RELG 402 - World's Living Religions
Karma
Both Parshvanatha and Mahavira were leaders of ascetic movements that emerged in the northern part of India in the first millennium BC. These shramana or "striver" movements were made up of many sub-groups (including Buddhists). The shared ideology of the movements was one of asceticism, according to which freedom from suffering can only be achieved by liberation from the cycle of rebirth. This cycle is fueled by karma, which causes beings to experience the results of their actions, good and bad. Morally correct actions lead to pleasant experiences and immoral actions lead to unpleasant experiences. Because one lifetime does not allow enough time to experience all such results, rebirth is necessary. This also explains why persons are born into such varied circumstances. Good fortune is due to good past actions, and misfortune to bad past actions.
Even good actions, though, produce impermanent results, which are therefore ultimately unsatisfactory. A state of true and lasting happiness only comes about when one becomes free from the effects of karma. Such freedom is the goal of the shramana traditions. Despite the differences that separate their approaches to this problem, all share the idea that one must remove oneself from society and from conventional social duties and norms if one is to achieve perfect freedom, engaging in a life of ascetic practice and meditation.
The ideology of the shramanas was distinct from that of their chief rivals, the Brahmins, who upheld the ancient Vedic tradition. In early Vedic writings one finds no explicit mention of karma and rebirth, or the ideal of liberation from rebirth. These ideals, which the Brahman and shramana traditions share, emerge in Vedic literature only relatively late, in a series of philosophical dialogues called the Upanishads, composed in the same period in which the shramana movement emerged. According to Brahman belief, one measure of a person's spiritual evolution, and so proximity to the goal of liberation, is that person's social station, or varna - now widely known as "caste" - the highest caste being that of the Brahmins themselves. The Brahmins are traditionally the priests of the Vedic religion, and some of their rituals in ancient times involved the sacrifice of animals in a sacred fire. In the Brahman worldview, the Brahmins are essential to maintaining the cosmic order, for their regular performance of Vedic ritual is key to upholding this order, and only they are qualified to perform it.
Shramana teachers, on the other hand, held that caste was a man-made institution, created for the maintenance of society, and not an indicator of spiritual evolution. Anyone, of any caste, who puts forth sufficient effort can achieve transcendence of karma and rebirth, and reach liberation. Animal sacrifices, moreover, violate the principle of nonviolence (ahimsa), observance of which is vital to achieving liberation. Shramana groups such as the Jains and Buddhists therefore rejected the notion that birth caste had any relevance to the spiritual life - though they did not reject the institution of caste as such, as a form of social order. They also rejected the Vedic ritual of animal sacrifice, while retaining much Vedic terminology and continuing to honor Vedic deities, such as Indra. One should not think, though, that Jains and Buddhists rejected caste, as if they were social revolutionaries, for both communities continued to organize themselves into castes. Jains choose marriage partners, for example, on the basis of caste to the present day. Neither should one equate the ancient Brahman traditions, with which Mahavira and the Buddha contended, with the Hinduism of later centuries or of today. For while Hindus do maintain a strong sense of continuity with the Vedic tradition, many of the practices to which the shramanas objected (such as animal sacrifice) have also been rejected by most Hindus, and Hindu movements have emerged through the centuries that have rejected the identification of spiritual evolution with caste.
In the Jain understanding, karma is more than simply the principle of moral causation, as found in other Indic traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. For Jains, karma is also the substance that forms the mechanism by which this principle operates. Karma, in other words, is a "thing" in Jainism: a type of non-conscious, non-living "stuff" (ajiva) that adheres to the conscious, living soul (jiva). For Jains, Karma is of different kinds. Some of it produces unhappy experiences and some of it produces happy experiences. The kind of karma one attracts to one's soul depends upon the action one performs and the passion that accompanies it.
This is an important point. It is not only a good or bad action that draws correspondingly good or bad karma to the soul. The passion (raga) or volitional quality with which one performs an action is a central factor as well. Violent, angry passions that manifest in the form of harmful thoughts, words, or actions are the worst, attracting the most obscuring and painful varieties of karma to the soul. Peaceful actions, aimed at alleviating suffering or doing good for others, bring good karma to the soul. The ultimate aim, though, is to be free from all karma. One must strive, therefore, to act with calm equanimity, and without anxiety for the outcome of one's action, in order to achieve a state of perfect freedom.
Copyright © 1999 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved
