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འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ། | Glossary of Terms
འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ།
’byung ba chen po
mahābhūta
- Term
- Great element
- འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ།
- ’byung ba chen po
- mahābhūta
The four primary elements of earth, water, fire, and wind.
- Great element
- འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ།
- ’byung ba chen po
- mahābhūta
The four great or gross elements are earth, water, fire, and air.
- Great element
- འབྱུང་པོ་ཆེན་པོ།
- ’byung po chen po
- mahābhūta
See “four great elements.”
- Great element
- འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ།
- ’byung ba chen po
- mahābhūta
The four elements composing the physical world: earth, water, fire, and air.
- Great element
- འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ།
- ’byung ba chen po
- mahābhūta
The four great elements of earth, water, heat, and wind do not refer to the coarse entities by the same name, but rather to minimal entities characterized by specific features (such as “hardness” for the earth element) and specific functions (such as “supporting” for the earth element). These elements are usually believed to be in principle invisible; all primary rūpa (“form/materiality”) is in principle invisible, while visibility is a type of secondary rūpa, which depends on the four great elements but is not to be confused with them.
- Great elements
- འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ།
- ’byung ba chen po
- mahābhūta
The four great elements are earth, water, fire, and wind. They are called “great” because they are found in the external world as well as inside the bodies of beings.
- Major elements
- འབྱུང་བ་ཆེན་པོ།
- ’byung ba chen po
- mahābhūta
The four major elements here are air, fire, water, and earth. The fifth element of space is often added to this list.