High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! R?pa means both materiality and sensibility ? it signifies, for example, a tactile object both insofar as that object is tactile and that it can be sensed. R?pa is never a materiality which can be separated or isolated from cognizance; such a non-empirical category is incongruous in the context of early Buddhism. R?pa is not a substratum or substance which has sensibility as a property; it functions in early Buddhist thought as perceivable physicality. Matter, or r?pa, is defined in terms of its function; what it does, not what it is. As matter, r?pa is traditionally analysed in two ways: as four primary elements (Pali, mah?bh?ta); and, as ten or twenty-four secondary or derived elements.
