Nama Rupa — Name and Form
Nama Rupa (name and form) is the Upanishadic description of the phenomenal world — all experience is constituted by names and forms, while Brahman is the reality underlying all names and forms.
Nama Rupa (name and form) is the Upanishadic term for the phenomenal world — all of experience, from the grossest physical object to the subtlest mental state, is constituted by 'name' (conceptual designation) and 'form' (sensory appearance). The Chandogya Upanishad (6.1.4-6) teaches: 'Just as all clay modifications can be known by knowing one piece of clay (since all clay modifications are only name and form, the truth being only clay) — so by knowing Brahman, all this is known.' This teaching reveals the structure of Maya: the world of Nama Rupa is the totality of all possible conceptual-perceptual experience, and it has no existence independently of Brahman. The liberation of Jnana is the recognition that all Nama Rupa is Brahman — the clay recognizing all pottery as clay, the ocean recognizing all waves as ocean. This does not eliminate experience but transforms its quality: all experience is seen as Brahman's self-expression.
All modifications of clay are only name and form; the truth is only clay. So all modifications of Brahman are only name and form; the truth is only Brahman.
Philosopher George Berkeley's subjective idealism — 'esse est percipi' (to be is to be perceived) — is a Western parallel to the Nama Rupa teaching: the world has no existence beyond perception (Berkeley would say beyond perception by minds; Advaita would say beyond appearance in consciousness).
Chandogya Upanishad