HOW MANY KARMA THEORIES ARE THERE?
“The karma theory” has been attacked for a variety of reasons. (1) A common claim is that it is fatalistic, that it renders human deliberation and effort inefficacious, and thus contributes to the inertia of the Indian peasanty, as well as giving license to irresponsibility and therefore immorality. (2) It is also thought to be immoral because it is insufficiently sensitive to the human predicament, because it precludes undeserved suffering, because it is a retributive ethical theory and no such theory is acceptable, because it gives us too much responsibility. (3) It is said to be unduly egoistic, to force men to turn inward and predicate their lives on a selfish desire for their own improvement and eventual release, with no attention to their fellow man – true charity, real love for others becoming irrelevant. (4) It is said to be unrealistic; leaving aside the point that it is unverifiable, the theory can only hope to explain events by invoking God or fate, since a simple connecting of actions with results cannot possibly succeed given the complexity of nature, especially human nature. (5) It is also charged that the theory is objectionably naturalistic, because it either denies God’s existence or relevance, or else it makes Him subservient to human beings.
Now what is this theory or law which, its critics allege, is defective for these and other reasons? Consultations of famous philosophers’ explications might seem in order. Here are a few: All the Indian systems agree in believing that whatever action is done by an individual leaves behind it some sort of potency which has the power to ordain for him joy or sorrow in the future according as it is good or bad. (Surendranath Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, Volume I (Cambridge University Press, 1922), p. 71) The idea ... that life, in quality as well as quantity, is the accurately meted and altogether fitting expiation of the deeds of previous existence. (Paul Deussen, The System of the Vedanta ¯ , tr. Charles Johnston (Open Court: Chicago, Ill. 1912). pp. 381–382) Every deed must produce its natural effect in the world; at the same time it leaves an impression on or forms a tendency in the minds of men ... (a) samsk ˙ ara or ¯ vasan ¯ a¯ that inclines us to repeat the deed we have once done” (S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Volume One (George Allen & Unwin: London, 1927), p. 246) In its simplest form the law of karma means that all actions, good or bad, produce their proper consequence in the life of the individual who acts. (Satis Chandra Chatterjee, Fundamentals of Hinduism (Das Gupta & Co.: Calcutta 1950, 1960), p. 74). It would seem that all four of these accounts are too vague and general to support any of the five criticisms reported earlier. These accounts suggest that some things in life are determined by past acts, but do not imply that all are; they do not imply that all suffering is deserved, that retribution (“an eye for an eye”) is a preferred basis for morality; they say nothing about egoism vs. altruism, love or charity; they neither invoke God or fate, nor do they preclude them – they simply do not mention them. On the other hand, relationships between act and result as vaguely specified as these are can hardly answer to the requirements of a “theory” or “law” in any very interesting sense of those terms. The problem is: how can the “karmic” relationship be specified, quantitatively and qualitatively, so as to make it specific enough to warrant criticism, without endowing it with features which will cause it to be disowned by its defenders? I do not believe it can be, for there is no single “it”. What I wish to do here is to catalogue the parameters of such quantitative and qualitative specifications in order to provide the basis for a topology of karma theories. It will turn out that these parameters, staying well within the bounds of reason and relevance, are so complex that the number of karma theories is legion, and also that the nature of the categories involved is frequently so difficult or obscure that it is hard to be certain whether textual authority, or native information, will be sufficient to disambiguate theories sufficiently to allow us to identify actual instances among the topological possibilities.
