Dr. N.L. Kachhara
The bondage and rise of karma is a continuous process. Some activity of the mind, body, or speech generally takes place at every moment, which means that karma is active at every moment. The rise of karma takes place in two ways:
1. Rise of karma on the maturity of the duration of the bonded period (udaya, or the rise). The soul experiences the fruits of the rise without any invitation.
2. Rise of karma before its maturity due to the initiative of the soul (vipaka, or fruition). This rise is caused by the voluntary action of the soul, and the experiences occur due to its self-initiative.
All karmas cannot be aroused prematurely; only those that have become capable of being aroused prematurely can do so. The criterion for such capability is determined by karmic type, karmic duration, karmic intensity and karmic units.
The fruition and rise of karma is responsible for all worldly life, and therefore its study is of great practical importance, particularly from the scientific point of view. Life exists because of the fruition of karma; to study life, we must know why and how karmas arrive at fruition.
A cause is that which affects the action: action cannot take place without a cause. For any action, there are two types of causes:
1. The Main (Upaadana) Cause: the cause that transforms into action. This is also called the substantive cause.
2. The Auxiliary or Efficient (Nimitta) Cause: the helping cause for the action to take place, which motivates the main cause. During action, the auxiliary cause does not transform into the main cause and is therefore not destroyed (similar to a catalyst). However, the auxiliary cause influences the main cause.
Auxiliary causes are of two types:
1. Karma is the main auxiliary cause.
2. Nokarma is the supportive auxiliary cause in the rise of karma. This again is of two subtypes:
(a) Bonded nokarma, e.g. the fiery and gross material bodies
(b) Non-bonded nokarma - external objects like family members, contacts, wealth, property and society, or geological, climatic and environmental conditions
The jiva and karma have a relationship in which each is both the main cause and the auxiliary cause, i.e. the soul transforms by its own cause as well as by the effects of karma, and karma changes by its own cause as well as the activities of the soul.
Generally, the fruition of karma takes place on meeting a nimitta. If karma is strong, a nimitta presents automatically before you. The rise of nikachana karma is independent of nimitta: it will rise irrespective of nimitta. Purushartha is supposed to enable the soul to fight the karma. This generally consists of changing the nimitta, which also changes the fruition of the karma.
The bondage of karma is important from a spiritual point of view, but the fruition of karma is important from a scientific point of view. Fruition can take place on the self-initiative of the soul or on the soul meeting with one or more auxiliary causes, nimitta. Nimitta can be internal, such as the impurity of the soul itself, or a living or non-living external object with which the jiva interacts. The fruition of karma is a regular process; it may take place due to one or more causes, both internal and external. One or more types of karma, up to all eight kinds, can experience fruition at the same time.
The following are examples of nokarmas for different types of karma. Please note that the nokarmas of psychical karmas prevent the manifestation of the soul's powers and support the powers of the karmas whereas the nokarmas of biological karmas promote yoga, the activities of mind, speech and body.
