Article: Karma-prakr̥ti

Horace Hayman Wilson
Image by William Walker, after Sir John Watson-Gordon © National Portrait Gallery, London

In 1842 the Bodleian Library bought a pair of manuscripts from the Oxford Sanskrit Professor, Horace Hayman Wilson. The British Library – at that time the British Museum – acquired the other two manuscripts in 1861, from a London bookseller, Bernard Quaritch. He was reputed to hold the largest catalogue of Oriental books in the West.

Unfortunately, only a small part of the history of these objects can be traced with certainty. They are believed to have been in the collection of the French polymath Claude Martin in Nawabi, Lucknow, as he commissioned the copies. They must have left Lucknow just after Claude Martin’s death in 1800, with the bulk of his Persian manuscripts sold at auction in Calcutta. Many of these manuscripts found their way into the libraries of famous scholars, such as Colebrooke. Most of them are now deposited in various libraries in the United Kingdom.

Image of a siddha
Image by Hindi Granth Karyala © Public domain

Even though both the manuscripts in the British Library and the Bodleian Library are labelled Karma-kāṇḍa, the text belongs to a work more widely known as the Karma-prakṛti. These manuscripts follow the practice of various commentators, who designate the text as Karma-kāṇḍa. In the tradition there are thus two different names for a single work.

The Karma-prakṛti, a brief treatise on the nature of the bond between the soul and karma, is credited to Nemicandra, a thinker of the Digambara sect, who was active in the 11th century. The name for the Karma-prakṛti in these two manuscripts is the Karma-kāṇḍa, which is the same title as another, more famous, work attributed to Nemicandra. His Gommaṭasāra – Compendium [composed for] Gommaṭa – is divided into two parts, the second of which is the ‘Karma-kāṇḍa’ – ‘Chapter on Karma’.

There are strong similarities between these texts by Nemicandra, with identical verses used in both compositions. Some earlier scholars have tended to assume that Nemicandra wrote the Karma-prakṛti before the Gommaṭasāra but some modern scholars have disputed this convention. Dating texts from this era is difficult, with little firm evidence either way.

The practice of calling the Karma-prakṛti the Karma-kāṇḍa appears to be longstanding, with many historical sources using the latter name. It is likely, therefore, that the translator of these two manuscripts, along with other commentators and translators, knew this text as Karma-kāṇḍa. Despite this, however, contemporary scholars know the text as the Karma-prakṛti from its 1964 critical edition.

Triple invocation
Image by Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

The rich collector Claude Martin commissioned the Brahmin Dilārām to translate into Persian Hemrāj’s commentary on the Karma-prakṛti, which is attributed to Nemicandra. Hemrāj’s original commentary was in the vernacular language of Braj, the main language for prose in this period, with some sentences in Sanskrit.

The title Karma-prakṛti means ‘nature of karma’, and this topic is explained in verse. Karma is a fundamental principle in Jain belief and is extremely complex and detailed, with numerous categories, effects and causes.

Dilārām opens his work with invocations in three languages, each appealing to a different god or prophet. These serve as an early indication of how the translation draws on the concepts and terminology of three separate faiths.

Dilārām carefully follows the ordering of the original verses but his translation stops with verse 87. Some verses are skipped in both the British Library and the Bodleian Library manuscripts, accounting for the different numbering in the modern edition, which includes all the verses.

Four types of existence
Image by Diwakar Prakashan / Padma Prakashan © Diwakar Prakashan / Padma Prakashan

The text begins with a triple invocation, as follows:

• the first line is in Arabic to Allah, and is conventional at the start of an Indo-Persian text
• the second line in Sanskrit, to Gaṇeśa, reflects Dilārām’s Hinduism
• the third in Śaurasenī, to the 22nd Jina Neminātha or Lord Nemi, serves as the first verse of the Karma-prakṛti.

Arabic

rabbi yassir; bismi ’llahi ’l-raḥmāni ’l-raḥīm; wa-tammim bi-l-khayr
O my Lord, give me ease; in the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful; and bring about a good end.

