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CHAPTER
CONCEPT OF KARMAN IN THE PURĀŅAS
The Paurāpic literature including the Mahāpurānas, Upapurāņas and the other allied works affiliated to this school is very essential. Speaking briefly it represents the spiritual and religious culture of medieval India. The Epic literature is allied to it. The poetical literature in Sanskrit specially is intimately connected with it and in most cases is based upon the traditions etc. recorded in the Purānas. In my humble way, I have tried to make a special study of this branch of ancient Indian literature keeping in view popular beliefs and general ideas of the problem of Karma in regard to its multifarious issues. Of these issues, the most important seem to be concerned with concrete illustrations of illustrious persons taking their birth in different periods of time which are sometimes countable in terms of Yugas, Mahāyugas, Manvantaras and even Kalpas. In the course of this study, it sometimes appears that great differences in the scale of time do not count in regard to the recollection of a minor incident after ordinary periods of time. The question of different dimensions in the region of time and space method crops up and has to be settled in its own way. It seems from a careful study that in the domain of karma and its forces, nothing is lost with the lapse of time. It also appears that the true individuality of a person does not lie in the form and activity shown on the stage but lies far behind in the basic personality of the man which does not show itself in the so-called historical or pre-historical activities known to us under that name. Śrī Bhagavān Sarkarācārya mentions this fact in his commentary on Vedanta Sūtras. By way of example, we may take the names of Indra, Vyāsa etc. Really speaking, Indra or Vyāsa is not the name of a proper person. In different ages, different persons have appeared and played the part of Indra, We find this in the
