The Philosophical Concept of Saṃskāra

In Brahmanism and Hinduism, birth and death are sources of impurity because they mark significant ruptures. Birth impurity (jananāśauca) lasts ten nights and affects the mother, newborn, father, and all sapiṇḍas (close relatives). The very fact of having a beginning in time is tainted with evil.

The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad counts birth among the five sorrows (pañca-duḥkha): embryo stage, birth, old age, illness, and death.

The Garbhopaniṣad notes that good resolutions made by the fetus are "instantly forgotten" upon birth due to the violent pressure of the vaiṣṇava vāyu ("wind of Viṣṇu").

Simply being born incurs a debt (ṛṇa) to Yama, the God of Death. Sacrifice is a means to "purchase back one's person from the jaws of death."

Vaiṣṇava initiation involves five "sacraments": a red mark from heated iron, a sectarian forehead sign, an initiatic name, a mantra, and adoration of Viṣṇu through his image.

Śaiva tradition calls these ātma-saṃskāra (rites affecting the spiritual self) instead of śarīra-saṃskāra (rites for the body). The difference matters:

In Tantra, even fire and formulas are consecrated. The Śāradātilaka Tantra lists ten "sacraments" conferred to a mantra: procreation, vivification, smiting, awakening, sprinkling, purification, fattening, libation, illumination, concealment.

In this chain, saṃskāra is the second link, conditioned by ignorance (avijjā). The temporal classification:

• Past lives: Avidyā (ignorance) and saṃskāra
• Present life: The eight intermediary links
• Future lives: Jāti (birth) and jarā-maraṇa (old age, death)

Both avidyā and saṃskāra are "without beginning" (anādi), though not without end. Avidyā acts as a "release mechanism" — it doesn't create saṃskāras, just activates them. And the conditionality here is circular, not linear.

Saṃskāras are classified as good (puṇya), bad (apuṇya), and morally neutral (āneñjya). The ultimate aim: put an end to all three categories. They're further subdivided by connection to bodily (kāya-saṅkhāra), vocal (vaci-saṅkhāra), and mental actions (mano-saṅkhāra) — each with specific underlying mechanisms like breath, reasoning, and sensations.

For Nāgārjuna, the composed/non-composed dichotomy is itself a false pair. The three passions — lust (rāga), hatred (dveṣa), delusion (moha) — "do not exist really, but are only a product of our imaginative thought or saṃkalpa."

He declares: "the conditioned does not exist" (nāsti saṃskṛtam). Saṃskāras are "fallacious" (mṛṣā), leading to the conception of emptiness (śūnyatā). Their only function is epistemological — to explain the "motor of saṃsāra."

Liberation comes down to one thing: eliminate the idea of "origination" (utpāda). "Freedom is unconditioned while existence and non-existence are conditioned."

Indian texts mapped the unconscious millennia before Freud. Five terms for what lingers beneath awareness:

• Anuśaya — A "thin layer" adhering to the mind, corresponding to dormant torments and passions. The closest Sanskrit term to the Western "unconscious." Contains the idea of an automatic "compulsion of repetition" (Wiederholungszwang).
• Vāsanā — "Latent desire," "impregnation," residual impressions. What remains when nothing is left over.
• Bīja — "Seed" — the dynamic, future-oriented aspect of these remanences.
• Bhavāṅga — "Factor of becoming" — a force pushing us to continue existing. Contains the "programme" of our life duration (āyuḥ-saṃskāra), lived unconsciously. Only an arhant has conscious control.
• Ālayavijñāna — "Store consciousness" — full of "seeds" conserving dynamic potentialities of past experiences. When reversed, it becomes "immaculate consciousness" (amalavijñāna). They are "not two, but one and the same 'reality'."

The Bodhisattva's 10 Bhūmis: A progressive "revolution of the psychosomatic support" (āśraya-parāvṛtti). From bhūmis 1-6: intentional effort. The 7th: turning point. Bhūmis 8-10: spontaneous, effortless spiritual maturity "without intention" (anabhisaṃskāra).

