CHAPTER IX. The Theory of Karma

THE THEORY OF KARMA

The vṛttis are called the mānasa karmas (mental work) as different from the bāhya karmas (external work) achieved in the exterior world by the five motor or active senses. These may be divided into four classes: (1) kṛshṇa (black), (2) śukla (white), (3) śuklakṛshṇa (white and black), (4) aśuklākṛshṇa (neither white nor black). (1) The kṛshṇa karmas are those committed by the wicked and, as such, are wicked actions called also adharma (demerit). These are of two kinds, viz. bāhya and mānasa, the former being of the nature of speaking ill of others, stealing others’ property, etc., and the latter of the nature of such states as are opposed to śraddhā, vīrya, etc., which are called the śukla karma. (2) The śukla karmas are virtuous or meritorious deeds. These can only occur in the form of mental states, and as such can take place only in the mānasa karma. These are śraddhā (faith), vīrya (strength), smṛti (meditation), samādhi (absorption), and prajñā (wisdom), which are infinitely superior to actions achieved in the external world by the motor or active senses. The śukla karma belongs to those who resort to study and meditation. (3) The śuklakṛshṇa karma are the actions achieved in the external world by the motor or active senses. These are called white and black, because actions achieved in the external world, however good (śukla) they might be, cannot be altogether devoid of wickedness (kṛshṇa), since all external actions entail some harm to other living beings.

Even the Vedic duties, though meritorious, are associated with sins, for they entail the sacrificing of animals.

The white side of these actions, viz.: that of helping others and doing good is therefore called dharma, as it is the cause of the enjoyment of pleasure and happiness for the doer. The kṛshṇa or black side of these actions, viz. that of doing injury to others is called adharma, as it is the cause of the suffering of pain to the doer. In all our ordinary states of existence we are always under the influence of dharma and adharma, which are therefore called vehicles of actions (āśerate sāṃsārikā purushā asmin niti āśayaḥ). That in which some thing lives is its vehicle. Here the purushas in evolution are to be understood as living in the sheath of actions (which is for that reason called a vehicle or āśaya). Merit or virtue, and sin or demerit are the vehicles of actions. All śukla karma, therefore, either mental or external, is called merit or virtue and is productive of happiness; all kṛshṇa karma, either mental or external, is called demerit, sin or vice and is productive of pain.

(4) The karma called aśuklakṛshṇa (neither black nor white) is of those who have renounced everything, whose afflictions have been destroyed and whose present body is the last one they will have. Those who have renounced actions, the karma-sannyāsis (and not those who belong to the sannyāsāśrama merely), are nowhere found performing actions which depend upon external means. They have not got the black vehicle of actions, because they do not perform such actions. Nor do they possess the white vehicle of actions, because they dedicate to Īśvara the fruits of all vehicles of action, brought about by the practice of Yoga.

Returning to the question of karmāśaya again for review, we see that being produced from desire (kāma), avarice (lobha), ignorance (moha), and anger (krodha) it has really got at its root the kleśas (afflictions) such as avidyā (ignorance), asmitā (egoism), rāga (attachment), dvesha (antipathy), abhiniveśa (love of life). It will be easily seen that the passions named above, desire, lust, etc., are not in any way different from the kleśas or afflictions previously mentioned; and as all actions, virtuous or sinful, have their springs in the said sentiments of desire, anger, covetousness, and infatuation, it is quite enough that all these virtuous or sinful actions spring from the kleśas.

Now this karmāśaya ripens into life-state, life-experience and life-time, if the roots—the afflictions—exist. Not only is it true that when the afflictions are rooted out, no karmāśaya can accumulate, but even when many karmāśayas of many lives are accumulated, they are rooted out when the afflictions are destroyed. Otherwise, it is difficult to conceive that the karmāśaya accumulated for an infinite number of years, whose time of ripeness is uncertain, will be rooted out! So even if there be no fresh karmāśaya after the rise of true knowledge, the purusha cannot be liberated but will be required to suffer an endless cycle of births and rebirths to exhaust the already accumulated karmāśayas of endless lives. For this reason, the mental plane becomes a field for the production of the fruits of action only, when it is watered by the stream of afflictions. Hence the afflictions help the vehicle of actions (karmāśaya) in the production of their fruits also. It is for this reason that when the afflictions are destroyed the power which helps to bring about the manifestation also disappears; and on that account the vehicles of actions although existing in innumerable quantities have no time for their fruition and do not possess the power of producing fruit, because their seed-powers are destroyed by intellection.

Karmāśaya is of two kinds. (1) Ripening in the same life dṛshṭajanmavedanīya. (2) Ripening in another unknown life. That puṇya karmāśaya, which is generated by intense purificatory action, trance and repetition of mantras, and that pāpa karmāśaya, which is generated by repeated evil done either to men who are suffering the extreme misery of fear, disease and helplessness, or to those who place confidence in them or to those who are high-minded and perform tapas, ripen into fruit in the very same life, whereas other kinds of karmāśayas ripen in some unknown life.

Living beings in hell have no dṛshṭajanma karmāśaya, for this life is intended for suffering only and their bodies are called the bhoga-śarīras intended for suffering alone and not for the accumulation of any karmāśaya which could take effect in that very life.

There are others whose afflictions have been spent and exhausted and thus they have no such karmāśaya, the effect of which they will have to reap in some other life. They are thus said to have no adṛshṭa-janmavedanīya karma.

The karmāśaya of both kinds described above ripens into life-state, life-time and life-experience. These are called the three ripenings or vipākas of the karmāśaya; and they are conducive to pleasure or pain, according as they are products of puṇyakarmāśaya (virtue) or pāpa karmāśaya (vice or demerit). Many karmāśayas combine to produce one life-state; for it is not possible that each karma should produce one or many life-states, for then there would be no possibility of experiencing the effects of the karmas, because if for each one of the karmas we had one or more lives, karmas, being endless, space for obtaining lives in which to experience effects would not be available, for it would take endless time to exhaust the karmas already accumulated. It is therefore held that many karmas unite to produce one life-state or birth (jāti) and to determine also its particular duration (āyush) and experience (bhoga). The virtuous and sinful karmāśayas accumulated in one life, in order to produce their effects, cause the death of the individual and manifest themselves in producing his rebirth, his duration of life and particular experiences, pleasurable or painful. The order of undergoing the experiences is the order in which the karmas manifest themselves as effects, the principal ones being manifested earlier in life. The principal karmas here refer to those which are quite ready to generate their effects. Thus it is said that those karmas which produce their effects immediately are called primary, whereas those which produce effects after some delay are called secondary. Thus we see that there is continuity of existence throughout; when the karmas of this life ripen jointly they tend to fructify by causing another birth as a means to which death is caused, and along with it life is manifested in another body (according to the dharma and adharma of the karmāśaya) formed by the prakṛtyāpūra (cf. the citta theory described above); and the same karmāśaya regulates the life-period and experiences of that life, the karmāśayas of which again take a similar course and manifest themselves in the production of another life and so on.

We have seen that the karmāśaya has three fructifications, viz. jāti, āyush and bhoga. Now generally the karmāśaya is regarded as ekabhavika or unigenital, i.e. it accumulates in one life. Ekabhava means one life and ekabhavika means the product of one life, or accumulated in one life. Regarded from this point of view, it may be contrasted with the vāsanās which remain accumulated from thousands of previous lives since eternity, the mind, being pervaded all over with them, as a fishing-net is covered all over with knots. This vāsanā results from memory of the experiences of a life generated by the fructification of the karmāśaya and kept in the citta in the form of potency or impressions (saṃskāra). Now we have previously seen that the citta remains constant in all the births and rebirths that an individual has undergone from eternity; it therefore keeps the memory of those various experiences of thousands of lives in the form of saṃskāra or potency and is therefore compared with a fishing-net pervaded all over with knots. The vāsanās therefore are not the results of the accumulation of experiences or their memory in one life but in many lives, and are therefore called anekabhavika as contrasted with the karmāśaya representing virtuous and vicious actions which are accumulated in one life and which produce another life, its experiences and its life-duration as a result of fructification (vipāka). This vāsanā is the cause of the instinctive tendencies, or habits of deriving pleasures and pains peculiar to different animal lives.

Thus the habits of a dog-life and its peculiar modes of taking its experiences and of deriving pleasures and pains are very different in nature from those of a man-life; they must therefore be explained on the basis of an incipient memory in the form of potency, or impressions (saṃskāra) of the experiences that an individual must have undergone in a previous dog-life.

