Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c2.4

c2.4

∗ At p. 241-2, Dr. Oldenberg refers to the impossibility of Buddhist terminology finding adequate expression in the German language. I may make a similar complaint of the English tongue, and point in proof to the same word which occasioned his remark: Sankhâra. This term is translated in the German by "Gestaltungen," which would be usually rendered in English by "shapes" or "forms:" but the "shape" or "form," and the "shaping" or "forming," are one to Buddhist thought: hence I have used for "sankhâra" an English word which may connote both result and process, and at the same time etymologically similar to, though not quite parallel to, "sankhâra." The word chosen is "conformations." The selection of the term is arbitrary, as all such translations of philosophical technicalities must be until a consensus of scholars gives currency to a fixed term.