Rites in the tradition share one opening act. After the first purifications and invocations, and before the offerings reach the fire, the one performing it states what is about to be done, for whom, and why. The Sanskrit word is sankalpa, सङ्कल्प, which translators render as resolve, intention or thought. The Indologist Axel Michaels uses it as his clear example of the marker that shows a ritual has begun (Homo Ritualis, Oxford, 2016).
Sacrifices proceed from it
The lawbook of Manu puts sankalpa at the root of sacrifices, vows and observances. Where Jha writes "Thought", the Sanskrit word is sankalpa; P. V. Kane, whose History of Dharmasastra remains the standard map of this territory, renders the same verse with "resolve". The commentator Medhatithi puts it plainly: a man about to perform a sacrifice "must think of it" first.
The medieval authorities Kane surveys press the point further. For a religious vow, the scholar Shridatta held, the sankalpa is the principal matter: a fast kept without one "would be simply so much physical hardship but no vrata" (Kane, Vol. V, pp. 29 to 30). The declaration is what makes an act a rite.
It runs through every layer of practice. In the new and full moon sacrifices of the Vedic Shrauta ritual, Kane describes the sacrificer seated west of the householder's fire, kusha grass in his hand and his wife beside him, making a sankalpa before he addresses the officiants (Vol. II, p. 1010). In daily worship as Kane found it practised, the place and the time are named, down to the day's nakshatra, and then the sankalpa is made (p. 739). The dedication of a well or a tank to public use ran in four stages, and the sankalpa came first (p. 892). Kane even records an Indian court holding that the essential ingredient of a gift in Hindu law "is the Sankalpa and the Samarpana": the declaration, and the giving over.
Down to the day
The formula is an act of placement. In Kane's summary, the performer names "the grand divisions and sub-divisions of time", then the place of the rite within Bharatavarsha, then the year, the month, the fortnight, the tithi and the nakshatra (Vol. V, p. 680). The version recited today, as a Samskrita Bharati guide sets it out, runs like this.
| The words | What they fix |
|---|---|
| द्वितीये परार्धे dvitiye parardhein the second half | Time on the largest scale: the second half of the life of Brahma, which the Puranic reckoning holds is now running. |
| श्वेतवराहकल्पे shvetavaraha kalpein the kalpa of the White Boar | The present kalpa, one day of Brahma. |
| वैवस्वतमन्वन्तरे vaivasvata manvantarein the age of Manu Vaivasvata | The seventh of the fourteen Manus who rule a kalpa. |
| अष्टाविंशतितमे कलियुगे प्रथमे पादे kaliyuge prathame padein the Kali Yuga of the twenty-eighth great age, in its first quarter | The age we live in, which the Puranas count at 432,000 years, and the first quarter of it. |
| जम्बूद्वीपे भारतवर्षे jambudvipe bharatavarshein Jambudvipa, in Bharatavarsha | The place, narrowing to the region and the town where the fire is lit. |
| मासे · पक्षे · तिथौ mase, pakshe, tithauin the month, the fortnight, the lunar day | The calendar day, with its weekday and its nakshatra. |
| गोत्र · नाम gotra, namalineage, name | The person: the family line and the name of the one for whom the rite is done. |
| The purpose | Which rite is performed, and to what end. |
Kane also quotes a verse of Devala holding that a rite performed without naming the month, the fortnight, the tithi and the occasion does not bear its fruit. "That is the importance of eras, years and its sub-divisions," he adds, "in the religious life of our people." It is why a Vedic ceremony keeps a panchang at hand, and why the sankalpa for a fire in Vrindavan states that day and that place.
The formula sets one person, on one day, in one town, inside the whole span of time the tradition knows how to count.
Held in the mind, spoken aloud
The tradition honours silence, and that belongs first in any honest account. For the repetition of a mantra, Manu's scale rises from the ritual offering, to the repetition of mantras, to inaudible repetition, to purely mental repetition, which it praises a thousandfold (2.85). A vow, too, begins inwardly: the Mahabharata passage Kane quotes speaks of "whatever else he resolves in his mind to undertake as a vrata", and has the vow undertaken with a vessel of water in hand (Vol. V, pp. 86 to 87).
The sankalpa itself belongs to the spoken side of the tradition, including when one person performs a rite for another. Ute Hüsken, who documented a South Indian life-cycle rite on film, describes the sankalpa as "a spoken statement" whose wording "must be adapted to the situation and the participants": it names the rite, its purpose, and the people it is for, by name and by gotra. The officiating Brahmin "says the saṃkalpa for the yajamāna, or says it first for the yajamāna to follow", and at its close water is touched or sprinkled as a seal (Viṣṇu's Children, 2009). Devala, in Kane's quotation, asks that a vow be "declared before the Sun and other devatas".
So the tradition holds both. A name held in silence can be a prayer, carried by the one who holds it. A name spoken in the sankalpa is a dedication: it declares, before the fire and everyone present, for whom everything that follows is done.
How it is done in our ceremonies
In a group ceremony, a Brahmin in Vrindavan reads each name aloud within the sankalpa, in the Sanskrit declaration that also states the date, the place and the purpose of the fire. The recording lets you hear your own name spoken.
The intention you write is held in silence. It guides which mantras the Brahmins choose, and it is offered into the fire with the other offerings. In a private ceremony dedicated to one person, the intention itself is spoken aloud as well.
And one part belongs to you. You are invited to speak your own sankalpa, in your own words and in any language. If you would rather say nothing at all, nothing is lost: your name is read either way.
Speaking your own sankalpa
It needs no Sanskrit, and one sentence is enough. The old manuals are simpler than people expect: the sankalpa Kane gives for the Ekadashi fast is a single sentence addressed to Vishnu, and the texts allow its wording to change to suit what the person keeping it is able to do (Vol. V, p. 107).
Be still for a moment, wherever you are. Any time on the day of the ceremony is right, and before it is fine too.
Say your own name.
Then say plainly what you are asking for, in your own words and in whatever language you think in.
Some people like to hold a small vessel of water in the hand while they speak, as the manuals Kane cites describe. Keep that or leave it; the resolve is the heart of it.
When the recording arrives, you will hear the Brahmin's sankalpa and your name inside it. Yours, spoken wherever you were, is your own declaration of the same purpose.