the Fourth Week after Easter
Click to donate today!
Bible Encyclopedias
Karma
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or sometimes written Karman, a Sanskrit noun (from the root kri, to do), meaning deed or action. In addition to this simple meaning it has also, both in the philosophical and the colloquial speech of India a technical meaning, denoting "a person's deeds as determining his future lot." This is not merely in the vague sense that on the whole good will be rewarded and evil punished, but that every single act must work out to the uttermost its inevitable consequences, and receive its retribution, however many ages the process may require. Every part of the material universe - man, woman, insect, tree, stone, or whatever it be - is the dwelling of an eternal spirit that is working out its destiny, and while receiving reward and punishment for the past is laying up reward and punishment for the future. This view of existence as an endless and concomitant sowing and reaping is accepted by learned and unlearned alike as accounting for those inequalities in human life which might otherwise lead men to doubt the justice of God. Every act of every person has not only a moral value producing merit or demerit, but also an inherent power which works out its fitting reward or punishment. To the Hindu this does not make heaven and hell unnecessary. These two exist in many forms more or less grotesque, and after death the soul passes to one of them and there receives its due; but that existence too is marked by desire and action, and is therefore productive of merit or demerit, and as the soul is thus still entangled in the meshes of karma it must again assume an earthly garb and continue the strife. Salvation is to the Hindu simply deliverance from the power of karma, and each of the philosophic systems has its own method of obtaining it. The last book of the Laws of Manu deals with karmaplialam, " the fruit of karma," and gives many curious details of the way in which sin is punished and merit rewarded. The origin of the doctrine cannot be traced with certainty, but there is little doubt that it is post-vedic, and that it was readily accepted by Buddha in the 6th century B.C. As he did not believe in the existence of soul he had to modify the doctrine (see Buddhism).
Karman, Jozsef (1769-1795), Hungarian author, was born at Losoncz on the 14th of March 1769, the son of a Calvinist pastor. He was educated at Losoncz and Pest, whence he migrated to Vienna. There he made the acquaintance of the beautiful and eccentric Countess Markovics, who was for a time his mistress, but she was not, as has often been supposed, the heroine of his famous novel Fanni Hagyomeinai (Fanny's testament). Subsequently he settled in Pest as a lawyer. His sensibility, social charm, liberal ideas (he was one of the earliest of the Magyar freemasons) and personal beauty, opened the doors of the best houses to him. He was generally known as the Pest Alcibiades, and was especially at home in the salons of the Protestant magnates. In 1792, together with Count Raday, he founded the first theatrical society at Buda. He maintained that Pest, not Pressburg, should be the literary centre of Hungary, and in 1794 founded the first Hungarian quarterly, Urania, but it met with little support and ceased to exist in 1795, after three volumes had appeared. Karman, who had long been suffering from an incurable disease, died in the same year. The most important contribution to Urania was his sentimental novel, Fanni Hagyomanai, much in the style of La nouvelle Héloise and Werther, the most exquisite product of Hungarian prose in the 18th century and one of the finest psychological romances in the literature. Karman also wrote two satires and fragments of an historical novel, while his literary programme is set forth in his dissertation Anemzet csinosoddsa. Karman's collected works were published in Abafi's Nemzeti Kiinyvtdr (Pest, 1878), &c., preceded by a life of Karman. See F. Barhth, Joseph Kdrmdn (Hung., Vas. Ujs, 1874); Zsolt Beothy, article on Karman in Kepes Irodalomtortenet (Budapest, 1894).
(R. N. B.)
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Karma'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/k/karma.html. 1910.
