In our survey of the Nine Fundamental Categories of the Jaina faith we saw that the thought of karma—the energy accumulated by action—underlay them all, that five of them were concerned entirely with either the acquisition, prevention, impeding, or destruction of karma, and two others dealt with bondage to it or freedom from it. That seven out of the nine principles should be thus apportioned shows the enormous importance Jaina, in common with all other Indians, attach to karma. For them it is the key that solves all the riddles of this unintelligible world. Is a man born a cripple? It is owing to his karma. Are Indian immigrants badly treated in South Africa and made to live in special locations? It is owing to the evil karma they themselves acquired when they oppressed the outcasts, and compelled them to live apart from their fellow men.
If a man plead that he personally never thus ill-treated his brother, the doctrine of Transmigration, the undivorceable spouse of karma, is brought in, and he is assured that he must have done so in some previous existence. Nothing is more extraordinary in Indian thought than the way in which the unproved doctrine of karma has been universally accepted as an axiom.
The root of the word karma is, the Jaina tells us, the verb kri (to do), and they believe it to be the result of actions springing from four sources.
The four
sources
of karma.The first source of karma is Avirati, or attachment to the things of this life such as food, raiment, lodging, women, or jewels. The unlimited use and enjoyment of any of
