Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

Author(s): Tara Sethia
Publisher: California State Polytechnic University Pomona

Page 160

Tara Sethia, "Mahāvīra's Teachings in Indian History Textbooks"
jiva is independent and is fully responsible for its own acts (karma) and destiny. Concept of Karma
The following passage compares the concept of karma among Brāhmanical, Jain and Buddhist traditions. For Brāhmaṇism, according to Stein, karma meant
"work or act, and in formulation of Vedic ritual manuals 'action' referred to ritual and ceremonial performances so meticulously executed as to compel the gods to act in obedience to them. For Buddhists and Jainas, however, karma referred to the acts of ordinary men and women, the sums of whose lifetime behavior determined the body in which the soul (atman) would be reborn in the process of transmigration (samsara). Upon death, that is, souls were thought to pass from one to another body and associated social condition. The idea that every good action brought a measure of happiness and each bad action sorrow tended to suggest a mechanical moral process
leading to fatalism... “ [Stein, p. 66] Here the distinction made between the karma in Brahmanism which refers to ritual and ceremony performed by the elite (by implication) versus the karma under Buddhism and Jainism of "ordinary men and women” appears to focus on fundamental differences in terms of "who" the concept of karma applied to: ordinary people versus elites. Such comparisons are further flawed as they ignore the fact that the role of karma is defined differently in Buddhism and Jainism--which are lumped together in the above comparative statement. Moreover, the abve comparison assumes a logical connection between karma and fatalism, which is misleading. Jainism and Buddhism
"Jainism was even more essentially moralistic in its outlook than Buddhism, with an even greater emphasis on austerity and mendicant monasticism as the soul route to salvation..."
[Stein, p. 69] The unclear relationship between morality and mendicant monasticism in the above statement does not allow us to
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