skandha. (Pali, khandha; Tibetan, phung po). In Sanskrit, lit. “heap,” viz., “aggregate,” or “aggregate of being”; one of the most common categories in Buddhist literature for enumerating the constituents of the person. According to one account, the Buddha used a grain of rice to represent each of the many constituents, resulting in five piles or heaps. The five skandhas are materiality or form (RŪPA), sensations or feeling (VEDANĀ), perception or discrimination (SAṂJÑĀ), conditioning factors (SAṂSKĀRA), and consciousness (VIJÑĀNA). Of these five, only rūpa is material; the remaining four involve mentality and are collectively called “name” (NĀMA), thus the compound “name-and-form” or “mentality-and-materiality” (NĀMARŪPA). However classified, nowhere among the aggregates is there to be found a self (ĀTMAN). Yet, through ignorance (AVIDYĀ or MOHA), the mind habitually identifies one or another in this collection of the five aggregates with a self. This is the principal wrong view (DṚṢṬI), called SATKĀYADṚṢṬI, that gives rise to suffering and continued existence in the cycle of rebirth (SAṂSĀRA).
1. rūpa. (T. gzugs). In Sankrit and Pāli, “body,” “form,” or “materiality,” viz., that which has shape and is composed of matter. The term has two primary doctrinal denotations. More generally, rūpa refers to materiality, which serves as objects of the five sensory consciousnesses (VIJÑĀNA): visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile. This is the meaning of rūpa as the first of the five aggregates (SKANDHA), where it includes all the physical constituents of the person. The second sense is more limited; the colors and shapes that serve as objects of the visual consciousness (CAKṢURVIJÑĀNA) are designated as rūpa (and this accounts for the Chinese translation of the term as “color”); this second denotation is a subset of the first, and much more limited, referring only to the objects of the visual consciousness (CAKṢURVIJÑĀNA). It is in this second sense that rūpa is counted among the twelve ĀYATANA and eighteen DHĀTU. In formulations of the person as “name and form” (NĀMARŪPA), viz., an individual’s mental and physical constituents, “name” (NĀMA) subsumes the four mental aggregrates (SKANDHA) of sensation (VEDANĀ), perception (SAṂJÑĀ), conditioning factors (SAṂSKĀRA), and consciousness (VIJÑĀNA), while “form” (rūpa) refers to the materiality aggregate (RŪPASKANDHA), viz., the physical body. In some MAHĀYĀNA sūtras, rūpādi (“form, and so on”) means all dharmas because form is the first in the all-inclusive list of SAṂKLIṢṬA and VYAVADĀNA dharmas that are declared to be empty of an essential identity (SVABHĀVA).
2. vedanā. (T. tshor ba). In Sanskrit and Pāli, “sensation” or “sensory feeling”; the physical or mental sensations that accompany all moments of sensory consciousness. Sensations are always understood as being one of three: pleasurable, painful, or neutral (lit. “neither pleasant nor unpleasant”). Sensation is listed as one of the ten “mental factors of wide extent” (MAHĀBHŪMIKA) in the SARVĀSTIVĀDA ABHIDHARMA, one of the five “omnipresent” (SARVATRAGA) “mental constituents” (CAITTA) in the YOGĀCĀRA system, and one of the seven universal mental factors (lit. mental factors common to all) (sabbacittasādhāraṇa cetasika) in the Pāli ABHIDHAMMA. It is said universally to accompany all moments of sensory consciousness. Sensation is also listed as the second of the five aggregates (SKANDHA) and the seventh constituent in the twelvefold chain of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA). The “contemplation of sensations” (S. vedanānupaśyanā, P. vedanānupassanā) is the second of the four foundations of mindfulness (S. SMṚTYUPASTHĀNA, P. satipaṭṭhāna) and involves being mindful (see S. SMṚTI, P. sati) of physical and mental sensations that are pleasurable, painful, and neutral.
3. saṃjñā. (P. saññā; T. ’du shes). In Sanskrit, “perception,” “discrimination,” or “(conceptual) identification.” The term has both positive and negative connotations. As one of the five omnipresent factors (SARVATRAGA) among the listings of mental concomitants (CAITTA, P. CETASIKA) in the VAIBĀṢIKA school of SARVĀSTIVĀDA ABHIDHARMA and in the YOGĀCĀRA school, saṃjñā might best be translated as “discrimination,” referring to the mental function of differentiating and identifying objects through the apprehension of their specific qualities. Saṃjñā perceives objects in such a way that when the object is perceived again it can be readily recognized and categorized conceptually. In this perceptual context, there are six varieties of saṃjñā, each derived from one of the six sense faculties. Thus we have perception of visual objects (rūpasaṃjñā), perception of auditory objects (śabdasaṃjñā), perception of mental objects (dharmasaṃjñā), and so on. As the third of the five aggregates (SKANDHA), saṃjñā is used in this sense, particularly as the factor that perceives pleasant or unpleasant sensations as being such, giving rise to attraction, aversion and other afflictions (KLEŚA) that motivate action (KARMAN). In the compound “equipoise of nonperception” (ASAṂJÑĀSAMĀPATTI), saṃjñā refers to mental activities that, when temporarily suppressed, bring respite from tension. Some accounts interpret this state positively to mean that the perception aggregate itself is no longer functioning, implying a state of rest with the cessation of all conscious thought. In other accounts, however, asaṃjñāsamāpatti is characterized as a nihilistic state of mental dormancy, which some non-Buddhist teachers had mistakenly believed to be the ultimate, permanent quiescence of the mind and to have become attached to this state as if it were final liberation. In Pāli materials, saññā may also refer to “concepts” or “perceptions” that may be used as objects of meditation. The Pāli canon offers several of these meditative objects, such as the perception of impermanence (aniccasaññā, see S. ANITYA), the perception of danger (ĀDĪNAVA-saññā), the perception of repugnance (paṭighasaññā, see PRATIGHA), and so on.