Sanskrit

śrīganeśāya namaḥ
I salute Lord Ganeśa.

Śaurasenī

paṇamiya sirasā ṇemiṃ guṇa-rayaṇa-vihūsaṇam mahāvīraṃ
sammatta-rayaṇa-ṇilayaṃ payaḍi-samukkittaṇaṃ vocchaṃ[= Karma-kāṇḍa verse 1]
Having bowed my head to Nemi, adorned with the jewel-like qualities of soul, the great hero, shrine of the jewels of the right belief, I will proclaim the nature [of karman].

All translations by Jean Arzoumanov

Verses 2 to 5

The union between soul and body is described as eternal and unbreakable. Because of the soul’s activity, the ‘soul body’ vibrates and attracts karmic particles, called karman – ‘action’ – by the Jains. The number of karmic particles is defined through calculation and is added to those shed after they have been exhausted or because of the soul’s activity.

Verses 6 to 14

These verses explain that karma is twofold, being both material as well as spiritual. It is divided into eight classes and 148 subclasses, which fall in the two main categories of:

• destructive – ghātīya
• non-destructive – aghātīya.

Destructive karmans veil or stupefy the soul’s abilities. Karmans determine the soul’s:

• home within the cycle of reincarnation – saṃsāra
• existence
• condition in a type of being
• experience of pleasure and pain.

Verses 15 to 17

These verses define knowledge as threefold, consisting of:

• knowledge – jñāna
• vision or perception – darśana
• right belief – samyaktva here, although samyag-darśana is more common.

These are qualities of the soul along with energy – vīrya – which also relates to the physical body. Matter can be described according to sapta-bhaṅgi-naya – ‘formulation of sevenfold predication’ or ‘formula of seven assertions’.

Verses 18 to 21

In these verses the eight classes of karma are specified and ordered.

For example the destructive – ghātīya – karmas are ranked before the non-destructive – aghātīya – karmas. However, the fourth destructive karma – antarāya – is ranked last, after the non-destructive types of karma. This is because Nemicandra states that it is caused by the last three non-destructive karmas, which chiefly affect the physical body.

Verses 22 to 26

Verses 24 and 25 are missing in both manuscripts.

These verses explain how the union between body and karma is ‘compact and dense’ because there is an infinity of karmic particle on each spatial point of the soul.

The text describes how, when karma comes to fruition – udaya – it produces an effect – bhāva – on the soul. This effect is either:

• attraction – rāga
• aversion – dveṣa.

These feelings of attraction or aversion are directed towards objects, people and emotions and take varying degrees of intensity.

Through this action of karma, other particles stick to the soul. The exception is the first non-destructive karma – ayus – which is the same throughout a single reincarnation.

Nemicandra further adds that karmic bondage must be distinguished according to its nature, duration, intensity and space.

In turn, the soul responds and attracts other karmans.

Verses 27 to 36

These verses define further the classes and subclasses of karma.

The author gives a simile for the eight types of karma – mūla-prakṛtis. For example, he describes darśana-āvaraṇīya-karma as being like a veil.

Verses 37 to 42

These verses divide the concept of knowledge into:

• direct knowledge – ābhinibodhaka-jñāna
• interpretative knowledge – śruta-jñāna
• extra-sensory knowledge or clairvoyance – avadhi-jñāna
• knowledge of others’ minds or telepathy – manaḥ-paryaya-jñāna
• omniscience or absolute knowledge – kevala-jñāna.

Verses 43 to 46

Verse 45 is missing in both manuscripts.

These verses categorise vision or perception – darśana – into:

• perception through the eyes – cakṣuṣ-darśana
• awareness of objects to the minutest atom – avadhi-darśana
• absolute perception – kevala-darśana – found in a soul that has achieved omniscience.

Verses 47 to 51

These verses describe how the four ‘destructive’ – ghātīya – karmans hinder true perception.

Verses 52 to 54

These verses explain how ‘destructive’ karmans can also dull correct perception because they involve wrong belief. Such incorrect beliefs are countered with spiritual peace.