The karmic situation we are dealing with involves a relation between four fundamental types of components. Let us call them A, B, C and D. As, known in Sanskrit as karman, consist of one or more actions. Bs, known in Sanskrit as karmaphala or karmavipaka ¯ , must have or involve affective value, be contrastable as pleasant or painful, satisfying or frustrating, etc. “C” will stand for the link between A and B, a causal relation which may or may not be incorporated into something more metaphysically specific like a substance, a disposition or whatever. Ds, finally, will stand for possible additional causal factors which combine with A and C to produce B. I take these specifications of the first three types of factors to be definitive of karma theories in the sense that the occurrence of events of these types constitutes a necessary condition for a karmic situation. Ds are by contrast an optional addition, but important in some accounts of karma. Now to the catalogue of parameters, ways in which karma theories can and do differ. I. A, an action, may be considered 1. a single act of a single individual; 2. some function of more than one act of a single individual (e.g., the moral valence of the agent’s actions to date); 3. a single act by a group comprised of several individuals; 4. some function of more than one act by a group composed of several individuals.2 Clearly further distinctions could be drawn, e.g., depending on whether in 4 all members of the group must participate in all the acts of which 4 is a function, etc. There is some resistance expressed in classical Indian literature to the notion of group karma; however, popular tradition as expressed in the Puran¯. as, the epics and in southern Buddhism feature instances of it. So, A may involve 1. a desire, i.e., passionate attachment to a specific sort of outcome for which purpose the action is undertaken; 2. an intention (cetana¯), i.e., a mental act undertaken for some reason or other; a purposive action; 3. ignorance (avidya¯) or delusion (moha), i.e., erroneous notions about the nature of things; 4. any item of overt behavior, bodily or vocal; 5. any item of behavior regardless of motive – bodily, vocal or mental
These distinctions lie at the nub of discussions in the Ved¯anta, e.g., concerning the role of kamyakarmans ¯ , etc., and whether both kinds of acts produce karmic results, or only one. II. B may be 1. any event, physical or mental; 2. an experience or affective response (bhoga); 3. a disposition (samsk ˙ ara, v ¯ asan ¯ a¯) to have appropriate kinds of experiences or affective responses; 4. a disposition to act in (a) certain way(s); 5. an act (bodily, mental, or vocal); 6. one’s length of life, (a) provided no natural obstruction or calamity occurs; (b) unconditionally); 7. the type of, or specific, rebirth the agent of A gets in a subsequent life; 8. “external” events which occasions experiences (affective response). II.B.1–8 are not exclusive alternatives. P¯atanjala Yoga, for example, ˜ specifically mentions type of birth (jati ¯ ), length of life (ayus ¯ ), and experience or affective response (bhoga) as the karmic results of actions. The reader should recall that anything qualifying as a B must be contrastable with respect to affective value – but that leaves open the question of the basis for such evaluations – B could still be a natural disaster, say, an earthquake, which is productive of much pain, as well as the experience of pain which arises occasioned by the earthquake. The ambiguity of karma theories on this score is certainly among the most prominent causes of confusion in trying to assess the pertinence of criticisms of the sorts we mentioned earlier. If a theory specifically excludes “external” events from qualifying as Bs the fatalist implications of that theory will have to be abandoned, or else derived in some much less direct manner, and undeserved suffering is apparently allowed. Again, if the direct outcome of actions at an earlier time must be some action at a later time a very strong determinism, which it is tempting to call “fatalism”, will result; but not every karma theory must maintain such a thesis. Or if the maturation of karma is dispositional – one’s character, conditioning one’s experience and/or one’s future acts without determining them absolutely – the theory may not seem terribly “unrealistic”, since it is plausible to suppose that one’s past actions create habits which determine our subsequent character and through that condition our experiences and/or actions. III. C may be 1. constant correlation of events;2. a substance; 3. a disposition or “trace”); 4. a quality. Examples: In Buddhism nothing persists for more than a moment. Actions, thus, are momentary events, and any appearance of persistence or causal efficacy must be explained as a series of events, as in Hume, together with a penchant on our part for attributing persistence where none exists. The connection between act and karmic result is thus likely to be viewed in Buddhism as a stream of events whose inclusion within a “personality” or series of individual consciousnesses is at bottom a product of our ignorance. On the other hand, Jains and many other Indian theorists admit continuity as a property of certain things in the world, among them whatever it is that is immediately produced by an act at the time of its commission. A common term for this in P¯atanjala Yoga is ˜ karma¯saya ´ , “karmic residue”. In Jainism the term karman itself is used to denote bits of coded substance produced by activity; indeed, the Jain universe is filled with seemingly infinite numbers of kinds of such stuff, which cling to the self (j¯ıva) and produce more activity unless burned off by ascetic heat. On both Yoga and Jain accounts the results of human activity persist in the individual through rebirths as stuff constitutive of the individual bound self, and when this substance is activated at some subsequent time it produces one of the sorts of things mentioned above under