vedan

Vedan, vedanā, or vedana is a term from Sanskrit and Pali that means sensation or feeling. In Buddhist and Hindu thought, vedanā refers to the immediate experiential quality that arises when a sense organ contacts an object. The experience is typically described as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

In Buddhist literature, vedanā is one of the five aggregates (skandhas) that constitute a person: form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā), mental formations (saḷkhāya or saṅkhāra), and consciousness (viññāṇa). These aggregates are used to analyze how experience arises and passes away, and to teach concepts such as impermanence and non-self.

Vedanā is a focus of meditation practices that encourage observing sensations without attachment, as part of broader teachings on suffering and liberation. The term is commonly transliterated as vedanā, vedana, or vedana in English-language texts, reflecting different transliteration schemes. Consequently, the form vedan can appear as a variant in some sources, but it refers to the same concept of sensation or feeling.