Sambodhi 1972 Vol 01

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 61

In the Vestibules of Karma
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does not fructify 64 One who has acquired knowledge 18 not defiled by Karma as the lotus leaf does not hold water 55 The Absolutist philosophy does preclude the possibility of detailed instructions of how to realise this atate of release on the basis of the attainment of jhana Some of the paths to be pergued would be yoga of Patanjali, meditation on the absolute and self, bhakti (devotion) and renuciation of the fruits of efforts
The impact of the Karma theory was so profound in [odian thought that detailed and casuistrical attempts were made to calculate the fruits of Karma experienced by individuals in the cycle of births In the Manusmrti we get the description of the fruits of Karma one experiences due to various activities that he performs For example, one who steals gold will be asilicted in the next life with poor nails He who takes alchohol will have black teeth He who kills a Brahmin will suffer from consumption One who is unchaste with the wife of his teacher will have skin disease ca One who steals the property of a good mad or Brahmin descends into the hot holl of paşanakunda for as many years as there are hairs on big body, he is then reborn three times as a tortoise and so on 67 And for good actions he who digs a pond or improves an old one reaches the heaven of the gods He who gives food obtaids good memory and other mental gifts 10 the next life The story of Yebodhara and Amptamati 18 a narrative of the long series of effects of Karma in their chain of existences The Buddha Darrates the SUCCCDsive life story of a man who was greedy and was reborn as an elephant 88
Such statements cannot be laterpreted literally They cao be understood in the sense that a definite deed has a tendency to mature and fructify in a definite Karmic effect This tendency is strongly modified more or less by the effects of other actions The Indian doctrine of Karma is not merely, like the doctrine of retribution in western religions, a theory of rowards and pupishments which we have to expect 10 the future for our deeds in tbla existence, but it will abow the causes why we are in our present life precisely as we are in our present life and why we have the fate that wo are experiencing Schopenhauer said that the moral meaning of metempsychosis in all Indian religions is not merely that in a subsequent rebirths we have to atone for every wrong we commit, but also that we must regard overy wrong befalling us as thoroughly deserved through our misdeeds in a
64 85 68 67 68 69
Mahabharata Vanaparva, 190-206 Chân Upanisad 4 14 3 Manusmytt XI 49 and Y7lAavalkya smyte III 209 Devibhāgavata Purāna IX, ch 33 Anguttara Nikaya 10 M 177 Glasenapp Immortality and Salvation in Indian Religion, p 30