the list of things constituting Bs. Other systems view C not as a kind of stuff but rather as a dispositional tendency set up in the self, a trace (samsk ˙ ara, v ¯ asan ¯ a¯). One of the murky areas in karmic theory concerns the importance of the difference between a theory which counts traces as Bs and one which counts them as Cs. As philosophers are quick to point out, the notion of a disposition is a tricky one: e.g., if X has a disposition to y under circumstances z, does that mean he cannot help y-ing if those circumstances occur, or does he merely have a tendency to y if nothing else (such as his wilful decision) intervenes? Once again one suspects that a large number of ways out of the fatalistic dilemma are available to the clever karmic theorist. Finally, there are those systems which take Cs to be qualities. Ny¯ayaVai´ses.ika identifies a quality of the self called adr.s. t .a, which it often equates with a person’s moral quotient (dharma/adharma) as the immediate product of an act. Just how it in turn produces B, some karmic result, is not altogether clear. Likewise, Purvam ¯ ¯ım¯ams˙ ¯a postulates something called apurva ¯ which appears to play an analogous role IV. D may be 1. null; 2. under control of the individual agent (God1); 3. not under control of the individual agent (fate, time, God2); 4. natural causes. Variations among Indian systems on this score are well known by comparison with some of their other features under review here. Some theories are explicitly atheistic; others (like Advaita Ved¯anta) admit a supreme Being but confine his karmic assistance to the function of creating occasions for individuals to work off the karmic residues which they and they alone are responsible for. Now here are two theses: 1. B must belong to the same individual(s) as A does. 2. B need not belong to the same individual(s) as A does. The matter broached in 1 and 2, having to do with what has been termed “transfer of merit”, is critical in mapping the varieties of karma theories. To me, the most dramatic contrast of all arising from our karma project was the realization that the very feature which appears as the saving grace for one type of karma theory constitutes a reductio ad absurdum for another. Popular mythology, as found in the Epics and Pur¯an. as as well as in Buddhism, especially in its later forms, views ritual Hinduism in large part as a way of unloading one’s karmic residues on others, or on God. In addition, the very conditioning factors for one’s karmic inheritance in a given lifetime are in large part provided by the actions of others. One’s parents not only provide the material substance for one’s body, they also contribute the genetic, i.e., karmic code which helps determine one’s character. By contrast, the karma theories of the most important classical nonBuddhist systems, including the Jains, find the idea of transferring one’s karma to another so foreign to their world view that they frequently cite the possibility of such transference in another’s theory as a sufficient reason for dismissing that theory. This stark dichotomy between two types of theory is so impressive that one is forced to consider whether we do not have to do, in speaking of karma and rebirth, with two entirely different patterns with presumptively independent origins. Or if not, the process by which one could have produced the other should provide a fascinating set of insights into the Indian mind. VII. B’s specific nature 1. must appropriately and closely fit A as reward/punishment; 2. need not fit A as reward/punishment;3. will generally, and in a rather vague way, fit A as reward/punishment. This feature is not of as great intrinsic interest as the last couple of features we have noted, but it does bear upon one’s assessment of a given karma theory as “retributive”. The remainder of the features I wish to consider have to do with the precise nature of the relationships among our four factors. Let us call a “sufficient condition for B” something which, by itself without any other factors, is “lawfully” followed by some B. A “necessary condition for B”, by contrast, is a causal factor without which B would not have arisen at that time. Now the causal relationships among A, C and B (not to mention D) may be quite different, depending in part on how the factors are considered metaphysically, but also because of various possible causal theories in general. VIII. A 1. is a sufficient condition for C as well as for B; 2. is a sufficient condition for C, but not for B; 3. is not a sufficient condition for C; 4. is a necessary condition for B and C; 5. is a necessary condition for C, but not for B; 6. is not a necessary condition for C. Many formulations of karma theories specify without qualification that every action lays down a residue of some sort or other; I take it this is to say that A is at least a sufficient condition for C. Certainly the classical philosophical theories in schools such as Yoga and Advaita seem to assume this: each individual has a store of karmic merit and demerit which he and he alone is responsible for acquiring. On the other hand, most philosophers deny that A is a sufficient condition for B. To say that A is a sufficient condition for B is to affirm that there is nothing which will avert the karmic fruition of one’s acts, and since “philosophy” in India is standardly understood as the study of the means of averting the karmic fruition of one’s acts it is evident why Indian philosophers take this stance! Devotionalists likewise tend to deny VIII.1, since a function of devotion is precisely to earn God’s grace, which may well involve a suspension of one’s karmic deserts. The question whether A is a necessary condition for C, or for B and C, has a different thrust. Could one get the same kinds of residues, or experience the same fruits, if one had done a different kind of act? It is not clear how interesting a question this is. One is inclined to suggest that the classification of kinds of acts, given