History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.303

v7.c95.303

The Upaniṣads laid down an inexorable law that fruits of all actions, good or evil, must be experienced and that a person's deeds and conduct determined the character of his succeeding existences. But from some passages in the Upaniṣads themselves it appears that they recognised some exceptions One exception was that when a pesron realized that he was one with *brahman* the actions both good and evil, if any, done by him after that Realization and before the physical death of the body produced no results. In Chān. Up. VI. 14. 3 Satyakāma²⁵⁶⁷ Jābāla tells his pupil Upakosala that 'Just as water does not cling to a lotus leaf, so no evil deed clings to one who knows (realizes) *brahman*'; Chan Up. V 24 3 'just as the (soft) cottonlike fibres of the *iṣīkā* reed when cast into fire are burnt out, so all evil deeds of him who knowing (the purport of) Vaiśvānara (brahma) offers Agnihotra are burnt'. The Br. Up. states 'Him who knows these two do not overwhelm, whether he says that he did evil for some reason or that he did a good deed for some reason; he overcomes both these; neither what he has done nor what he has omitted to do afflict (lit heat or burn) him'. The Muṇḍaka Up. provides 'when a person has seen (realized) the Highest (cause) and lowest (effect) his actions perish.' But this is only true as regards all acts before he attained Realization and all acts that his body may do after his attainment of Realization but he cannot rescind the *prārabdha karma* which brought about that existence wherein he reached Realization of *brahman*. The idea is that the actions which led to a person's present embodiment must all be consumed by the body persisting till the appointed period for its death, and then only he becomes free from the physical body. The Chān. Up. states²⁵⁶⁸ as to a man who has attained true knowledge of the Supreme Self from a teacher that 'for him there is only delay so long as he is not delivered (from the body), then he will become perfect'. All these Upanisad passages are relied upon in V. S. IV. 1. 13-15 and Śaṅkarācārya explains their purpose concisely but very clearly. The Gītā also says (IV. 37) that the fire of knowledge reduces to ashes all deeds. Here all means only *Sañcita* and *Sañciyamāna* and excludes *prārabdha-karma*. About the acts during the period between the attainment of *Vidyā* and the fall of the body Śaṅkarācārya gives the instance of an arrow shot from a bow, which stops only after the initial impetus is exhausted in the flight of the arrow. Some works say that when the meritorious deed or the sinful deed done in the present life is of the extremest kind it may yield results in this very life.²⁵⁶⁹