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human existence and action can be understood better in terms of a karmic interpretation of philosophical anthropology within the temporal framework of the past, present, and future. The doctrine of karma, along with its essential corollary the cycle of birth-death-rebirth (samsara), operates by providing a general interpretive framework for understanding human action and its role in the realization this worldly and transcendent goals. Any given act is a cause of potentially multiple results because the law of karma determines all events. ‘‘Every colour of the peacock’s tail is determined by its own karma’’ as one Tibetan adage puts it.
How actions will bear fruits and what will they be? This idea essentially governs our lives in ambiguity and in anticipation. Since the results of previous karma are psychologically and cognitively indeterminate; they cannot be known until they have actually manifested themselves.
The imagery of the shadow gives a hint. A person walking along the road sees his or her accompanying shadow. A bird flying high also casts the shadow but which cannot be seen. As it descends however, the shadow begins to appear on the ground below looming ever larger. Karma is like the bird’s shadow – it is there, but not always apparent. Hence the need and role for hermeneutics – the art and science of interpretation.
Understanding Karma originates in the fact that no substantial hermeneutical inquiry centred on key cognitive categories associated with karma has appeared either in India or abroad till date. Scholarly books and articles dealing with the usage of karma (whether learned or popular) dwell on the ‘fatalistic’ component (daiva) of the doctrine of karma and ignore the more important rational and ethical component of self-effort (purushartha).
I therefore chose to concentrate on the Mahabharata, which provides a balanced perspective on the two components of karma. The idea of using the hermeneutics of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) to interpret the doctrine of karma occurred to me after reading his discussions of the following issues in his numerous works:
1) How can human initiative change the world?
2) What must be:
a) the nature of the world in order than one can introduce
change in it and
b) the nature of action that can be seen in terms of change
in the world?
Vijnanadipika of Padmapada (the famous disciple of Sankaracharya) provides the traditional metaphysical account of how to attain liberation by exhausting the three types of karma:
1) Sanciyamana Karma, which is like grain standing in the field
2) Sancita Karma, which is like grain stored in the house, and
3) Prarabdha Karma, which is like grain consumed as food. It is only exhausted by being ‘digested.’
While the Prarabdha type of karma can only be exhausted by submitting to it over a designated period of time, correct actions and knowledge can exhaust the Sanciyamana and Sancita types of karma leading to liberation.
In the Mahabharata, Vyasa applies this karmic frame of reference to the problems of daily living and relates them to a higher order of moral responsibility by linking the experiences of major characters (Yudhisthira, Draupadi, Dhritarashtra for instance) to the general principles of dharma. Through the deeds and thoughts of the major characters, Vyasa teaches that whatever the uncertainties of the present (attributable to daiva, prarabdha), there is a sense in which long-term destiny is subject to human initiative and control (purushartha). Through the admirable and resolute words of Karna Vyasa declares, “Birth in a particular clan is my destiny; but it is up to me to take the initiative [and change it].”
Since my current action will determine my future birth, I am in control of my own destiny theoretically. The law of karma recognizes the freedom of the doer as well as the full responsibility for deeds done. Insofar as this law has the necessity of its operation immanent in it, nothing can alter the course and the shape of events as determined by it. This ensures justice to the doer while providing a moral setting to the life lived in the otherwise mechanical working of nature.
Understanding Karma is divided into two parts.
Part one (Karmanta) is theoretically oriented and builds a hermeneutical framework for interpreting karma as human action and its meanings (this-worldly and transcendent) as they come across in the Mahabharata and the Gita using determinants of action that include:
1) agency and receptivity
2) tradition and ideology/utopia
3) creative imagination, narrative, and the experience of
temporality, and
4) the urge for freedom and constraints of nature
Part two (Karmavyapara) analyzes how the traditional doctrine of karma is embedded in the social, economic, cultural, and political contexts of Indians living in modern India and in the diaspora. It critically assesses the reinterpretation of the doctrine of karma by
1) select thinkers and activists in India: Swami Vivekananda, Lokamanya Tilak, and Mahatma Gandhi and
2) in diaspora: Flora Samuel in Israel, Sri Chinmoy in the United Sates, Bhagavan Gidwani and Dr Roopnarine Singh in Canada.
