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CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSION AND RECAPITULATION
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF KARMA
The Indian thinkers have made an attempt to solve the great riddle of the source of misery and happiness through the doctrine of karma. The doctrine holds that the well-being as well as suffering of a person is due to his accumulated karmas. As a man sows, so he reaps. He does not inherit the good or evil deed of another being. The doctrine of karma is one of the essential elements of all moral and philosophical theories of India. Almost all the philosophical and ethical systems of India uphold the theory of karma. It is, however, in the Taina system that it reaches its climax and assumes a unique character. It is justifiable to maintain that all the significant concepts of Jaina epistemology and ethics may be analysed on the basis of karma.
The doctrine of karma is invariably connected with the theory of transmigration. If the consequences of our actions have not been fully worked out in this life, they logically stand in need of a future life. Thus, the doctrine of transmigration justifies the belief in the immortality of souls. The souls are there from time immemorial and will be there for endless time. They are eternal. The history of the individual does not begin with his birth. The instincts, passions, personality-characters, etc., of one life may go to another life. MEANING OF KARMA !
Karma is nothing but a series of acts and effects. This series expands in an automatic course. There is no force over and above its own that moves it. This hypothesis leads to Determinism, since the entire process of the series of acts and effects that runs in an automatic course presupposes the existence of a pre-determined form hidden behind it. As time passes, it reveals itself. If it is so, human effort has no value in the universe. Consequently, the idea of Freedom of Will should be discarded. The exponents of the doctrine of karma say that the doctrine recognizes the value
