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THE JAINA THEORY OF KARMA AND CURRENT SCIENTIFIC VIEWS*
1
The theory of action, deeds, behaviours or karma is found deeply rooted in Indian thinking from theists Vedas to Vedanta and atheists Jainas to Bauddhas. It is mostly associated with the concepts of soul and transmigration. It seems that the doctrine was developed and synthesized out of many intellectual speculations about the origin of emotional and functional variety in the world as pointed out in Śvetāśvatara. The Jaina canons pointed out the existence of 363 philosophical views in Mahāvīra's time out of which 180 had the theory of karma in some form or other. These were known as 'actionists' views'. Dixit and Ohira3 trace its origin to the word ‘āhāra' or ‘āśrava'--a basic need of the living for running the life, which got spiritualised, in the form of this theory. Malvania suggests its origin against the theory of God-- the Creator in the postUpanisadic period. Jain3 has, in contrast, suggested that the karma has been personified in the form of the Supreme for psychological reasons. It is now realized that this doctrine has, predominantly, a moral aspect in addition to its philosophical value. It has become so popular in Indian systems and masses that the word karma gives all the answers to all the human problems and behaviours. No details are to be required for its scientific descriptions. That is why; one is not in a position to find its unified definition and its causal, functional and liberational aspects in most of the systems. It is only in Jaina philosophy that we find a systematic description about the theory and a voluminous literature covering a period from 300 B.C. to 13th century A.D. It is here that its development has reached its peak with characteristic uniqueness.
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Chapter - 7
This paper was published in Jaina Journal, Culcutta, April 1988, p. 121-139.
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