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
According to Maugham, emotions are the burden of humankind. Necessity impels us to act emotionally. We are nevertheless (to an extent) governed by reason. If and when our nature is guided by reason, we are set free. Freedom is the ability to make choices and to act on them. Philip Carey, an orphan with a clubfoot, is the protagonist of the novel who undergoes the trials and tribulations of life and emerges stronger. He falls in love with Mildred Rogers, his antagonist on one level. Selfish, shallow, and flirtatious, she keeps him in bondage and prevents him from establishing his identity in the world. While on surface Mildred Rogers is Philip's antagonist, at a deeper level, Philip is his own antagonist creating and causing his own problems, trials, and tribulations. Until he realizes this and accepts himself as he is and determines to better himself in life, Philip is self-pitying, lost, and downtrodden.
Remarkably, this is also the message of the Bhagvad Gita (6:5). “Self, indeed, is your best friend and your worst enemy. Do not, therefore, denigrate it; liberate yourself with your own self,” teaches Shri Krishna to Arjuna. Fortunately, Philip is able to collect his wits, and with the help and support from friends he manages to create a meaningful life of peace and harmony with Sally Athelny.
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
The title of the novel is taken from a poem of Walt Whitman (Suez Canal 1869) written after the Suez Canal was completed reducing the distance between India and England. Forster transforms the passage motif into the symbolic journey of the self. During the Second World War an exhibition of photographs of Indian temples was organized by Professor Stella Kramrisch, which Forster often visited and in his own words "In Bombed London, I reached the Hindu temple and there and in the interpretation thereof, I found peace and strength."
The structure of the novel resembles the architecture of a typical temple which has a dark, cave like interior (symbolizing nirguna brahman) and on the outside the mountain where the universe is displayed in all its richness and colour (symbolizing saguna brahman). The two are connected by a passage allowing us to travel freely in either direction at will. Paradoxically, passage also symbolizes the unity that already exists - if humans would but recognize it.
A Passage To India stands for the Hindu view of life, which is the final thematic and aesthetics focus of the novel. Forster describes it with consummate skill in the account of the festival of the birth of Shri Krishna (Gokul Ashtami): “Infinite love took upon itself the form of Sri Krishna, and saved the world. All sorrow was annihilated, not only for Indians, but for foreigners, birds, caves, railways, and the stars; all became joy, all laughter.”
Return of the Aryans by Bhagwan S. Gidwani
Gidwani’s novel provides an ‘alternative’ cultural history of India supplanted with relevant hard facts derived from history and geography. Like Salman Rushdie, he seeks to discover not only what really happened (hard history) but the ways and manners in which the average Indian feels things and events happened in India’s ancient past (narrative). Gidwani rejects the standard account that Aryans (a distinct race) invaded India in the distant past and overwhelmed the native inhabitants. He argues that Arya in the tradition of India is an ethical term connoting ‘a noble person.’
Gidwani’s novel details the passage of some Aryans out of India in the hoary past and their eventual return. In the process, he reveals the spiritual, social, and secular continuity of modern India with myth and history (itihasa) rooted in the ancient and unitive past. The burden of Gidwani’s novel is that Indians must overcome the present day artificial divide between the ‘Aryan North’ and the ‘Dravidian South’ by recognizing that what holds and sustains them together is Dharma and the values of truth, beauty, and freedom.
‘The unfulfilled future of the past forms perhaps the richest part of the tradition’ wrote Paul Ricoeur. It is on this very point that a battle is being fought today in India: What is unfulfilled future of India’s past? Who writes about it? What must be the criteria of a historiography that will be required for such a task? Liberating the unfulfilled future of India’s past and releasing the burden of expectation are the two national debts that the course of history has bequeathed to all Indians. Gidwani has done his part in discharging that debt. We must now rise to the challenge and do our part.
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