期中reading week

時至本學期中的reading week，意思是這學期已經走到半途，更重要的是各科作業都要陸續交出了，以我這學期的loading，每週拼一篇都很趕，有點驚嚇過度，希望這星期不用上課，可以拼出兩篇短文。

Karma — in Early Brahmanic, Buddhist and Jainist Traditions
The idea of karma is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant streams in Indian culture, even in the world civilization. In fact, karma is one of the few Sanskrit terminologies which were absorbed into English vocabulary.

The word karma is derived from √kri and its meaning is ‘act, action, performance’.[1] In the broad sense, karma means action. According to Vedic belief, the four classes (varna) have their own corresponding acts respectively. To a Kshatriya, the appropriate act is battle; to a Brāhman, that is ritual ceremonies and the study of the Veda.[2] No matter whether it is religious or secular, action can be distinguished into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Good actions produce positive results and bad actions produce negative results. This effect is known as karma-vipāka; the ripening of karma.[3] The law of karma which connects causal deeds with its fruits was usually seen as the most distinctive feature of Hinduism.[4]

Karma is the action that a man does; fate is the power that is done to him in another way.[5] The mainstream Hinduism considers these notions as an impersonal force or mechanism.[6] What a man does causes an effect in the temporal life or after death. Similarly, what a man receives is the results of the past actions. It is inevitable, irreversible, and inexorable. However, in the Purānas, it proposed contradictorily many ways to overcome or even reverse fate and the law of karma, which are contrary to the core meaning of karma shown above. These texts advised adherents to take remedial actions ‘in order to swim like a salmon upstream against the current of karma’.[7] In the deeper level, it showed the tendency to reify the notion of karma.[8] Then the texts described the immortal bearer, the subtle body, jīva, which carries the karma from this life to the next.[9]

The theory of karma and transmigration (samsāra) are always bound together. For the explanation of inequalities of birth and inconsistencies of causation in this very life, Hinduism believes that human transmigrates from one body to another with his karma.[10] This process is without beginning and end, unless the karma-bearer liberates from the cycle. In order to escape from saṃsāra, people can choose either way from alternative courses in Hinduism. One is to perform sacrifices and then go to heaven although the heaven is not permanent to stay. The other one is to understand the inner meaning of the sacrifices and to meditate or practice ascetics. After death, he will go back to Brahman and free from rebirths. [11] However, even the second one, the path of knowledge, never deprives the ritual action.[12]

Karma plays such significant role in Indian philosophy that influences Jainism and Buddhism vastly as well as samsāra. In Buddhism, the Buddha took over the term karma from Brahmanism and endowed it with a new meaning. In Brahmanical literature, karma indicates mostly ritual actions. However, the Buddha interpreted karma as more intention than action. He said: ‘It is will (cetanā), O bhikkhus, that I call karma; having willed, one acts through body, speech or mind’ (A.III.415). Thus the Buddha declared that the essence of karma is ethical and has nothing to do with ritual. He fundamentally switched the notion of karma from ritual to ethics. Although the ethicization of karma begun in the early Upanisads, it was never stepped much further within Hinduism.[13] As K. R. Norman suggested: ‘The change of meaning is almost always a result of the fact that the Brahmanical terms were used in a framework of ritualism, while the Buddha invested them with a moral and ethical sense.’[14]

In a similar manner, Jainism tried to reinterpret Vedic ritual action. They also emphasized that karma has ethical aspect. Every karma must generate its own result. However, karma was more or less all bad for them.[15] Because Jainism regarded karma as a physical substance, which was compared to dust. The dust sticks on the soul (jīva) and prevents the soul from liberating.[16] In order to release from karma, they have to burn away karma by the heat of austerity (tapas).[17] Beyond the ethicization of karma, Jainism did not separate intention from action like Buddhism did. Thus, they believed that every action including accidental and fully willed will generate karmic fruits.[18]

Buddhism inherited the theory of karmic causation from Hinduism, by which good actions will be rewarded and bad actions punished. These criteria are in accordance with actor’s intention. Buddhists denied that the results are imposed by an impersonal power.[19] The law of karma is the law of nature. It is a kind of maturation process.[20] Besides, Buddhists also accepted the concept that merits can be transferred from one to another. This is also part of reification of karma. This concept can be traced to the Brahmanical śrāddha ritual.[21] Even though Buddhists rejected the śrāddha ritual, they actually developed the idea of transferable merit to a lofty level.[22] By contrast, Jainism abandoned the idea of transferable merit, which was illogical for them and for the śrāddha as well. Probably, this viewpoint makes them difficult to explain the process of rebirth, because samsāra theory is based on the śrāddha and the merit transferred idea behind it in Indian philosophy.[23]

Karma itself should be seen as a widespread concept in India. To more or less extent, it affects every Indian religions and thoughts. The theory of karma was mainly rooted in and developed from Hinduism. Both Buddhism and Jainism take over this idea but reshape it from different perspectives. Karma originally means action in Hinduism, especially ritual. Sacrifice serves to purify one’s soul to attain liberation. Jainism denies the ritual aspect and emphasized the action side. And they resorted to the ascetic practices. By contrast, Buddhism highlights the intention side. Thus, even the ethical action alone cannot necessarily lead to liberation, which must depend on wisdom (paññā).[24]

[1] Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary, pp. 258.
[2] Robert Charles Zaehner, Hinduism, Oxford, 1966, pp. 59.
[3] Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, “Karma and Rebirth in the Vedas and Purānas”, Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, New Delhi, 1983, pp. 14.
[4] Zaehner, 1966, pp. 59.
[5] O’Flaherty, 1983, pp. 26.
[6] Johannes Bronkhorst, Karma and Teleology, International Institute for Buddhist Studies, Tokyo, 2000, pp. 1.
[7] O’Flaherty, 1983, pp. 13-14.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., pp. 16.
[10] Zaehner, 1966, pp. 60.
[11] Richard F. Gombrich, ‘Notes on the Brahminical Background to Buddhist Ethics’, Buddhist Studies in Honour of Hammalava Saddhatissa, ed. Gatare Dhammapala, Sri Lanka, 1984, pp.95.
[12] Ibid., pp. 96.
[13] Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism, Routledge, 1988, pp. 46.
[14] K.R. Norman, “Theravāda Buddhism and Brahmanical Hinduism: Brahmanical Terms in a Buddhist Guise”, T. Skorupski, The Buddhist Forum, vol. II, 1991, pp. 193.
[15] Gombrich, How Buddhism begun, Athlone, 1996, pp. 50.
[16] Paul Dundas, The Jains, Routledge, 2002, pp. 97.
[17] Ibid., pp. 15-16.
[18] Dundas, 2002, pp. 98.
[19] Gombrich, 1984, pp. 37.
[20] Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge, 1990, pp. 39-40.
[21] Ibid., pp. 43.
[22] O’Flaherty, 1983, pp. 10.
[23] Ibid., pp. 9-10.
[24] Gombrich, 1984, pp. 98.