the overriding concern for karmic results, will be drawn up on the basis of those results – so that all acts which produce the same kinds of results will ipso facto be called the “same kind” of act. On the other hand, the question becomes interesting when we think of positive rather than negative kinds of results, and indeed it is discussed at length in the literature in this connection. A major theme in the Ved¯anta literature is whether one can gain the highest heavenly rewards by faithfully performing the obligatory acts (nityakarman) prescribed in scripture, or whether one must also understand what one is doing, or understand the self that is doing it, etc. This can easily be translated into a series of questions about necessary and sufficient conditions for liberation. The catalogue of possibilities in VIII only begins to scratch the surface of questions that can be raised about the causal relations among the various factors. For example IX. A followed by C 1. is a sufficient condition for B; 2. is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for B; 3. is a necessary and sufficient condition for B; 4. is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for B. And again, X. A followed by C together with D 1. is a sufficient condition for B; 2. is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for B; 3. is a necessary and sufficient condition for B; 4. is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for B. Still another kind of difference among theories has to do with the question whether XI. Every A 1. must produce some B through some C; 2. must produce some C; 3. need not produce any C or B. Some theories seem to postulate the possibility of acts which are neutral and thus either produce no results or else produce results of negligible effective impact. Even though not all the differences in karma theories that have been identified are independent of each other, it will be clear enough that the permutations of possibilities runs into the thousands. No doubt these possibilities can be reduced a bit by excluding features which do not fit together for one reason or another. And then the task is to further reduce the number of karma theories by some method of classifying the possibilities into families which contain interesting features in common. Clearly that exercise will reflect the concerns of those constructing the families. One might undertake if out of interest in discovering a karma theory or theories which do not admit of the five types of criticisms indicated at the outset of this paper. I am not aware that this sort of approach to karma theories has been taken. The usual approach has been either to depict karma so that it is open to one or more criticisms, or else to accept a certain version on faith or as a matter of doctrine without worrying too much about its possible shortcomings. Neither way of dealing with karma does it complete justice. I conclude that we have yet to understand fully the complexities of karma.
Now what is this theory or law which, its critics allege, is defective for these and other reasons? Consultations of famous philosophers’ explications might seem in order. Here are a few: All the Indian systems agree in believing that whatever action is done by an individual leaves behind it some sort of potency which has the power to ordain for him joy or sorrow in the future according as it is good or bad. (Surendranath Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy, Volume I (Cambridge University Press, 1922), p. 71) The idea ... that life, in quality as well as quantity, is the accurately meted and altogether fitting expiation of the deeds of previous existence. (Paul Deussen, The System of the Vedanta ¯ , tr. Charles Johnston (Open Court: Chicago, Ill. 1912). pp. 381–382) Every deed must produce its natural effect in the world; at the same time it leaves an impression on or forms a tendency in the minds of men ... (a) samsk ˙ ara or ¯ vasan ¯ a¯ that inclines us to repeat the deed we have once done” (S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Volume One (George Allen & Unwin: London, 1927), p. 246) In its simplest form the law of karma means that all actions, good or bad, produce their proper consequence in the life of the individual who acts. (Satis Chandra Chatterjee, Fundamentals of Hinduism (Das Gupta & Co.: Calcutta 1950, 1960), p. 74). It would seem that all four of these accounts are too vague and general to support any of the five criticisms reported earlier. These accounts suggest that some things in life are determined by past acts, but do not imply that all are; they do not imply that all suffering is deserved, that retribution (“an eye for an eye”) is a preferred basis for morality; they say nothing about egoism vs. altruism, love or charity; they neither invoke God or fate, nor do they preclude them – they simply do not mention them. On the other hand, relationships between act and result as vaguely specified as these are can hardly answer to the requirements of a “theory” or “law” in any very interesting sense of those terms. The problem is: how can the “karmic” relationship be specified, quantitatively and qualitatively, so as to make it specific enough to warrant criticism, without endowing it with features which will cause it to be disowned by its defenders? I do not believe it can be, for there is no single “it”. What I wish to do here is to catalogue the parameters of such quantitative and qualitative specifications in order to provide the basis for a topology of karma theories. It will turn out that these parameters, staying well within the bounds of reason and relevance, are so complex that the number of karma theories is legion, and also that the nature of the categories involved is frequently so difficult or obscure that it is hard to be certain whether textual authority, or native information, will be sufficient to disambiguate theories sufficiently to allow us to identify actual instances among the topological possibilities.
