[3] English translations for saṅkhāra in the first sense of the word include 'conditioned things,'[4] 'determinations,'[5] 'fabrications'[6] and 'formations' (or, particularly when referring to mental processes, 'volitional formations').
[7] In the second (active) sense of the word, saṅkhāra refers to karma (sankhara-khandha) that leads to conditioned arising, dependent origination.
[14] It is a complex concept, with no single-word English translation, that fuses "object and subject" as interdependent parts of each human's consciousness and epistemological process.
[15][11][16] All aggregates in the world – physical or mental concomitants, and all phenomena, state early Buddhist texts, are conditioned things.
[17][18] These subjective dispositions, states Buddhist scholar David Kalupahana, "prevented the Buddha from attempting to formulate an ultimately objective view of the world".
This "conditioned things" sense of the word Saṅkhāra appears in Four Noble Truths and in Buddhist theory of dependent origination, that is how ignorance or misconceptions about impermanence and non-self leads to Taṇhā and rebirths.
[20] The last words of the Buddha, according to the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, were "Disciples, this I declare to you: All conditioned things are subject to disintegration – strive on untiringly for your liberation."
(Pali: "handa'dāni bhikkhave āmantayāmi vo, vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā ti.").
[23][25] The saṅkhāra-khandha states that living beings are reborn (bhava, become) by means of actions of body and speech (kamma).
The end of conditioned arising or dependent origination in the karmic sense (Sankharas), yields the unconditioned phenomenon of nirvana.