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The Doctrine of Karina in Jaina Philosophy
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Karma has essentially a reference to individual differences and hence a personal acquisition, yet each individual has a common heritage which he shares with the community and which shapes his being. The archetypes refer to the common heritage. To this extent they refer to the Karma aspect.
However, Jung was primarily concerned with and interpretations of dreams and fantasies in presenting his theory of the collective unconscious. 'Had he developed the archetypes of the collective unconscious, he would have reached the doctrine of Karma, the store-house of the physical and psychical effects of the past.
It is difficult to say when and where the Karma doctrine originated in India. Some have traced the origin of Karma in the principle of ķta. Rta is the cosmic principle. It prevades the whole world, and gods and man must obey it. It is the anticipation of the law of Karma. In the Ķgvedic hymns the doctrine of Karma is yet in its infancy as Řta. The doctrine does not appear in the old hymns of the Rgveda. The Vedic seers were mainly interested in the good of this life, and when death came they went the way of their fathers to the world where Yama, the first to die, ruled. The doctrine must have developed against a number of other doctrines about creation. Some regarded time as the determinant factor of creation, Others believed in nature (svabhava) as the prominent factor. There were other theories as well. The Jainas rejected these doctrines and said that even time and svabhāva are determined by Karman.1 Concept of Karma must have existed at least a thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era, and has since become the basis and centre of religious thought." It is probable that Karma and rebirth must have been pre-Aryan doctrines which were important in the Sramana culture later
9. Radhakrishnan (S.): Indian Philosophy, Vol. (1941); pp. 109, 110. 10. Tatia (N.): Studies in Jaina Philosophy (1951) p. 220. 11. Glasenapp Von. (H.): The Doctrine of Karma in Jaina Philosophy,
Preface to the German Edition.
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