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VEDAS it meangods and manes oblations formed.d prayer.
CHAPTER II Theory of Karma and its meaning as expounded
by Lord Mahavira. The word Karma has an interesting history. In the VEDAS it means performing of sacrifices, offering plovs gifts to nature.gods and manes of deceased ancestors. According to Brahmins sacrificial oblations formed the very kernal of all religious service, hymn, praise and prayer,
preaching, teaching and repetition of sacred words of the ','scriptures, were subsidiary to this act. Every man through
out his life rested his hopes on unceasingly offering oblations of some kind or other to the gods, and the burding of his body at death was considered to be the last offering of himself in fure (ANTEYESHTI KRIYA)
In later times, Karma in addition to the above meaning, also meant duty, including good and bad actions. But in Jain literature rather philosophy we have fuller complete and scientific meaning. It 18 any energy which an embodied being generates-vital, mental or moral-and which keeps him so the SANSARA (the world) Karma in short is the whole Sansaric inake-up so to say of an embodied being. It is completely void of the idea of sacrifice Karmas which keep an individual in a backward condition are known as PAPA, those which help him to gain worldly and physical happiness are called PUNYA