The karmic situation we are dealing with involves a relation between four fundamental types of components. Let us call them A, B, C and D. As, known in Sanskrit as karman, consist of one or more actions. Bs, known in Sanskrit as karmaphala or karmavipaka ¯ , must have or involve affective value, be contrastable as pleasant or painful, satisfying or frustrating, etc. “C” will stand for the link between A and B, a causal relation which may or may not be incorporated into something more metaphysically specific like a substance, a disposition or whatever. Ds, finally, will stand for possible additional causal factors which combine with A and C to produce B. I take these specifications of the first three types of factors to be definitive of karma theories in the sense that the occurrence of events of these types constitutes a necessary condition for a karmic situation. Ds are by contrast an optional addition, but important in some accounts of karma. Now to the catalogue of parameters, ways in which karma theories can and do differ. I. A, an action, may be considered 1. a single act of a single individual; 2. some function of more than one act of a single individual (e.g., the moral valence of the agent’s actions to date); 3. a single act by a group comprised of several individuals; 4. some function of more than one act by a group composed of several individuals.2 Clearly further distinctions could be drawn, e.g., depending on whether in 4 all members of the group must participate in all the acts of which 4 is a function, etc. There is some resistance expressed in classical Indian literature to the notion of group karma; however, popular tradition as expressed in the Puran¯. as, the epics and in southern Buddhism feature instances of it. So, A may involve 1. a desire, i.e., passionate attachment to a specific sort of outcome for which purpose the action is undertaken; 2. an intention (cetana¯), i.e., a mental act undertaken for some reason or other; a purposive action; 3. ignorance (avidya¯) or delusion (moha), i.e., erroneous notions about the nature of things; 4. any item of overt behavior, bodily or vocal; 5. any item of behavior regardless of motive – bodily, vocal or mental
These distinctions lie at the nub of discussions in the Ved¯anta, e.g., concerning the role of kamyakarmans ¯ , etc., and whether both kinds of acts produce karmic results, or only one. II. B may be 1. any event, physical or mental; 2. an experience or affective response (bhoga); 3. a disposition (samsk ˙ ara, v ¯ asan ¯ a¯) to have appropriate kinds of experiences or affective responses; 4. a disposition to act in (a) certain way(s); 5. an act (bodily, mental, or vocal); 6. one’s length of life, (a) provided no natural obstruction or calamity occurs; (b) unconditionally); 7. the type of, or specific, rebirth the agent of A gets in a subsequent life; 8. “external” events which occasions experiences (affective response). II.B.1–8 are not exclusive alternatives. P¯atanjala Yoga, for example, ˜ specifically mentions type of birth (jati ¯ ), length of life (ayus ¯ ), and experience or affective response (bhoga) as the karmic results of actions. The reader should recall that anything qualifying as a B must be contrastable with respect to affective value – but that leaves open the question of the basis for such evaluations – B could still be a natural disaster, say, an earthquake, which is productive of much pain, as well as the experience of pain which arises occasioned by the earthquake. The ambiguity of karma theories on this score is certainly among the most prominent causes of confusion in trying to assess the pertinence of criticisms of the sorts we mentioned earlier. If a theory specifically excludes “external” events from qualifying as Bs the fatalist implications of that theory will have to be abandoned, or else derived in some much less direct manner, and undeserved suffering is apparently allowed. Again, if the direct outcome of actions at an earlier time must be some action at a later time a very strong determinism, which it is tempting to call “fatalism”, will result; but not every karma theory must maintain such a thesis. Or if the maturation of karma is dispositional – one’s character, conditioning one’s experience and/or one’s future acts without determining them absolutely – the theory may not seem terribly “unrealistic”, since it is plausible to suppose that one’s past actions create habits which determine our subsequent character and through that condition our experiences and/or actions. III. C may be 1. constant correlation of events;2. a substance; 3. a disposition or “trace”); 4. a quality. Examples: In Buddhism nothing persists for more than a moment. Actions, thus, are momentary events, and any appearance of persistence or causal efficacy must be explained as a series of events, as in Hume, together with a penchant on our part for attributing persistence where none exists. The connection between act and karmic result is thus likely to be viewed in Buddhism as a