Memory (smṛti) results from a particular conjunction between ātman and manas, along with residual impressions. Bhāvanā is the power of evocation — paradoxically based on oblivion, understood through "unconscious traces, impregnations, latent desires (vāsanā)."

Dreams (svapna) have three efficient causes: intensity of residual impressions, perturbations from the three bodily humors (vāta, pitta, kapha), and adṛṣṭa (invisible destiny from past acts). Madhva argues that the Supreme Lord uses saṃskāras in the mind to create dreams, acting as a "projectionist of saṃskāras" on our unconscious mental screen.

And then there's St. Augustine on memory — "a great field of a spacious palace, a storehouse for countless images." Augustine marvels at memory's "prodigious, immeasurable sanctuary." Kapani sees in Augustine "a very good explanation of what a vāsanā and a bhāvanā is."

Śaṅkara distinguishes two kinds of karmic residues:

1. Sanchita karma — Acts whose fruits have NOT yet begun to produce effects → destroyed by knowledge
2. Prārabdha karma — Acts whose fruits HAVE begun to operate → must run their course

And that's how jīvanmukti works — liberation-while-alive. The sage knows Brahman, but the body keeps going because of prārabdha. Same principle as:

• A potter's wheel continues to spin after the potter stops exerting effort
• An arrow continues to fly after release, stopping only when its impetus (vega) is exhausted

Knowledge destroys avidyā and prevents new saṃskāras, but existing ones must exhaust themselves. Late Vedānta describes the liberated person as "blown by the wind of the saṃskāras, the desireless, independent, free, liberated person moves about like a dry leaf."

The dream state is a "junction" (saṃdhya) nourished by saṃskāras and vāsanās — midway between waking and sleep. One dreams within a "dream body" (svapna-deha) made of "latent desires" (vāsanāmaya) — also called saṃskāra-deha (body of impressions).

Deep sleep (suṣupti) cannot be equated with true deliverance because saṃskāras are always present. The critical distinction (Śataślokī 70): the sleeping man returns due to residual saṃskāras, while the jīvanmukta does not return because past saṃskāras have been destroyed.

In the Śaiva tradition (Abhinavagupta), deep sleep is a "pure void, a soil of tendencies" (saṃskāra-bhūmi) where predispositions remain as "inactive germs" (bīja).

Yoga and Psychoanalysis "diverge completely."

Aim: Psychoanalysis heals mental disease, aims for social integration. Yoga aims for total isolation (kaivalya). Not better relationships — no relationships.

Method: Psychoanalysis accesses the unconscious through language — dreams, slips, free association. Yoga goes direct: direct perception of subliminal impressions (saṃskāra-sākṣātkāra). No interpretation layer.

Depth: The psychoanalyst listens for years. A yogi would say: that's just translating what the intellect already experienced. The real unconscious is never accessible through discursive thought. Only the unconscious can treat the unconscious.

Endgame: Sāṃkhya-Yoga goes for the final disappearance of ego (ahaṃkāra) and cessation of all psycho-cerebral activity. Freud never went there.

Patañjali's true name for Yoga is vi-yoga — disunion, dis-junction, separation between Puruṣa and Prakṛti.

Kantian Schematism: Saṃskāras as factors of liaison and mediation evoke Kant's transcendental schema — a "bridge" between sensibility and understanding. A schema is not a pure concept or image but a "rule or procedure" for fabricating images, immaterial and unfolding in time.

Psychology of Tendencies (Burloud): "Psychological causality" — real psychological forces are internal factors: intentions, tendencies, schemes, dynamic schemas. Saṃskāra is itself one of India's "dynamic schemes of Indian thought."

Freud on Dreams: Two major differences from Indian thought: (1) Indian authors believe dream content can come from previous lives, not just the present; (2) Indian interest in dreams is fundamentally ontological and soteriological, not purely psychological.

Synchrony over Diachrony: The shift in appreciation of saṃskāra between traditions shows synchronic coefficients dominating diachronic ones. "Noble silence" (āryas tūṣṇīmbhāvaḥ) is highly valued in Buddhism but minor in Brahmanical rites. Values reverse completely across traditions existing simultaneously.