4. saṃskāra. (P. saṅkhāra; T. ’du byed). In Sanskrit, a polysemous term that is variously translated as “formation,” “volition,” “volitional action,” “conditioned,” “conditioning factors.” In its more passive usage (see SAṂSKṚTA, P. saṅkhata), saṃskāra refers to anything that has been formed, conditioned, or brought into being. In this early denotation, the term is a designation for all things and persons that have been brought into being dependent on causes and conditions. It is in this sense that the Buddha famously remarked that “all conditioned things (saṃskāra) are impermanent” (anityāḥ sarvasamskārāḥ), the first of the four criteria that “seal” a view as being authentically Buddhist (see CATURNIMITTA). In its more active sense, saṃskāra as latent “formations” left in the mind by actions (KARMAN) refers to that which forms or conditions other things. In this usage, the term is equivalent in meaning to action. It is in this sense that saṃskāra serves as the second link in the twelvefold chain of dependent origination (PRATĪTYASAMUTPĀDA). There, saṃskāra refers specifically to volition (CETANĀ) and as such assumes the karmically active role of perpetuating the rebirth process; alternatively, in the YOGĀCĀRA school, saṃskāra refers to the seeds (BĪJA) left in the foundation or storehouse consciousness (ĀLAYAVIJÑĀNA). Saṃskāra is also the name for the fourth of the five aggregates (SKANDHA), where it includes a miscellany of phenomena that are both formed and in the process of formation, i.e., the large collection of factors that cannot be conveniently classified with the other four aggregates of materiality (RŪPA), sensation (VEDANĀ), perception (SAṂJÑĀ), and consciousness (VIJÑĀNA). This fourth aggregate includes both those conditioning factors associated with mind (CITTASAṂPRAYUKTASAṂSKĀRA), such as the mental concomitants (CAITTA), as well as those conditioning forces dissociated from thought (CITTAVIPRAYUKTASAṂSKĀRA), such as time, duration, the life faculty, and the equipoise of cessation (NIRODHASAMĀPATTI).
5. vijñāna. (P. viññāṇa; T. rnam par shes pa). In Sanskrit, “consciousness”; a term that technically refers to the six types of sensory consciousness (VIJÑĀNA): eye, or visual, consciousness (CAKṢURVIJÑĀNA); ear, or auditory, consciousness (ŚROTRAVIJÑĀNA); nose, or olfactory, consciousness (GHRĀṆAVIJÑĀNA); tongue, or gustatory, consciousness (JIHVĀVIJÑĀNA); body, or tactile, consciousness (KĀYAVIJÑĀNA); and mental consciousness (MANOVIJÑĀNA). These are the six major sources of awareness of the phenomena (DHARMA) of our observable universe. Each of these forms of consciousness is produced in dependence upon three conditions (PRATYAYA): the “objective-support condition” (ĀLAMBANAPRATYAYA), the “predominant condition” (ADHIPATIPRATYAYA), and the “immediately preceding condition” (SAMANANTARAPRATYAYA). When used with reference to the six forms of consciousness, the term vijñāna refers only to CITTA, or general mentality, and not to the mental concomitants (CAITTA) that accompany mentality. It is also in this sense that vijñāna constitutes the fifth of the five SKANDHAs, while the mental concomitants are instead placed in the fourth aggregate of conditioning factors (SAṂSKĀRA). The six forms of consciousness figure in two important lists in Buddhist epistemology, the twelve sense fields (ĀYATANA) and the eighteen elements (DHĀTU). With the exception of some strands of the YOGĀCĀRA school, six and only six forms of vijñāna are accepted. The Yogācāra school of ASAṄGA posits instead eight forms of vijñāna, adding to the six sensory consciousnesses a seventh afflicted mentality (KLIṢṬAMANAS), which creates the mistaken conception of a self, and an eighth foundational or storehouse consciousness (ĀLAYAVIJÑĀNA).
Buswell Jr., Robert E.; Donald S., Jr. Lopez. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press.