| Karma | Nokarma |
| Intelligence-obscuring | Covering and shielding of objects |
| Awareness-obscuring | Obstruction in the view of objects |
| Feeling-producing | Any object that hurts |
| Deluding karma | Intoxication or anything that deludes mind |
| Age-determining | Food |
| Form-producing | Body |
| Status-determining | State, high and low, of the body |
| Vitality-obstructing | Storage of goods preventing their enjoyment; obstructions caused by mountain, river, and male, female individuals, etc. in enjoyment. |
| Empirical knowledge-obscuring | Covering and shielding of objects |
| Articulate knowledge-obscuring | Senses and their subjects |
| Clairvoyance, mind-reading- Obscuring | Objects that produce worries |
| Omniscience-obscuring | {Nothing can prevent its rise} |
| Five kinds of sleep | Sleep-inducing objects and food |
| Ocular, non-ocular awareness- Obscuring | Covering and shielding of objects |
| Pleasure-producing | Favourite dishes, goods |
| Pain-producing | Dishes harmful to health |
| Right belief-deluding (Samyaktva) | Temples, images & pictures of Lords, etc. |
| Wrong belief-deluding (Mithyatva) | Temples, images, pictures, books, preachers, penances, efforts, etc. of wrong type |
| Anantanubandhi passions | Temples, images, pictures, books, preachers, penances, efforts, etc. of wrong type |
| Other three grades of passions | Bad company, bad literature, etc. |
| Laughter quasi-passion | Joker, comedian |
| Indulgence qyasi-passion | Virtuous son, dear objects |
| Dissatisfaction quasi-passion | Parting with objects of liking and meeting with objects of dislike |
| Sorrow quasi-passion | Parting with objects of liking, death of a family member |
| Fear quasi-passion | Meeting ferocious animals, enemies, criminals, terrorists, etc. |
| Disgust quasi-passion | Condemned objects |
| High and low status determining | Company of good and bad persons |
| Willpower-obstructing karma | Poor and harmful food producing weakness |
The fruition of karma is associated with activity (mental, verbal or physical), and one or more activities may take place at a time. These activities, known as yoga, are also accompanied by passions. Mental activities exist as thought processes, memory recall and interaction with the brain. Verbal action may be spoken words, murmuring, mental recitation or speaking activity in some form. Physical action can be motor actions or the movement of limbs and body parts, or biological process taking place in the body. The activities of the tejas body also constitute physical actions.
The fruition of karma has four divisions according to how fruition takes place:
1. Fruition in space (ksetra-vipaki). Truly speaking, all fruition takes place in space, but some karma subtypes are specially placed in this category. The Anupurvinaama karmas are of this type because they obtain fruition during the migration of the soul from one life to the next. Presumably the fruition of these karmas provides the necessary force for the jiva to maintain its form when moving from the present location to the next location.
2. Fruition in jiva (jiva-vipaki). The jiva-vipaki karma subtypes obtain fruition in the soul directly, i.e. fruition first takes place in the bhava-karma and is simultaneously followed by the fruition of dravya karma. The following 78 subtypes belong to this category:
(a) All ghatin karma - 47 subtypes
i. Intelligence-obscuring karma -5 subtypes
ii. Awareness-obscuring karma -9 subtypes
iii. Deluding karma -28 subtypes
iv. Obstructing karma -5 subtypes
(b) Aghatin karma - 31 subtypes
i. Status-determining karma -2 subtype
ii. Feeling-producing karma -2 subtypes
iii. Form-producing karma
1) Tirthankara naama karma -1 subtype
2) Mobile being karma -3 subtypes
3) Immobile beings -3 subtypes
4) Subhag type karma - 4 subtypes
5) Durbhag type karma - 4 subtypes
6) Respiration karma -1 subtype
7) Genus of being karma -5 subtypes
8) Realm of existence karma -4 subtypes
9) Movement (gait) karma -2 subtypes
3. Fruition in a particular realm of existence (bhava-vipaki). Age-determining karma belongs to this category. These subtypes obtain fruition in the next birth.
4. Fruition in the body (pudgala-vipaki). These karmas consist of subtypes of body-forming karma; their fruition takes place directly in the body. This fruition determines the structural and functional aspects of the body. Gommatsara Karmakanda mentions 62 subtypes in this category:
(a) Morphology, firm body, flexible body, balanced weight, beautiful body, ugly body, fiery body, karma body, body colour (5), body smell (2), body taste (5), body touch (8)
(b) Body binding (5), formation of body (5)
(c) Figure of body (6), firmness of joints (6), gross body, protean body, migration body, organ and limbs (3)
(d) Self-annihilation, individual body, common body, cold luster, warm splendor, injury to others.
The above division of karmas is of special significance. It shows that the fruition of all ghatin karma takes place directly in the soul and influences its natural ability and performance. Further, the fruition of some other karmas, such as status-determining karma, feeling-producing karma and some form-producing karmas, also directly affect the soul. The pudgala-vipaki form-producing karmas (which obtain fruition directly in the body) are very likely related to the bio-photonemissions discovered by science, since both of these concern processes taking place in the body.
