creates these ideas and then hands them on to saññã, which inter-
prets and elaborates on them, making assumptions about their
significance.
saññã: Memory; recognition of physical and mental phenomena as they
arise. As the third component of personality, saññã khandha is asso-
ciated with the function of memory; for instance, recognition, asso-
ciation, and interpretation. Saññã both recognizes the known and
gives meaning and significance to all of one’s personal perceptions.
Through recollection of past experience, the function of memory
gives things specific meanings and then falls for its own interpreta-
tion of them, causing one to become either sad or glad about what
one perceives.
sãsana: The teaching of the Buddha and, by extension, the Buddhist reli-
gion in general. The Buddhist spiritual path is inevitably a multidi-
mensional one where all legitimate wholesome practices, from gen-
erosity to virtuous conduct to transcendent meditation, are essential
aspects of the way leading toward the ultimate goal, the cessation
of suffering. The term sãsana usually refers to this aggregate of the
Buddha’s teaching, its practices, and its realization.
sãvaka: A direct disciple of the Lord Buddha who hears the Buddha’s
teaching and declares him to be his teacher.
sugato: “Well-gone” or “gone to a good destination”; a traditional epithet
for the Buddha.
sutta: A discourse or sermon spoken by the Buddha. After the Buddha’s
death, the suttas he delivered to his disciples were passed down in
the Pãli language according to a well-established oral tradition. They
were finally committed to written form in Sri Lanka around 100 BCE
and form the basis for the Buddha’s teachings that we have today.
Tathãgata: “One thus gone.” One of the epithets a Buddha uses when
referring to himself.
Tãvatiÿsa: “The Thirty-three.” A realm of heavenly beings (devas) in the
Sensuous World where Sakka is the presiding deity.
terrestrial devas: A special class of non-human beings who inhabit a
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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