---
type: Concept
bundle: yoga-darshana
bundle_version: "0.2.0"
id: samskara
title: "Saṃskāra"
iast: "Saṃskāra"
devanagari: "संस्कार"
description: "The latent impression each experience deposits in citta, driving future vṛttis — not memory, not habit."
darshana:
  - Pātañjala Yoga
  - Sāṃkhya
text_source: "YS 1.18, 3.9-3.10, 3.18"
tags:
  - Yoga
  - Patanjali
  - samskara
  - impression
  - memory
  - habit
  - citta
  - karma
not:
  - term: "impression"
    why: "in English \"impression\" suggests something superficial and temporary; saṃskāras are deep structural modifications of citta that persist across lifetimes and drive all behavioral tendency"
    instead: "Keep Saṃskāra untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "habit"
    why: "habit captures one downstream effect of saṃskāra; saṃskāra is the stored impression that makes habit possible, not the habit itself"
  - term: "karma"
    why: "karma in common usage mixes cultural associations; in Yoga Darśana, saṃskāra is the stored residue of action-with-intention (karma), not the action or its fruit; they are related but distinct"
  - term: "memory"
    why: "smṛti (memory) is one type of vṛtti produced by a saṃskāra being activated; saṃskāra is the stored structure that produces memory, not the memory itself"
  - term: "conditioning"
    why: "conditioning is the closest behavioral science equivalent but loses the metaphysical precision: saṃskāras are stored in citta as ontological modifications, not merely reinforced behavioral patterns"
related:
  - /concepts/chitta-vritti.md
  - /concepts/vritti.md
  - /concepts/vasana.md
  - /concepts/raga.md
  - /concepts/dvesha.md
  - /concepts/abhinivesha.md
  - /concepts/nirodha.md
  - /concepts/asamprajnata-samadhi.md
  - /concepts/kaivalya.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Saṃskāra — संस्कार

**Not:** impression, habit, karma, memory, conditioning

A stored impression in citta produced by any experience, thought, or intentional act. Saṃskāras are the mechanism by which the past shapes the present — the substrate of all habit, all memory, all unconscious tendency. In Yoga Darśana they are the primary carriers of accumulated karma across multiple lifetimes and the principal obstacle to nirodha.

## Etymology

- *sam* — together, completely, perfectly
- *kāra* — from √*kṛ* (to make, to do)
- *saṃskāra* — "completely made"; a perfecting; a purification; a cultural rite that creates (refines, marks) a social/spiritual transition

The word carries two registers: in Vedic/cultural usage, saṃskāras are the rites of passage (birth, thread, marriage, etc.) that shape a person's social identity. In Yoga Darśana, saṃskāra refers to the imprint-structure these and all other experiences leave in citta.

## How Saṃskāras Form

Every vṛtti (citta-modification) leaves a residue — a saṃskāra — when it subsides. This is not metaphor; Patañjali is describing a functional mechanism:

1. **Experience arises** — a sensory event, emotion, deliberate action, or internal thought
2. **A vṛtti forms** in citta corresponding to that experience
3. **The vṛtti subsides** — but it does not vanish; it compresses into a latent saṃskāra stored in the citta-field
4. **The saṃskāra persists** in the latent (*prasuptā*) state, held by Tamas
5. **A similar trigger** activates the saṃskāra (Rajas' action)
6. **A new vṛtti arises** — smṛti (memory) or a vāsanā-driven impulse
7. **The new vṛtti deepens the saṃskāra** — the groove grows deeper

This is the closed reinforcement loop: saṃskāras generate vṛttis; vṛttis generate new saṃskāras; the loop is broken only by nirodha or the burning of saṃskāras in asamprajñāta samādhi.

