Note 324 — Chapter II · (continued 3)

संस्कार स्कन्धः

I shall subjoin from Colebrooke’s treatise On the Philosophy of the Hindus (Transact. R. A. S., vol. I. part I., p. 561) the more correct denominations and definitions of the five skandhas:

1. Rúpa-skandha, comprehending organs of sense and their objects, considered in relation to the person, or the sensitive and intelligent faculty which is occupied with them.

2. Vijnnyána-skandha consists in intelligence (chitta), which is the same with self (átman) and (vijnyána) knowledge. It is consciousness of sensation, or continuous course and flow of cognition and sentiment. There is not any other agent, nor being, which acts and enjoys; nor is there an eternal soul; but merely succession of thought, attended with individual consciousness abiding within the body.

3. Védaná-skandha comprises pleasure, pain, or the absence of either, and other sentiments excited in the mind by pleasing or displeasing objects.

4. Sanjnya-skandha intends the knowledge or belief arising from names or words: as ox, horse, etc.; or from indications or signs, as a house denoted by a flag, and a man by his staff.

5. Sanskára-skandha includes passions; as desire, hatred, fear, joy, sorrow, etc.; together with illusion, virtue, vice, and every other modification of the fancy or imagination. All sentiments are momentary.