The five Skandhas
| Sanskrit Name | English name | Meaning |
| rupa | form or matter, materiality | that which offers resistance to the senses; includes 4 elements of earth, air, fire, water |
| vedana | sensation | includes three modes of cognition (pleasure,
pain, neutral) which condition our responses
takes place through six sense organs (including mind) which are themselves rüpa |
| samjna | perception, cognition | the subjecting of pain / pleasure / neutral
perceptions to further conceptualizations - the
web of associations cognition of patterns takes
place, such as color, shape, motion, etc., which
leads to the cognition of objects
Also refers to thinking or rationalizing |
| samskara | karmic
conditioning, mental
formations,
habits,
pre-dispositions
|
the karmic (product of previous vedanic
experience) latencies which predispose us to
perceive or react in certain ways
Only volitional acts have karmic effects if samjña refers to cognition, then samskära refers to re-cognition |
| vijnana | bifurcative consciousness | arises when organ comes into contact with its
object
"bifurcative" because it splits the world into a duality of experiencer (self) and experience (other) when in fact both self and other are aspects of experience, not the other way around |
Source: http://www.udel.edu/Philosophy/afox/PHIL204/five.html