Verses 55 to 65

These verses recount how the ‘destructive’ karmans can stupefy behaviour. They provoke passions – kaṣāyas – that lead the soul to be reborn. The four grades of passions determine where the soul is next reborn or embodied, which is in one of the four main places in the Jain universe.

The karmans can also raise no-kaṣāyas – a subgroup of passions or emotions. Nemicandra counts nine no-kaṣāyas, including the three vedas in this category.This type of karma determines the sex of the person, whether feminine, masculine or neuter.

Verses 66 to 67

These two verses describe how karmans determine the soul’s rebirth as a:

• divine being – deva-gati
• demonic being – naraka-gati
• human being – manuṣya-gati
• animal or plant being – tiryag-gati.

Verses 68 to 69

These two verses detail how the nāma-karmans determine which of the five bodies will be attached to the soul in its next birth. The five bodies are the:

• physical body – audārika-śarīra
• protean body – vaikriyika-śarīra
• translocation body – āhāraka-śarīra
• fiery body – taijasa-śarīra
• karmic body – kārmaṇa-śarīra.

Verses 70 to 82

Some karmans influence the physical body in which the imperfect soul is embodied during a ‘birth’. These verses describe how the nāma-karmans determine the body, which in Jain belief is made of atoms of matter – pudgala.

Verses 83 to 86

Saṃhanana-karma – which influences the body’s joints – also determines where the soul will be reborn, whether within the paradises or the hells. There is a complex correlation between the nature of the joints and the number of heavens and hells in which the soul can be born.

Verse 87

The saṃhanana-karma also determines the spiritual stage – guṇa-sthāna – which the soul is able to attain in a given lifetime.

The translation stops here although the original text comprises 161 verses. The translator, Dilārām, ends his work when the text starts to become extremely technical.

The word ‘Sanskrit’
Image by OldakQuill © CC BY-SA 3.0

Hemrāj’s commentary is bilingual in the sense that it contains Sanskrit explanatory sentences followed immediately by a Hindi paraphrase. Yet although the commentary is written chiefly in Braj or Braj Bhāṣā, it contains many technical Sanskrit words from the Digambara doctrine.

Hemrāj may have been taken the explanations in Sanskrit from a previous commentary or may have composed them himself. They are sometimes similar to another anonymous Sanskrit commentary on the Karma-prakṛti.

The Sanskrit religious terms in the vernacular commentary are rarely explained, usually remaining unchanged. These Sanskrit-like words used in the vernacular are called tatsama – ‘identical’ in Sanskrit. These unexplained terms make it quite difficult for a student to use the commentary without proper guidance.

Most of the work is written in the local form of literary Hindi known as Braj or Braj Bhāṣā, which is still spoken in a vast area of northern India, including Agra. Before the emergence of modern Hindi in the 19th century, Braj was the main language of Hindu literature for several centuries across a larger area than nowadays. Although it is mainly thought of as a Hindu language, Jain scholars in the past often used it.

East India House
Image by Thomas Malton the Younger, 1748-1804 © public domain

Persian was the dominant language in northern Indian society until the beginning of the 19th century and was for a long time the sole administrative language in Awadh. It was also the main language used by Europeans and employees of the East India Companies when dealing with local officials, employing a private scribe called a munshi as an intermediary.

The community of language and culture between the Persian territories and the Indian kingdoms created a continuous Perso-Islamic identity, extending the traditional Ajam, the non Arabic-speaking regions of the Muslim world, further to the east.

The use of Persian was particularly strong in the Nawabi realm and was used long after the emergence of Urdu among learned Muslim communities. However, in 1837 Urdu replaced Persian in the Nawabi court and in administration in the North Western Provinces. Even so, the Urdu spoken in Lucknow remained very close to Persian when it started to replace it as a written language.

A 19th-century brahmin pandit
Image by W. H. Allen © public domain

The brahmin Dilārām mastered the Persian, Hindi and Sanskrit languages, which sets him apart from the usual method of translation in the previous centuries. In the 16th century the Mughal Emperor Akbar set up a translation bureau, where Hindu pandits and Muslim scribes worked together to produce Persian translations of Classical Sanskrit texts. This seems to have remained the most common way of producing translations in this period.

