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154 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY has completely overcome his thirst for being. If we take this explanation along with what has already been stated that the self is here recognized as a continuity, though not as a unity, we see that there need be no inconsistency in Buddhism upholding the karma doctrine. For it admits both the implications of the doctrine, viz. that nothing that we do disappears, without leaving its result behind and that the good or evil so resulting recoils upon the doer. Buddha, however, rationalized the doctrine to a considerable extent. For one thing, he dissociated it from all supernatural and materialistic appanages. In the traditional Hindu view, the allotment of pain or pleasure according to one's past actions was in the hands of a divine or some other transcendental power; and in Jainism karma, as we shall see, was taken to be subtle matter adhering to and pulling down the soul from its natural spiritual height. Buddha discarded both these views, and conceived of karma as an impersonal law in the sphere of morality working according to its nature and by itself.
