In the Vibhaṅga, the five aggregates are treated through several complementary modes of analysis that together reveal their contingent and impersonal nature. One prominent approach follows the sutta method, where each khandha is defined in terms familiar from the discourses: form as material phenomena, feeling as pleasant, painful, and neutral tones, perception as the act of recognition, formations as the manifold mental activities apart from feeling and perception, and consciousness as the sixfold awareness tied to the sense bases. This mode highlights how the aggregates function as bases of clinging and as phenomena marked by impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not‑self. In this way, the Vibhaṅga preserves the canonical voice while already inviting a more penetrating contemplation of experience.

Alongside this, the text employs what is often called the Abhidhamma method, offering more technical and finely grained classifications. Form is analyzed into primary elements and derived matter, while feeling and perception are further distinguished by sense‑door, ethical quality, and other contextual factors. Mental formations are unpacked as a detailed set of mental concomitants, such as faith, mindfulness, energy, greed, and non‑greed, showing how a wide range of wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate states all fall under saṅkhāra. Consciousness itself is divided according to sense‑door and plane, and by its association with other aggregates, so that what might appear as a single “stream” of awareness is seen instead as a complex pattern of conditioned events.

A third mode is the question‑and‑answer or catechetical method, in which the aggregates are probed through structured inquiry. Questions such as “How many kinds of form are there?” or “Which dhammas are included in formations?” serve to cross‑classify and clarify the boundaries of each khandha. This interrogative style draws out subtle distinctions and overlaps, showing precisely which phenomena belong where, and how they arise together in dependence on conditions. Through this, the aggregates are not merely listed but are woven into a coherent doctrinal map.

Taken together, these methods present the aggregates as conditioned processes rather than as enduring entities. The Vibhaṅga examines their arising and cessation, their mutual associations, and their role as fields for clinging and thus for suffering. By moving from sutta-style definitions, through analytical Abhidhamma classifications, to a probing question‑and‑answer format, the text guides the contemplative mind from a broad understanding toward a more exact discernment of the psycho‑physical process. In such analysis, the five aggregates become a lens through which the absence of a permanent self and the interdependent nature of experience can be steadily discerned.