It is difficult to determine how and where Dilārām learnt Persian. His rather idiosyncratic style demonstrates that his command of Persian was not full, despite the claims at the end of his translation of the Karma-prakṛti.

Even if the many difficulties of the original text forced Dilārām to translate rather awkwardly, too many errors in the translation point to an incomplete education in Persian. The most striking feature is his use of plural forms. Dilārām uses Arabic internal plurals as singulars, adding the Persian suffix –hā when he wishes to form a plural.

Many other irregularities can be found on every page, making his translation difficult to read. He often uses various translations for a single technical term, further obscuring the overall meaning.

Source of religious knowledge
Image by Romana Klee © CC BY-SA 2.0

Dilārām’s brahmanic background permeates his translation and drives him away from the letter of the Karma-prakṛti. He constantly inserts comments at odds with Jain creed and which can be related to Advaita Vedānta (see D’Onofrio 2010 for the same diagnosis of the Sirr-i-Akbar, a 16th-century Persian translation of the Upaniṣads supervised by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh).

A mystical or moral precept is often attributed to some aspects of the Jain text that are, at face value, completely devoid of it. Nemicandra’s Karma-prakṛti and Hemrāj’s commentary are more concerned with the subtleties of Jain psychophysics and not with directly moral teaching. This clearly dissatisfies Dilārām.

Dilārām refers constantly to the authority of the Vedas and to the dānāyān-i bīd or ʽālimān-i bīd –’knowers of the Veda’ – which borrows the Sanskrit word vedavid. He makes another reinterpretation according to classical Hinduism. In the commentary on verse 36, dealing with śruta-jñāna – ‘interpretative knowledge’ which is often used to refer to the teachings of the Jinas, handed down in the scriptures – Dilārām describes this technical Jain term as follows:

Śabdaśrutajñāna is good because in it are fixed the reading and the knowledge of the Vedas, the Purāṇas, the Śāstras and other texts, the way they are made understood to the student and the way they are understood by the teacher, their repetition by the student, the knowledge of God as He really is and the accomplishment of religious duties

Translation by Jean Arzoumanov

In another example, Dilārām glosses the different bandhas – ‘karmic bondage’ – in the commentary, when he quotes a devotional Hindi dohā – ‘couplet’ – by Tulsī Dās.

Who is completely free of worldly bonds and applies himself to the contemplation of God is called pradeśabandha because he knows his own nature and because the fruit of his actions [karma] is entirely burnt [away], which is. On this matter the Brahmin Śrī Tulsī Dās composed in his book written in bhāṣā that [here barely legible transliteration of the Hindi verse] ‘Rāma[G]’s name is like the burning fire, sins are like a mountain; when embers from this fire fall on the mountain, every sin is burnt and turns into ash’, there is no trace left. Concerning these bandhas, there are several peculiarities…

Wilson 262, folio 53 verso

Translation by Jean Arzoumanov

Hindu influences also appear in Dilārām’s other translations and commentaries, such as the Pañcāstikāyasāra.

However, an interesting aspect of the translations in this manuscript is Dilārām’s mixing of Muslim and Hindu terms and concepts.

Distortion of Jain doctrine
Image by Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Although Dilārām’s translation tends to approach and explain Jain doctrine through an apparently Hindu lens, he often uses Islamic terms for concepts found in Vedic thought. This mixture of Muslim and Hindu concepts and names suggests close interplay between Hindu and Persian cultural worlds in this period.

