Talk:Rūpa

Misleading notion
I will question why Rupa is interpreted as 'material objects', and not merely 'objects' or 'things'. To my understanding it refers to both imaginary and material phenomena, all things formative. Rupa is according to Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon also a term for the number One. In modern philosophy I would say 'Singularity'. --Xact (talk) 17:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Arupa
Recently, the phrase "as opposed to arupa" was inserted into this article's one-line intro. Prior to this recent change, this article's one-line intro was:


 * In Hinduism and Buddhism, rūpa (Sanskrit; Pāli; Devanagari: रुपा; Thai: รูป) generally refers to material objects, particularly in regards to their appearance.

The recently inserted phrase changed the intro to:


 * In Hinduism and Buddhism, rūpa (Sanskrit; Pāli; Devanagari: रुपा; Thai: รูป), as opposed to arupa, generally refers to material objects, particularly in regards to their appearance.

In general, the purpose of this article's intro is to be abstract enough to span uses of rūpa in both Hinduism and Buddhism. While "arūpa" is the "opposite" (or "opposed to") "rūpa" in so much that the prefix "a-" can be translated as "not" or "non-" or "un-", etc., in many contexts "rūpa" and "arūpa" are actually complementary categories for describing different phenomena. For instance, in Buddhism, one will often find three fold distinctions using these terms such as "kama, rūpa, arūpa" (e.g., see tiloka) and "rūpa, arūpa, nirodha" (as in three dhatu); additionally, in terms of jhana, rūpa and arūpa can be used to describe ascending attainments, not "opposite" but incrementally progressive.

Therefore, I deleted the aforementioned newly added phrase ("as opposed to arupa") for its oversimplifying and thus potentially misleading nature. (I did leave reference to arupa in the "See also" section though allowing readers to pursue relationships between these terms, whether oppositional, complementary, etc.) I hope this makes sense, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 10:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, apparently I was not as educated about it when I changed it....--Dchmelik (talk) 07:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

oh hello. i don't understand - isn't arupa an attainment that lacks form? so it would still be opposed to rupa in that example. the same with the three dhatus. and so on. i might change the aggregate bit seeing as it's terribly unclear, even if it is from a reliable source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unhelpfulnonbuddhist (talk • contribs) 02:25, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

"Arupa" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Arupa and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 September 3 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:24, 3 September 2022 (UTC)