Karma in Jainism

This article is about Jainism. Karma may also refer to Buddhism and Hinduism. According to Jainism, Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म, kär'mə, kär'mən, Prakrit: कम्म, kä'mmə) means that every action, every word, every thought produces, besides its visible, an invisible, transcendental effect. The word karma is commonly understood to mean "action," but implies both action and reaction. However, Karma in Jainism conveys a totally different meaning as commonly understood in the Hindu philosophy and western civilization. It is not the so called inaccessible mystic force that controls the fate of living beings in some inexplicable way. It does not mean "deed", "work", nor invisible, mystical force (adrsta), but a complexes of very fine matter, imperceptible to the senses, which interacts with the soul and causes great changes in it. The karma, then, is something material (karmapaudgalam), which produces in the soul certain conditions, even as a medical pill which, when introduced into the body, produces therein manifold effects. Hermann Kuhn, quoting from Umasvati's Tattvartha Sutra, describes karma 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."
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