Karma in Jainism conveys a totally different meaning as commonly understood in the Hindu philosophy and western civilization.[35] InJainism, karma is referred to as karmic dirt, as it consists of very subtle and microscopic particles i.e. pudgala that pervade the entire universe.[36] Karmas are attracted to the karmic field of a soul on account of vibrations created by activities of mind, speech, and body as well as on account of various mental dispositions. Hence the karmas are the subtle matter surrounding the consciousness of a soul. When these two components, i.e., consciousness and karma, interact, we experience the life we know at present.
Herman Kuhn quoting from Tattvarthasutra describes karmas as – a mechanism that makes us thoroughly experience the themes of our life until we gained optimal knowledge from them and until our emotional attachment to these themes falls off.[35]
According to Padmanabh Jaini "this emphasis on reaping the fruits only of one’s own karma was not restricted to the Jainas; both Hindus and Buddhist writers have produced doctrinal materials stressing the same point. Each of the latter traditions, however, developed practices in basic contradiction to such belief. In addition to shrardha (the ritual Hindu offerings by the son of deceased), we find among Hinduswidespread adherence to the notion of divine intervention in ones fate, while Buddhists eventually came to propound such theories like boon-granting bodhisattvas, transfer of merit and like. Only Jainas have been absolutely unwilling to allow such ideas to penetrate their community, despite the fact that there must have been tremendous amount of social pressure on them to do so."[37]
The key points where the theory of Karma in Jainism differs from the other religions such as theistic traditions of Hinduism, can be stated as follows:
- Karma in Jainism operates as a self-sustaining mechanism as natural universal law, without any need of an external entity to manage them. (absence of the exogenous "Divine Entity" in Jainism)
- Jainism advocates that a soul's karma changes even with the thoughts, and not just the actions. Thus, to even think evil of someone would endure a "karm-bandh" or an increment in bad karma. For this reason, Jainism gives a very strong emphasis to "samyak dhyan" (rationality in thoughts) and "samyak darshan" (rationality in perception) and not just "samyak charitra" (rationality in conduct).
- Under Jain theology, a soul is released of worldly affairs as soon as it is able to emanicipate from the "karm-bandh". A famous illustration is that of Mata Marudevi, the mother of Shri Rishabh Dev, the first Tirthankar of present time cycle, who reached such emanicipation by elevating sequentially her thought processes, while she was visiting her Tirthankar son. This illustration explains how "Nirvana" and "Moksha", in Jainism, are different from other religions. In the presence of a Tirthankar, another soul achieved Keval Gyan and subsequently Nirvana, without any need of intervention by the Tirthankar.
- The karmic theory in Jainism operates endogenously. Tirthankars are not attributed "godhood" under Jainism. Thus, even the tirthankars themselves have to go through the stages of emanicipation, for attaining that state. While Buddhism does give a similar and to some extent a matching account for Shri Gautama Buddha, Hinduism maintains a totally different theory where "divine grace" is needed for emanicipation.
- Jainism treats all souls equally, inasmuch as it advocates that all souls have the same potential of attaining "nirvana". Only those who make effort, really attain it, but nonetheless, each soul is capable on its own to do so by gradually reducing its karma.[38]
