Sankharas

Meaning

Sankharas are volitional acts, intentions, or mental constructions that shape our experience and sustain the cycle of rebirth. From the Sanskrit root san + karoti - “to make together,” “co-creations.”

In the Context of Dependent Origination

Sankharas are wholesome and unwholesome volitions, one of the links in dependent origination (paticcasamuppada) and simultaneously one of the five aggregates of consciousness.

Three Meanings

Bhikkhu Bodhi comments that in early Buddhism, the term was used in three main senses:

1. All conditioned phenomena (in the broad sense), except Nibbana - “compound things.”
2. Psychophysical processes - breathing, vital force.
3. Morally significant volitions - within the five aggregates and links of dependent origination, synonymous with cetana (intention) or kamma (action). It is precisely these that “push” consciousness into a new birth.

Translations Across Languages

• Formations (English) - neutral but cold
• Willensbildungsprozesse (German) - “processes of will-formation”
• L’activite intentionnelle (French) - “intentional activity”
• Choices (Bhikkhu Sujato’s rendering) - emphasis on choice, which ceases with the fading of ignorance

In Russian, apt renderings include: intentions, volitional impulses, mental patterns, behavioral strategies.