stream of events whose inclusion within a “personality” or series of individual consciousnesses is at bottom a product of our ignorance. On the other hand, Jains and many other Indian theorists admit continuity as a property of certain things in the world, among them whatever it is that is immediately produced by an act at the time of its commission. A common term for this in P¯atanjala Yoga is ˜ karma¯saya ´ , “karmic residue”. In Jainism the term karman itself is used to denote bits of coded substance produced by activity; indeed, the Jain universe is filled with seemingly infinite numbers of kinds of such stuff, which cling to the self (j¯ıva) and produce more activity unless burned off by ascetic heat. On both Yoga and Jain accounts the results of human activity persist in the individual through rebirths as stuff constitutive of the individual bound self, and when this substance is activated at some subsequent time it produces one of the sorts of things mentioned above under the list of things constituting Bs. Other systems view C not as a kind of stuff but rather as a dispositional tendency set up in the self, a trace (samsk ˙ ara, v ¯ asan ¯ a¯). One of the murky areas in karmic theory concerns the importance of the difference between a theory which counts traces as Bs and one which counts them as Cs. As philosophers are quick to point out, the notion of a disposition is a tricky one: e.g., if X has a disposition to y under circumstances z, does that mean he cannot help y-ing if those circumstances occur, or does he merely have a tendency to y if nothing else (such as his wilful decision) intervenes? Once again one suspects that a large number of ways out of the fatalistic dilemma are available to the clever karmic theorist. Finally, there are those systems which take Cs to be qualities. Ny¯ayaVai´ses.ika identifies a quality of the self called adr.s. t .a, which it often equates with a person’s moral quotient (dharma/adharma) as the immediate product of an act. Just how it in turn produces B, some karmic result, is not altogether clear. Likewise, Purvam ¯ ¯ım¯ams˙ ¯a postulates something called apurva ¯ which appears to play an analogous role IV. D may be 1. null; 2. under control of the individual agent (God1); 3. not under control of the individual agent (fate, time, God2); 4. natural causes. Variations among Indian systems on this score are well known by comparison with some of their other features under review here. Some theories are explicitly atheistic; others (like Advaita Ved¯anta) admit a supreme Being but confine his karmic assistance to the function of creating occasions for individuals to work off the karmic residues which they and they alone are responsible for. Now here are two theses: 1. B must belong to the same individual(s) as A does. 2. B need not belong to the same individual(s) as A does. The matter broached in 1 and 2, having to do with what has been termed “transfer of merit”, is critical in mapping the varieties of karma theories. To me, the most dramatic contrast of all arising from our karma project was the realization that the very feature which appears as the saving grace for one type of karma theory constitutes a reductio ad absurdum for another. Popular mythology, as found in the Epics and Pur¯an. as as well as in Buddhism, especially in its later forms, views ritual Hinduism in large part as a way of unloading one’s karmic residues on others, or on God. In addition, the very conditioning factors for one’s karmic inheritance in a given lifetime are in large part provided by the actions of others. One’s parents not only provide the material substance for one’s body, they also contribute the genetic, i.e., karmic code which helps determine one’s character. By contrast, the karma theories of the most important classical nonBuddhist systems, including the Jains, find the idea of transferring one’s karma to another so foreign to their world view that they frequently cite the possibility of such transference in another’s theory as a sufficient reason for dismissing that theory. This stark dichotomy between two types of theory is so impressive that one is forced to consider whether we do not have to do, in speaking of karma and rebirth, with two entirely different patterns with presumptively independent origins. Or if not, the process by which one could have produced the other should provide a fascinating set of insights into the Indian mind. VII. B’s specific nature 1. must appropriately and closely fit A as reward/punishment; 2. need not fit A as reward/punishment;3. will generally, and in a rather vague way, fit A as reward/punishment. This feature is not of as great intrinsic interest as the last couple of features we have noted, but it does bear upon one’s assessment of a given karma theory as “retributive”. The remainder of the features I wish to consider have to do with the precise nature of the relationships among our four factors. Let us call a “sufficient condition for B” something which, by itself without any