Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 22

In the Vestibules of Karma
17
Yoga classification of karma traces on the basis of the colour of the action of the individual souls can be compared to the Jaina conception of the influx of Karma (Karmaśrava) into the soul and consequent colouration of the soul.
III. It is difficult to give logical proofs for the principle of Karma as producing the effects for the cycle of birth and death. Discursive and rational argument cannot be put forward for the proofs of Karma and its effects. The inequality in the status of individuals is an evidence to show that there are some reasons which must have produced these inequalities.
In the absence of the belief in the Karma operating in the individuals as a consequence of good or bad actions, it is difficult to explain the variety of living beings and their varying states in this empirical world, Ideas of fate and necessity cannot explain the predominent inequality in the status of individuals.57
The doctrine of Karma is a self-evident principle which cannot be proved nor need it be proved. It is a postulate which no philosopher has found it necessary to prove.
For all the great Indian systems Karma is just the all-ruling principle operating in the whole universe, the driving force that keeps every individual existence permanently at work. Even the theistic systems have never ventured to dispute the force of Karma that operates with iron necessity. God is not able to rule arbitrarily without the law of Karma; on the contrary, Karma is the guiding force to which he must conform for the creation and the governance of the world, 58
The real proof of the truth of Karma theory is to be found in the words of the revealed scriptures or in the utterances of the great enlightened ones. These revelations and utterances have been handed down for centuries to posterity. In them they seek the really unshakeable foundation of their faith, just as Christian theologians derive the unassailable certainty of the immortality of the soul not from rational proofs, but from the revelations.59
The logical justification for the doctrine of Karma, the Jainas say, is not possible from the ultimate point (niscaya-naya). It is the expression of the highest knowledge and experience of the seers. We must accept it as authority. Similarly when the ascetic, named Kāladevala, saw the newborn Siddhartha Gautama he was at once delighted and sad, delighted because
57. Sankhya Sutra. V, 20; VI, 41; Karma Grantha I. 58. Glasenapp : Immortality and Salvation in Indian Religions. p. 34, 59. Ibid.