For example, Dilārām often refers to the concept of God using a Hindu framework but in terms taken from Islamic theology. In the original commentary on verse 1, Hemrāj glosses the word prakṛti with the words qudrat-i ḥaqq – ‘strength of God’, which is a proper Muslim theological term – and the Sanskrit word māyā – ‘creative illusion’. The word ‘prakṛti’ here means ‘nature, character’ but also means ‘nature (of the world)’ as a principle, which is associated in the Advaita Vedānta with māyā as a creative power and an attribute of God. The counterpart of māyā is avidyā – ‘ignorance’. Dilārām introduces these concepts when he says:

Māyā means knowing each thing as being the contrary of what it is; thus, according to the principles of the Vedic word, Allah is everywhere but man knows the contrary

Commentary on verse 58, folio 18 recto

Translation by Jean Arzoumanov

Thus Dilārām refers constantly to God, whom he calls ḥaqq and sometimes allah. God is described as the ‘absolute creator’ (kār-sāz-e moṭlaq Wilson 262, folio 29 recto, ḫāleq) under whose authority the world revolves. However, these expressions come directly from Islamic notions. The only Hindu name found in the text is Nārāyaṇa, which is a proper name of Viṣṇu (Wilson 262: verse 33 on folio 45 verso and verse 38 on folio 34 verso). Even so, Dilārām’s text can be described as largely Hindu creed in partly Islamic garb.

Dilārām’s distortions of the original commentary can also be found in this extract, translated into English:

The meaning of ṛjumati [simple knowledge] is that amongst devatās men revere one or two devatās, that is deities, but they ignore that the sole refuge is ātman, the creator of all creatures; apart from the sacred and supreme will of his generous and true essence, nothing exists; this is why man must place himself under the protection of the real God so that, trusting with hope in his heart’s truth and apart from other creatures, he may spend his life in safety and happiness; the meaning of vipula-jñāna [extensive knowledge] is that through it, we think that Nārāyaṇa is the lord of all deities.

Wilson 262, verse 38, folios 34 recto and verso

Translation by Jean Arzoumanov

In the same way, Dilārām’s discussion of salvation is not only Hindu but also Islamic. In this devotional context, salvation – najāt – as opposed to wandering and suffering – ʽaḏāb – plays an important part. The passions are the main obstacle to spiritual progress. Dilārām takes up the metaphor of a watchman who denies access to the king’s chamber and amplifies its mystical aspect:

As watchmen at the King’s door or in other places deny access to petitioners without the King’s order, likewise, desire, greed, avidity, etc, keep away from God’s way.

Wilson 262, verse 27, folio 49 verso

Translation by Jean Arzoumanov

In other words only those who truly know God, and thence honestly know themselves, can obtain salvation and perfect knowledge.

Dilārām often explains Hindu tenets in his translations and commentaries in terms and concepts taken from Islam. He may have done this when translating Jain texts into Persian to improve his readers’ understanding by framing concepts in more familiar terms. However, Dilaram’s Hindu background comes through strongly in his work and may be because he could grasp and express particular notions only from his own viewpoint and knowledge.

Dilārām uses predominantly Sufi terms to express properly Hindu notions. Examples include:

• reyāḍat – ‘discipline’ which is used to translate yoga in other Persian texts
• maʽrifat-i ḥaqq – ‘revealed knowledge of God’
• mušāhida – ‘contemplation’
• muršid – ‘master’
• murīd – ‘disciple‘.

These and other words form a semantic network that allows Dilārām to explain the Karma-prakṛti according to his own beliefs and also make it understandable to a reader of Persian. As a consequence, his commentary reflects the importance of Sufi Islam as a means to express and understand the divine and its experience in Indo-Persian culture. It is difficult to evaluate how far Dilārām was involved in Islamic culture but he was evidently interested and absorbed some of its key notions.

This insight into Dilārām’s literary world makes clear how free he feels to draw on different traditions to further his argument and shape a seemingly continuous flow of religious precepts, even at the risk of stretching the original text beyond recognition.

Main street of Agra, around 1860
Image by unknown © public domain

The author of the Braj Bhāṣā commentary on the Karma-prakṛti is named in the manuscript as Hemarāja, more often known as Hemrāj Pande. From the Agravāl merchant caste, Hemrāj lived in Agra in the 17th century (Kaslival 1983) but few details of his life are known. Hemrāj was a disciple of Rūpcand, a thinker who had settled in Agra in 1635, where he gave a lecture on the Gommaṭasāra.

