truth/reality."

Prof. Funayama then proceeds to adduce several examples of this--for some reason, all of which are Tang and post-Tang (cf. the passage from Zhiyi's Mohe zhiguan I quoted earlier). He concludes by reminding us that there are doctrinal contexts in which the five aggregates are mentioned together with the five hindrances, the nīvaraṇas, 五蓋. While accepting that these belong to different terminological categories, he nonetheless suggests some kind of contextual cross-fertilization, citing further examples (Sui and post-Tang).

I must confess that I am not fully satisfied by Prof. Funayama's explanation and methodology. For the sake of this discussion, which has admittedly gone beyond the purview of premodern Japanese studies, I will confine myself to briefly stating my own, inexpert hypothesis that has grown out of some further reading as well as the comments kindly provided by other PMJS members on this thread.

Without going into tedious detail, I believe there is sufficient evidence in texts belonging to the interpretive community active in southern China around the third century (going back to An Shigao and Kang Senghui and centuries before the Sui and Tang) to point to a peculiar understanding of skandhas not as classificatory groups but as literal accretions that obscure the practitioner's mind (or "spirit-consciousness" 神識). The rendering yin represents a semantic shift from aggregate as group/type to aggregate as accretion/stain. In this respect, Prof. Funayama's overall conclusion holds: piling up/accretion was indeed associated with obscuration. Since it appears like the interpretive community in question held dhyānic meditation in high regard, such an understanding would have made good sense to its members.

This is my working hypothesis at the moment, and I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this discussion for helping me further refine it. It seems that much more painstaking comparative work is needed to answer my original question definitively, however.

If anyone would like to see Prof. Funayama's original argument, I will be happy to share the PDF I received from ILL off-list.

Best regards,

Mikhail Skovoronskikh

[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear Prof. Skovoronskikh,

If you don't mind sharing Prof. Funayama's text with me, I'd be grateful.

Regarding the summing-up of Prof. Funayama's work, along with your own theories, you may wish to see if the below is of any relevance.

藏; to store, but also to hide/conceal, and is connected to the 五脏 (this, ultimately, goes back to my original reply about the Five Kitchens).

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%97%8F/27841

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%94%E8%84%8F/881550

阴; can also mean "hidden", e.g., 阴德

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%98%B4/4087

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%98%B4%E5%BE%B7/9990560

As an aside, there was also the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice (五斗米道).

Please keep us updated with any findings, or feel free to e-mail me off-list.

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe

[Richard Bowring]

Could I suggest that you move this discussion to H-Buddhism, where you will find a lot of interest and excellent advice?

Richard Bowring 

On 22 Nov 2025, at 01:34, Mikhail Skovoronskikh <ms3...@georgetown.edu> wrote:



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