Karma
Karma (IAST)Translation: "action"
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: कर्म
Transliteration: Karma
Translation: "action; rite; deed; cause and effect; accumulation of past actions; physical, verbal, or mental action (from the verb root kṛ = "to act, do, make")"
Definition:- The accumulated effect of deeds in lives, past and present.
- All the Indian systems except the Carvaka school accept the theory of Karma in one form or the other. They agree that "As one sows, so shall one reap" or "what goes around comes around." That is, an action performed by an individual leaves behind some sort of potency which has the power to cause either joy or sorrow in the future according to its nature.
- According to Jainism, Karma means an aggregate of extremely fine matter which is imperceptible to the senses. This matter consists of eight main types: comprehension obscuring (Jñānāvaraṇa), apprehension obscuring (Darśanāvaraṇa), feeling producing (Vedanīya), deluding (Mohanīya), age determining (Āyus), status determining (Gotra), personality making (Nāma), power obscuring (Antarāya). The first four are obstructive (Ghāti) and the rest are non-obstructive (Aghāti).
- According to Buddhism, it is the correlation between cause and consequence and the effect is conditional upon circumstances. According to the Buddha, one of the three factors—external stimuli, conscious motives, and unconscious motives—determines Karma. Though Buddhists deny identity, they do not deny continuity. Their doctrine of Karma is based on the doctrine of dependent origination (Pratītya-Samutpāda).
- According to the Yoga school, it is divided into four classes: white (Śukla) actions which produce happiness; black (Kṛṣṇa) actions which produce sorrow; white-black (Śukla-Kṛṣṇā) actions which produce partly happiness and partly sorrow; and neither white nor black (Aśukla-Kṛṣṇā) actions which are devoid of any pleasure or pain.
- According to Mīmāṃsā, the Veda has action as its purport. The aim of the Veda is to prescribe certain actions and to prohibit others. Liberation or release is said to be gained through actions alone. There are obligatory actions (Nitya-Karma); occasional rites (Naimittika-Karma), and optional rites (Kāmya-Karma). One is enjoined to perform the first two types of actions and to refrain from the optional rites. One should also refrain from prohibited actions (Pratiṣiddha-Karma). By these actions, one will balance one's Karma and at the end of one's life, there will be no more Saṃsāra for that person. Release requires what-is-to-be-accomplished and the latter requires action for its accomplishments.
- According to Advaita Vedānta, the entire Veda does not have its purport in ritualistic action and action is not the means to release. Action is for the purification of mind and is, thus, a remote auxilliary to liberation.
- Vihita-Karmas are actions prescribed by the Veda. Sañcita-Karma is residue produced by acts performed either in this life or in a previous one, but which remains latent during this present life.
- Agami-Karma is the result of acts performed during this present life which will mature in the normal course of events.
- Prārabdha-Karma is the residue of acts that is working itself out during the present life.
- Prāyaścitta-Karma is expiatory action. It is performed to purify oneself because one has failed to do certain prescribed acts either in this life or in past lives.
- According to the Vaiśeṣika school, it means physical motion. It is defined as "That which resides in only one substance, is devoid of qualities, and is the direct and immediate cause of both conjunction and disjunction." Motion is of five kinds: upward (Utkṣepaṇa), downward (Avakṣepaṇa), contraction (Ākuñcana), expansion (Prasāraṇa), and locomotion.
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Karma, in Indian thought, the force whereby right and wrong actions bring benefits and punishments in this or a future existence. This occurs not arbitrarily, but by law. The conditions of birth (one’s sex, caste, circumstances of life) are profoundly affected by one’s karmic “bank account.” A typical Buddhist perspective is that the state of the non-conscious world at any given time is largely determined by the total karmic situation that then holds.
For all of the Indian perspectives that accept the karma-and-transmigration perspective, religious enlightenment, the highest good, includes escape from Karma. Were it absolutely impossible to act without karmic consequences, obviously such escape would be impossible. (Suicide is viewed as merely ending the life of one’s current body, and typically is viewed as wrong, so that the cosmic effect of one’s suicide will be more punishment.) Thus, non-theistic views hold that one who has achieved a pre-enlightenment status – typically reached by meditation, alms-giving, ascetic discipline, or the achieving of esoteric knowledge – can act so as to maintain life without collecting karmic consequences so long as one’s actions are not morally wrong and are done disinterestedly. In theistic perspectives, where moral wrongdoing is sin and acting rightly is obedience to God, Karma is the justice of Brahman in action and Brahman may pardon a repentant sinner from the results of wrong actions and place the forgiven sinner in a relation to Brahman that, at death, releases him or her from the transmigratory wheel.
Reference:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Audi, Robert (1999). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press
