The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c6.s3.8

c6.s3.8

Many factors contributed to the rise and elaboration of the karma doctrine, but it would seem to me that the pivotal point is the emphasis on the individual.⁴⁸ The life-death alternation which was realized through the agonistic cooperation with the others must now be worked out by the single individual in his successive lives. But this train of thought cannot stop here; individualization implies that the individual had to be all lest he be nothing. Given autonomy, the individual is able—as has already been noted in the previous section—to overcome the life-death alternation. Resuming the opposite poles in himself, he can attain immortality.