Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

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Sec.
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
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are due to fate......that men experience base or pain." Likewise the escape from evil, the working off of accumulated evil karma was without cause or basis "Ahetu-apaccayo sattā visujhanti". I
It is further recorded that the forceful, the courageous like the weakling, the idler and the coward were all completely destined to the one, i. e. Niyati. "N'atthi purisakāre, n'atthi balam ....Sabbe sattā avasā...... niyati sangati-bhāva-pariņatā.”
Eterminism of the Ājīvika system of thought did not exclude the idea of karma completely from its doctrine, as it is evidenced by the fact of its belief in the transmigration of soul and its final liberation as a result of annihilation of all Karmas. Moreover, the relation of cause and effect has not categorically been precluded from its doctrine as it appears that the individual conduct of a being may affect his future state of life in numerous possible ways of karma in the worldly stage of truth, though ultimately his life is regulated and guided by the Niyati, the absolute destiny. Because it is already pointed out that 500,000 Karmas, 60,000, 600 and 3 parts of karmas must be destroyed by one before the attainment of final liberation."
This evidence regarding the number of Karmas as mentioned here is also supported by that of the Pali texts which have divided Karma into five hundred five, three and one and one-half a Karma'. Buddhaghoșainterprets the figure 'five hundred by the explanation "a useless heresay (Takkamallakena niratthakam ditthim dipeti); the five as actions according to five senses or appendages to the five hundred (ādisu pi es' eva nayo, keci pan-āhu pañca kammān' iti pañca-indriyavāsena bhanati) and the three as the act, speech and thought, the one as either act or word, the half as thought'."
1 Ib., : BhS, 15, 1, 550. 3 Pāli texts--See below. 4 Sumangala Vilāsini I, pp. 461-49, Buddhaghosa's commen
tary to Digha-Nikāya. (The interpretation of the addhakamma is supported by a statement in the commentary to the Abhidhāna-Kosa).
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