Now when by the fructification of the karmāśaya a dog-life is settled for a person, his corresponding vāsanās of a previous dog-life are at once revived and he begins to take interest in his dog-life in the manner of a dog; the same principle applies to the virtue of individuals as men or as gods (IV. 8).

If there was not this law of vāsanās, then any vāsanā would be revived in any life, and with the manifestation of the vāsanā of animal life a man would take interest in eating grass and derive pleasure from it. Thus Nāgeśa says: “Now if those karmas which produce a man-life should manifest the vāsanās of animal lives, then one might be inclined to eat grass as a man, and it is therefore said that only the vāsanās corresponding to the karmas are revived.”

Now as the vāsanās are of the nature of saṃskāras or impressions, they lie ingrained in the citta and nothing can prevent their being revived. The intervention of other births has no effect. For this reason, the vāsanās of a dog-life are at once revived in another dog-life, though between the first dog-life and the second dog-life, the individual may have passed through many other lives, as a man, a bull, etc., though the second dog-life may take place many hundreds of years after the first dog-life and in quite different countries. The difference between saṃskāras, impressions, and smṛti or memory is simply this that the former is the latent state whereas the latter is the manifested state; so we see that the memory and the impressions are identical in nature, so that whenever a saṃskāra is revived, it means nothing but the manifestation of the memory of the same experiences conserved in the saṃskāra in a latent state. Experiences, when they take place, keep their impressions in the mind, though thousands of other experiences, lapse of time, etc., may intervene. They are revived in one moment with the proper cause of their revival, and the other intervening experiences can in no way hinder this revival. So it is with the vāsanās, which are revived at once according to the particular fructification of the karmāśaya, in the form of a particular life, as a man, a dog, or anything else.

It is now clear that the karmāśaya tending towards fructification is the cause of the manifestation of the vāsanās already existing in the mind in a latent form. Thus the Sūtra says:—“When two similar lives are separated by many births, long lapses of time and remoteness of space, even then for the purpose of the revival of the vāsanās, they may be regarded as immediately following each other, for the memories and impressions are the same” (Yoga-sūtra, IV. 9). The Bhāshya says: “the vāsanā is like the memory (smṛti), and so there can be memory from the impressions of past lives separated by many lives and by remote tracts of country. From these memories the impressions (saṃskāras) are derived, and the memories are revived by manifestation of the karmāśayas, and though memories from past impressions may have many lives intervening, these interventions do not destroy the causal antecedence of those past lives” (IV. 9).

These vāsanās are, however, beginningless, for a baby just after birth is seen to feel the fear of death instinctively, and it could not have derived it from its experience in this life. Again, if a small baby is thrown upwards, it is seen to shake and cry like a grown-up man, and from this it may be inferred that it is afraid of falling down on the ground and is therefore shaking through fear. Now this baby has never learnt in this life from experience that a fall on the ground will cause pain, for it has never fallen on the ground and suffered pain therefrom; so the cause of this fear cannot be sought in the experiences of this life, but in the memory of past experiences of fall and pain arising therefrom, which is innate in this life as vāsanā and causes this instinctive fear. So this innate memory which causes instinctive fear of death from the very time of birth, has not its origin in this life but is the memory of the experience of some previous life, and in that life, too, it existed as innate memory of some other previous life, and in that again as the innate memory of some other life and so on to beginningless time. This goes to show that the vāsanās are without beginning.

We come now to the question of unigenitality—ekabhavikatva—of the karmāśaya and its exceptions. We find that great confusion has occurred among the commentators about the following passage in the Bhāshya which refers to this subject: The Bhāshya according to Vācaspati in II. 13 reads: tatra dṛshṭajanmavedanīyasya niyatavipākasya, etc. Here Bhikshu and Nāgeśa read tatrādṛshṭajanmavedanīyasya niyatavipākasya, etc. There is thus a divergence of meaning on this point between Yoga-vārttika and his follower Nāgeśa, on one side, and Vācaspati on the other.

Vācaspati says that the dṛshṭajanmavedanīya (to be fructified in the same visible life) karma is the only true karma where the karmāśaya is ekabhavika, unigenital, for here these effects are positively not due to the karma of any other previous lives, but to the karma of that very life. Thus these are the only true causes of ekabhavika karmāśaya.

Thus according to Vācaspati we see that the adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (to be fructified in another life) of unappointed fruition is never an ideal of ekabhavikatva or unigenital character; for it may have three different courses: (1) It may be destroyed without fruition. (2) It may become merged in the ruling action. (3) It may exist for a long time overpowered by the ruling action whose fruition has been appointed.

