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Banārasīdās's Karmachattīsī Thirty-six stanzas on Karma
Jérôme PETIT
Introduction The well-known merchant of Jaunpur, Banārasīdās (1586-1643), who gave to the world the first Indian autobiography,' wrote in Braj in Agra, where he was considered as the leader of an Adhyātma group, a series of philosophical poems gathered after his death by his friend Jagjīvan under the title Banārasīvīlāsa. The text presented here, written between 1623 and 1635, belongs to this collection. The title "Karmachattīsī" 3 announces a reflection on Jaina karma theory, but the text, prima facie, looks like a mixture of different elements of a more general Jaina doctrine. Banārasīdās informs the reader that he will "expound some conclusions (nirnaya) on soul and on karma" (verse 2). He begins by making the essential difference between sentient entities (jīva), which are divided in two main categories (samsārī and siddha), and non-sentient entities (ajīva, dravya), which are matter (pudgala), space (akāśa, named here gagana), time (kāla), motion (dharma) and rest (adharma). A large part of this short text emphasizes in fact the substance "matter" because it is of course the heart of karma theory. Each properties (guna) and modes of representation (paryāya) of matter are mentioned, with some arrangements and novelties in the lists given by our author, according to his habits. The end of the text is somewhat surprising by the medical vocabulary used by Banārasīdās who evokes the difference between two types of diseases, one caused by "bad" karma and the other caused by "good" karma. This distinction is made by Kundakunda who devotes an entire chapter (fourth adhyāya) of his Samayasāra to the good (punya) and the bad (pāpa) karmic bondage, telling at the beginning that "a shackle made of gold is as
After the first English translation of the Ardhakathānaka (henceforth AK) by Mukund Lath (1981), Rohini Chowdhury gave another one (2009) and a modern Hindi adaptation (2007). Allow me to mention the French translation I gave, to be published shortly in Paris. The composition of Karmachattisi is mentioned in AK 627. Banārasīdās says (AK 623) that the writing took place between samvat 1680 and samvat 1692. 2 See J. E. CORT 2002. 3 As usual, chattīsī is to be heard as a literary genre, the Karmachattisi is in fact long of thirty-seven stanzas For example, the Dhyānabattīsi "Thirty-two stanzas on Meditation", which is also part of the same collection, contains thirty-four stanzas. See BANĀRASIDĀS 2010. * See for example verses 9, 13, 20, 29, 30.