Physically, the fruition of karma means the irradiation of the karma body that exists in some plasma-like form. Karmas of different types give different kinds of radiations that interact with the gross body in the above manner. An entity known as dravyamanah or conscious mind, the counterpart of bhavamanah, exists in all human beings and has a great influence on all types of activities. The conscious mind regulates the activities of thinking, speaking and physical (both biological and motor) actions, according to the beliefs, norms, procedures and habits stored in the memory. The conscious mind, in turn, is influenced by the fruition of karmas. When sleep karmas are on rise, the working of the conscious mind is suspended temporarily. In the state of sleep, mental and physical activities loose regulation and may take place in an arbitrary manner, escaping from the paradigm of accepted beliefs and norms. This happens in dreams in which jiva experience unthought-of sequences of events without any conscious effort. These experiences may consist of non-sensible events, uncensored reflections of the unconscious mind (karma body) or desires stored in the memory, current tasks ofthe conscious mind, or even problems the jiva has been trying to solve. In the dream state, the activities of jiva can be mental or physical or both. Mental activities take place in the form of the perception of events. Physical activities may consist of some processes like weeping, laughing, uttering words and sentences, walking or doing some act unconsciously, acts like anger or other emotions, discharge, etc.
In the waking state, the conscious mind controls all mental and physical activities, so these activities are organized and purposeful. This is achieved by the choice and selection of nimitta, both internal and external. This means that the conscious mind has a regulatory function in the fruition of karma; the fruition of karma is not entirely arbitrary. Of course, nikachita karma has no control over the conscious mind and the jiva has to experience the fruits of its rise. Upashaman is an important method of controlling the fruition of karma; this allows the jiva to change the selection of nimitta and temporarily postpones the fruition of karmas that were otherwise due for fruition. It may be noted that the fruition of karma and choice of nimitta are mutually dependent: which one occurs first depends on the circumstance. Sometimes the fruition of karma leads to a choice of nimitta and sometimes it is the other way around. In any case, the two are closely interrelated and mutually influence each other.
The following are the possible effects of the rise of karma.
1. Jnanavaraniya karma. In spite of curiosity the soul fails to know the subject. Its sensual perception is veiled.
2. Darshanavaraniya karma. The soul fails to become aware, in spite of being alert, of a subject that is in sight. Either its sensual perceptions are blocked, or it goes into a state of sleep.
3. Satavedaniya karma. The soul experiences pleasure in the form of words, sight, smell, taste, or touch of favourable mental, verbal or bodily conditions.
4. Asatavedaniya karma. The soul experiences pain. This could be in the form of unpleasing words, sight, smell, taste, or touch, or adverse mental, verbal or bodily conditions.
5. Mohaniya karma. The soul experiences a perverse state and fall in character. It can suffer from perverseness, a lack of righteousness, or both, or the attack of passions and quasi-passions.
6. Ayusya karma. The soul takes birth in a particular form. These forms could be as infernal beings, heavenly beings, animals or human beings.
7. Shubhanaama karma. The soul experiences higher physical and verbal conditions. It may have superior speech, looks, smell, taste, touch, movements, position, beauty, fame, physical strength, courage, valor, and a melodious, impressive, effective and mentally pleasing sound.
8. Ashubhanaama karma. The soul experiences lower physical and verbal conditions. It may have inferior speech, looks, smell, taste, touch, movements, or position, a loss of beauty, fame, physical strength, courage or valor, and a harsh, unimpressive, ineffective and mentally displeasing sound.
9. High gotra karma. The soul experiences a state of elevated class, family status, power, position, industriousness, scholarly achievement, financial gains and prosperity.
10. Low gotra karma. The soul experiences a state of lower class, family status, power and position, the loss of its hard-working nature, scholarly performance and prosperity, and suffers losses.
11. Antaraya karma. The manifestation of soul powers is obstructed. It obstructs acts of charity, gains, enjoyment, pleasure and spiritual initiatives.