Vijñāna Bhikshu and his follower Nāgeśa, however, say that the dṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (to be fructified in the same visible life) can never be ekabhavika or unigenital for there is no bhava, or previous birth there, whose product is being fructified in that life, for this karma is of that same visible life and not of some other previous bhava or life; and they agree in holding that it is for that reason that the Bhāshya makes no mention of this dṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma; it is clear that the karmāśaya in no other bhava is being fructified here. Thus we see that about dṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma, Vācaspati holds that it is the typical case of ekabhavika karma (karma of the same birth), whereas Vijñāna Bhikshu holds just the opposite view, viz. that the dṛhṭajanmavedanīya karma should by no means be considered as ekabhavika since there is here no bhava or birth, it being fructified in the same life.

The adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (works to be fructified in another life) of unfixed fruition has three different courses: (I) As we have observed before, by the rise of aśuklākṛshṇa (neither black nor white) karma, the other karmas—śukla (black), kṛshṇa (white) and śuklakṛshṇa (both black and white)—are rooted out. The śukla karmāśaya again arising from study and asceticism destroys the kṛshṇa karmas without their being able to generate their effects. These therefore can never be styled ekabhavika, since they are destroyed without producing any effect. (II) When the effects of minor actions are merged in the effects of the major and ruling action. The sins originating from the sacrifice of animals at a holy sacrifice are sure to produce bad effects, though they may be minor and small in comparison with the good effects arising from the performance of the sacrifice in which they are merged. Thus it is said that the experts being immersed in floods of happiness brought about by their sacrifices bear gladly particles of the fire of sorrow brought about by the sin of killing animals at sacrifice. So we see that here also the minor actions having been performed with the major do not produce their effects independently, and so all their effects are not fully manifested, and hence these secondary karmāśayas cannot be regarded as ekabhavika. (III) Again the adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma (to be fructified in another life) of unfixed fruition (aniyata vipāka) remains overcome for a long time by another adṛshṭajanmavedanīya karma of fixed fruition. A man may for example do some good actions and some extremely vicious ones, so that at the time of death, the karmāśaya of those vicious actions becoming ripe and fit for appointed fruition, generates an animal life. His good action, whose benefits are such as may be reaped only in a man-life, will remain overcome until the man is born again as a man: so this also cannot be said to be ekabhavika (to be reaped in one life). We may summarise the classification of karmas according to Vācaspati in a table as follows:—

Karmāśaya | +-------------------+--------------------+ | | Ekabhavika Anekabhavika | | Niyata Vipāka Aniyatavipāka (of fixed fruition). | | Adṛshṭajanmavedanīya +------+--------------------+ | | | | Dṛshṭajanmavedanīya Adṛshṭajanmavedanīya | | +----------------+----------+-----+ | | | (Destruction) (Merged in the (To remain effect of the overcome by major action.) the influence of some other action.)

Thus the karmāśaya may be viewed from two sides, one being that of fixed fruition and the other unfixed fruition, and the other that of dṛshṭajanmavedanīya and adṛshṭajanmavedanīya. Now the theory is that the niyatavipāka (of fixed fruition) karmāśaya is always ekabhavika, i.e. it does not remain separated by other lives, but directly produces its effects in the succeeding life.

Ekabhavika means that which is produced from the accumulation of karmas in one life in the life which succeeds it. Vācaspati, however, takes it also to mean that action which attains fruition in the same life in which it is performed, whereas what Vijñāna Bhikshu understands by ekabhavika is that action alone which is produced in the life immediately succeeding the life in which it was accumulated. So according to Vijñāna Bhikshu, the niyata vipāka (of fixed fruition) dṛshṭajanmavedanīya (to be fructified in the same life) action is not ekabhavika, since it has no bhava, i.e. it is not the production of a preceding life. Neither can it be anekabhavika; thus this niyatavipākadṛshṭajanmavedanīya action is neither ekabhavika nor anekbhavika. Whereas Vācaspati is inclined to call this also ekabhavika. About the niyatavipāka-adṛshṭajanmavedanīya action being called ekabhavika (unigenital) there seems to be no dispute. The aniyatavipāka-adṛshṭajanmavedanīya action cannot be called ekabhavika as it undergoes three different courses described above.