## Saṃskāra and the Kleśas

The kleśas do not float free of citta — they are sustained by saṃskāras:

- **Rāga** (attraction) is a saṃskāra-pattern: past pleasure created a deep impression; the impression generates a pull toward similar future experiences
- **Dveṣa** (aversion) is the mirror: past pain created a deep impression; the impression generates a push away from similar future experiences
- **Abhiniveśa** (clinging to existence) is understood by Patañjali (YS 2.9) to arise from the cumulative weight of countless past-life saṃskāras of survival — the `svarasa-vāhī` (self-momentum) character of abhiniveśa is saṃskāra-momentum at its most fundamental

## Saṃskāra Persistence Across Lives (YS 4.8-4.9)

*tatas tadvipākānuguṇānāmevābhivyaktirvāsanānām* (YS 4.8)  
"From these, the manifestation of vāsanās corresponding to the ripening of those impressions."

*jātideśakālavyavahitānāmapyanantaryaṃ smṛtisaṃskārayorekārūpatvāt* (YS 4.9)  
"There is unbroken connection even when separated by birth, place, and time, because memory and saṃskāra are of the same form."

Saṃskāras do not require the same physical body to persist. They are stored in the subtle body (sūkṣma-śarīra) — the Prakṛtic vehicle that carries citta from one embodiment to the next. The newborn's inherited fear-response (which Patañjali uses as evidence for abhiniveśa) is a saṃskāra from prior embodiments manifesting in the new one.

## The Nirodha Saṃskāra (YS 3.9-3.10)

Patañjali describes a remarkable principle: the practice of nirodha itself creates a saṃskāra — a *nirodha-saṃskāra* — that competes with and progressively weakens the vṛtti-saṃskāras:

*vyutthānanirodhasaṃskārayorabhibhavaprādurbhāvau nirodhakṣaṇacittānvayo nirodhapariṇāmaḥ*  
(YS 3.9) "The transformation of nirodha is the citta's conjunction with the moment of nirodha through the suppression and appearance of the arising and nirodha saṃskāras."

This is the practical engine of the eight-limb path: each moment of successful pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, or samādhi creates a nirodha-saṃskāra. Over time, the nirodha-saṃskāra population grows and the vṛtti-saṃskāra population decreases. Eventually, in asamprajñāta samādhi, even the nirodha-saṃskāra is dissolved.

## Burning Saṃskāras in Asamprajñāta Samādhi

The deepest saṃskāras — the ones sustaining abhiniveśa and the deep-structure asmitā — are dissolved not by insight alone but by asamprajñāta samādhi. This is described as *dagdhabīja* — the burning of seeds. Just as a fire-scorched seed cannot germinate, a saṃskāra dissolved in asamprajñāta samādhi cannot generate further vṛttis.

## Cross-References

- [Vṛtti](vritti.md) — the waves that form saṃskāras and are generated by them
- [Vāsanā](vasana.md) — the behavioral tendency that arises from accumulated saṃskāras
- [Rāga](raga.md) — the pleasure-following kleśa sustained by saṃskāra
- [Dveṣa](dvesha.md) — the pain-following kleśa sustained by saṃskāra
- [Abhiniveśa](abhinivesha.md) — the kleśa of clinging that is self-sustained (svarasa-vāhī) by accumulated survival saṃskāras
- [Asamprajñāta Samādhi](asamprajnata-samadhi.md) — the absorption that burns saṃskāras at their root
- [Nirodha](nirodha.md) — the cessation that dissolves the saṃskāra-vṛtti-saṃskāra loop

## Audience Metaphor

Saṃskāras are ruts carved into a dirt road by repeated wheels. A fresh field is flat — any path is possible. Over time, wheels carve ruts, and subsequent wheels find it easier to follow the rut than cut a new track. The ruts are saṃskāras: the deeper they are, the more automatically the next thought, emotion, or action runs down them. Yoga practice is not about filling in the ruts (which would require enormous force) but about stopping the wheels — reducing the new impressions that deepen existing ruts, and eventually allowing the road (citta) to return to flatness.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali](/references/yoga-sutras.md) 1.18, 3.9-3.10, 3.18, 4.8-4.9
2. [Yoga Bhāṣya of Vyāsa](/references/yoga-bhasya.md) on YS 1.18 and 3.9
3. [Sāṃkhya Kārikā](/references/samkhya-karika.md) (kārikā 39-40) on saṃskāra as puruṣārtha
