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Jaina View of Life
assimilated in the Brāhmaṇa thought by the time the Upanişads were clearly formulated. The Indian view of Karma was doubtless of non-Aryan provinance, and it was a kind of a natural law. Transmigration of the soul was perhaps one of the oldest forms in which the belief in the after-life was held. Karma was closely linked with this doctrine. With the gradual emphasis of asceticism under the influence of the Sramaņa culture, came the awareness of one's responsibility to shape one's personality here and here-after. However, the doctrine has been widely accepted in ancient Indian thought, except for the Cārvāka. In the Samnyāsa Upanişad we are told that the Jivas are bound by Karma.18 A man becomes good by good deeds and bad by bad deeds; and while thus we live, we fetter ourselves with the effect of our deeds. In the Mahabharata, the emphasis is on the force of Karma. Of the three kinds of Karma, prārabdha, samcita and agami mentioned in the Bhagavadgita, agāmi and samcita can be overcome by knowledge. In Buddhism, as there is no substance as soul, wnat transmigrates is not a person but his Karma. When the series of mental states which constitutes the self resulting from a chain of acts ends, there would still be some acts and their effects which continue; and the vijñāna projects into the future due to the force of the effects of Karma. The Buddhists distinguish acts accompanied by asrava impure acts) from pure acts which are not accompanied by aśrava. Saṁsāra is the effect of Karma. Our present happiness and misery are the fruit of what we have ourselves done in the past. Operation of Karma can be considered as a principle of moral life, as force limiting and particularising personality and as a principle of conservation of energy in the physical world." But Buddhism maintains that involuntary actions, whether of body, speech and mind, do not constitute
12. Ninism Smart: Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy, (Allen
and Unwin) (1964); p. 163. 13. Samnyâsa Upani şad : II 28; Karmaā badhyate jantuḥ. 14. Brhadāraṇyaka Up. iii, 2, 13. 15. Yamakami Sogen: Systems of Buddhist Philosophy (1912) pp. 50-66.
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