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The doctrine of Karman extended the causal law to the moral realm It held that good and evil deeds have a necessary causal connection with the experience of happiness and unhappiness Since this is intended in a more than psychological sense there was obviously need for a mediating agency which would connect Karman with its result which might be separated from it widely in time and space Brahmanıcal systems tended to postulate God as the agency which rewards or punishes good and evil deeds Jainism, like Buddhism, however, attributed an unseen power to Karman itself which brought about its result at the appropriate time One implication of this doctrine is that the distinction of good and evil must be held to be objective and independent of subjective relativity Another implication is that action must be held to create an unconscious and persistent force which remains connected with the psyche of the agent and has the capacity of directing it into situations appropriate to its own fruition and controlling the affective reactions of the experiences arising from such situations Beginning as a state of the mind or Bhavakai man, action generates a bodily resultant, dravyakai man or Pudgalakarınan 23 That good and evil are originally distinct states of the mind, is commonly accepted by the Jainas and the Buddhists 24 The distinction is not one of obedience or disobedience to a divinely proclaimed law but one of innate quality which may be subjectively perceived in terms of emotional direction The Jainas and the Buddhists, however, differ in relation to the nature of the force generated by action The Buddhists think of it as an unconscious psychic force, a latent disposition-Vāsanā or Samskāra—which is responsible for the projection of the world which is appropriate to the psyche It is in the idealistic school of Buddhism that this doctrine becomes fully consistent and reaches its highest effectiveness The Jainas, however, think of the resultant of psychic action in terms of an accumulation of matter which is absorbed by the soul This matter is subtle and invisible consisting of extremely minute particles which form infinite aggregates (Varganā) These attach themselves to different points on the location of the soul 25 These Karmic material
