Gandharavada

SR No.: 006739
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Esther A Solomon
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyasabha
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

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of karma. Thus it, being in a way non-different from karma, can be influenced favourably or otherwise by karma. The sky is not influenced by the corporeal fire, etc., because it is itself incorporeal and insentient. But the transmigratory soul is sentient and hence it stands to reason that it should be influenced by karma (1638).
The stream of karma, again, is beginningless because body and karma are related as cause-effect. A seed produces a sprout and this in its turn produces a seed and so on. Similarly, the body leads to karma which leads again to the acceptance of a body and so on. There is always a beginningless stream of things related to each other as cause-effect (1639).
Agnibhūtí has referred to certain Vedic statements which seem to go against the acceptance of karma. But the very truth of the Vedic statements rests on the acceptance of karma. There are Vedic injunctions regarding the performance of agnihotra, etc. for a person desirous of heaven. By performing agnihotra, an apūrva (unseen)-karma is produced in the soul which leads to heaven in a future life. On death the soul loses its association with the body; if karma were not admitted, there would be no determining factor as regards the soul's journey to heaven. Hence it cannot be argued that the Vedas do not admit the reality of karma. Moreover, even according to popular belief, heaven is regarded as the fruit of good actions like acts of charity, etc., which also would not be possible if karma were not accepted (1640)
Agnibhūti may argue that if the pure soul or God or Avyakta (Unmanifest Matter), Time, or Destiny, Chance were regarded as the cause of the variety and manifoldness of body, etc., it would not be necessary to admit karma (1641).
But there is no consistency in this. If these be not helped by karma, they would not be able to give rise to the body, etc., for no effect is possible without the necessary complement of causal conditions. The potter cannot make a jar without the staff or the wheel. No apparatus other than karma would be