other factors, is “lawfully” followed by some B. A “necessary condition for B”, by contrast, is a causal factor without which B would not have arisen at that time. Now the causal relationships among A, C and B (not to mention D) may be quite different, depending in part on how the factors are considered metaphysically, but also because of various possible causal theories in general. VIII. A 1. is a sufficient condition for C as well as for B; 2. is a sufficient condition for C, but not for B; 3. is not a sufficient condition for C; 4. is a necessary condition for B and C; 5. is a necessary condition for C, but not for B; 6. is not a necessary condition for C. Many formulations of karma theories specify without qualification that every action lays down a residue of some sort or other; I take it this is to say that A is at least a sufficient condition for C. Certainly the classical philosophical theories in schools such as Yoga and Advaita seem to assume this: each individual has a store of karmic merit and demerit which he and he alone is responsible for acquiring. On the other hand, most philosophers deny that A is a sufficient condition for B. To say that A is a sufficient condition for B is to affirm that there is nothing which will avert the karmic fruition of one’s acts, and since “philosophy” in India is standardly understood as the study of the means of averting the karmic fruition of one’s acts it is evident why Indian philosophers take this stance! Devotionalists likewise tend to deny VIII.1, since a function of devotion is precisely to earn God’s grace, which may well involve a suspension of one’s karmic deserts. The question whether A is a necessary condition for C, or for B and C, has a different thrust. Could one get the same kinds of residues, or experience the same fruits, if one had done a different kind of act? It is not clear how interesting a question this is. One is inclined to suggest that the classification of kinds of acts, given the overriding concern for karmic results, will be drawn up on the basis of those results – so that all acts which produce the same kinds of results will ipso facto be called the “same kind” of act. On the other hand, the question becomes interesting when we think of positive rather than negative kinds of results, and indeed it is discussed at length in the literature in this connection. A major theme in the Ved¯anta literature is whether one can gain the highest heavenly rewards by faithfully performing the obligatory acts (nityakarman) prescribed in scripture, or whether one must also understand what one is doing, or understand the self that is doing it, etc. This can easily be translated into a series of questions about necessary and sufficient conditions for liberation. The catalogue of possibilities in VIII only begins to scratch the surface of questions that can be raised about the causal relations among the various factors. For example IX. A followed by C 1. is a sufficient condition for B; 2. is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for B; 3. is a necessary and sufficient condition for B; 4. is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for B. And again, X. A followed by C together with D 1. is a sufficient condition for B; 2. is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for B; 3. is a necessary and sufficient condition for B; 4. is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for B. Still another kind of difference among theories has to do with the question whether XI. Every A 1. must produce some B through some C; 2. must produce some C; 3. need not produce any C or B. Some theories seem to postulate the possibility of acts which are neutral and thus either produce no results or else produce results of negligible effective impact. Even though not all the differences in karma theories that have been identified are independent of each other, it will be clear enough that the permutations of possibilities runs into the thousands. No doubt these possibilities can be reduced a bit by excluding features which do not fit together for one reason or another. And then the task is to further reduce the number of karma theories by some method of classifying the possibilities into families which contain interesting features in common. Clearly that exercise will reflect the concerns of those constructing the families. One might undertake if out of interest in discovering a karma theory or theories which do not admit of the five types of criticisms indicated at the outset of this paper. I am not aware that this sort of approach to karma theories has been taken. The usual approach has been either to depict karma so that it is open to one or more criticisms, or else to accept a certain version on faith or as a matter of doctrine without worrying too much about its possible shortcomings. Neither way of dealing with karma does it complete justice. I conclude that we have yet to understand fully the complexities of karma.
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