Mahābhūtas
“the five gross elements”
idea · 6 works · 8 mentions · 12 anchored passages
the elements · العناصر · air · al-ʻanāṣir · arkān · fire · water · ajsām ʻunṣurīyah · dust · earth
spoken of as
3 expressionsThe elements5 mentions
Kitāb al-Safīnah al-Nūḥīyah fī al-sakīnah al-rūḥīyah (Arabic) · Mukhtaṣar fī ʻilm al-nafs al-insānīyah (Arabic) · Kitāb madhāhib al-Aʻrāb wa-falāsifat al-Islām fī al-jinn (Arabic)
As for the soul (nafs), they did not mention it explicitly in medicine, since in medicine they mentioned only the elements, the temperaments (amzijah), the organs, the spirits, the faculties and the acts.
Elements“mahābhūta”1 mention
Cittaviśuddhiprakaraṇa (Sanskrit)
The well-known elements — earth, fire, water, and air — are made otherwise by the wise through the power of mantra.
mahābhūta“five gross elements”1 mention
Sāṃkhyakārikā (Sanskrit)
the subtle [bodies], those born of mother and father, together with the gross elements.
in the texts
Kitāb al-Safīnah al-Nūḥīyah fī al-sakīnah al-rūḥīyah
Al-arkān, the elemental constituents, listed first among the six subjects to which medical discourse confines itself.
As for the soul (nafs), they did not mention it explicitly in medicine, since in medicine they mentioned only the elements, the temperaments (amzijah), the organs, the spirits, the faculties and the acts.
and the elements (arkān) and the temperament (mizāj) must be as they ought to be.
Mukhtaṣar fī ʻilm al-nafs al-insānīyah
The four elementary constituents of bodies, whose conjunction the author denies can be the soul, arguing instead that their mutual overpowering requires a prior cause to hold the composite in existence.
On the refutation of the claim of those who said that the soul is the knitting together of the elements
others supposed it to be the knitting together of the elements (*isṭiqsāt*).
so we know that the one that longs is other than the one that holds back.
Cittaviśuddhiprakaraṇa
The classical physical elements (earth, fire, water, air), named as susceptible to transformation by the power of mantra.
The well-known elements — earth, fire, water, and air — are made otherwise by the wise through the power of mantra.
Sāṃkhyakārikā
The five gross physical elements arising from the subtle elements, constituting the specific (viśeṣa) bodies.
the subtle [bodies], those born of mother and father, together with the gross elements.
from these five [arise] the five gross elements.
and from five of that set of sixteen [arise] the five gross elements.
Kitāb madhāhib al-Aʻrāb wa-falāsifat al-Islām fī al-jinn
The four elements, by whose predominance the jinn's bodies are distinguished from men's.
And there is no difference between His creating a creation whose element is dust and water and settling them in the earth, the air and the water — and His creating a creation whose element is fire and air and settling them in the air, the fire and the earth;
they have no colors, and their element is fire just as our element is dust.
rather they are attached to subtle elemental bodies over which the airy, the fiery or the smoky predominates, according to the difference of their states.
Sāṃkhyatattvavivecana
The five gross elements (ether, air, fire, water, earth), final evolutes produced from the subtle elements and constituents of the gross body.
five organs of knowledge, five organs of action, the eleventh being the mind, and five great elements—this group of sixteen is modification only, not productive principle.
within water, tenfold-multiplied, earth arises—and that very [earth] is the seed of the gross body.