As a ‘pande’ – a vernacular form of the Sanskrit paṇḍita – or ‘pandit‘, Hemrāj Pande could have been a lay Jain administering the temple, appointed by a bhaṭṭāraka. Pandes were essentially ‘litterateursand intellectuals’ employed by temples to perform rituals and give public discourses (Cort 2002). They emphasised the necessity of both ritual and philosophy to achieve spiritual gains, whereas orthodox clerics stressed ritual practices.

In parallel to the traditional practice of religion, pandes formed the core of lay discussion circles. The well-known memoirist and writer Banārasīdās is the chief example of the Adhyātma movement, the most notable group, but as he does not mention Hemrāj it is impossible to establish whether Hemrāj was involved in this philosophical school. As John Cort underlines, ‘Jainism has long exhibited a tension between those who focus on religious knowledge (jñāna) of the fundamental principles of the tradition, and those who focus more on correct conduct and ritual observance (kriyā)’ (Cort 2002).

Hemrāj was a close friend of Kaurapāl or Kuṃvarapāl, who is mentioned by Banārasīdās in his autobiography, the Ardha-kathānaka. Kaurapāl asked Hemrāj to compose a commentary on Kundakuṇḍa’s Pravacana-sāra and Caurāsī Bol – Eighty-Four Disputes – a polemical work aimed at Śvetāmbaras. Surprisingly, Banārasīdās does not include Hemrāj among the prominent Digambara scholars in Agra (Jaini 2008). Hemrāj is first mentioned in 1644, by Hīrānanda, who describes him as ‘wise and cultivated’ in his Samavaraṇavidhāna (Kaslival 1983).

Kaslival (1983) references several works by Hemrāj, all written in the vernacular, that is Braj Bhāṣā. Hemrāj seems to have specialised in writing commentaries on texts by other scholars.

La Martinière College
Image by unknown © public domain

As Dilārām indicates at the end of the text, his Persian translation was commissioned by ‘General Claude Martin’, who was quite a famous character in 18th-century Lucknow. Martin has been the subject of several biographies, the latest being the work of Rosie Llewellyn-Jones (1992).

Born in Lyon in 1735, Martin worked as an apprentice for a silk-weaver before enrolling at the age of 16 in the Compagnie des Indes, the French counterpart of the East India Company. After serving for eight years in India in the ranks of the French army, he turned to the British side, which has sometimes been judged an opportunistic move. He started a successful career in the East India Company in spite of being French, which made him potentially suspicious in the company’s eyes. In 1776 Martin settled in Lucknow, the new capital of Awadh State and now the capital of modern Uttar Pradesh.

At the end of the 18th century Awadh, which the British spelled Oudh, was the most prosperous region in northern India. Formally a representative of the Mughal emperor, the Nawabi dynasty gradually broke free of central authority during the 18th century and reached a golden age before the rise of the British power in Awadh in the early 19th century.

After long petitioning the Governor-General in Calcutta, Claude Martin was made honorary major-general at Lucknow in 1795. He used this position at the Nawabi court to set up various businesses, such as silkworm breeding, and became one of the richest Europeans in India. As an amateur engineer and architect, he also designed several luxurious mansions, some of which are still standing in the city, and is also remembered as the first person to launch a hot-air balloon in Lucknow. In many ways he is the archetypal 18th-century polymath, heir of the Enlightenment.

Martin’s interests also encompassed India’s culture, religions and scripts. He regularly bought orientalist works and original manuscripts in Sanskrit and Persian. This was sometimes achieved through dubious means, as reported by the Comte de Modave, who was shown ‘several rarities by Martin, which had been appropriated in some temples of the Boutans. He even gave me several manuscripts which he had taken from inside the statues. I sent them to the Académie des Inscriptions’ (Deloche 1971: 106). Martin also joined the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1799. He died in 1800 and left an enormous fortune, which he bequeathed for the founding of three high schools called Martinière. One was to be established in his hometown, Lyon, one in Calcutta and one in Lucknow, and all are still operating.

The inventory of Martin’s collection made on his death states that some 500 Persian manuscripts were sent to Calcutta after he died. Unfortunately, their names are not given and no further information can be obtained. His collection was probably one of the biggest of any European in India in that time.