Rajas and Karman

Summary

Nagin J. Shah’s paper explores the relationship between the concepts of rajas and karman in Indian philosophical and religious traditions. Rajas is often translated as ‘passion’ or ‘activity,’ one of the three guṇas in Sāṃkhya philosophy, while karman refers to actions that produce karmic consequences. Shah begins by explaining that in Patāñjali’s Yoga‑sūtra the term kleśa‑mala‑karmāśaya denotes the impurities (kleśas) that hinder spiritual progress and produce karmic residues. The article argues that in some texts, rajas is used interchangeably with karman, especially when rajas is considered a material substance comprising karmic atoms that obscure the innate purity (sattva) of consciousness. Shah cites Buddhist sources where the term rajas occurs rarely and is associated with moral impurities like rāga (attachment), doṣa (hatred) and moha (delusion). He examines Pali and Sanskrit passages, including quotations from the Therīgāthā, Pali dictionaries and the Abhidharma‑samucaya, to show how rajas has been interpreted as both a psychological quality and a material substance. The paper differentiates between mala (defilement) and karman, arguing that mala primarily refers to mental afflictions, whereas karman denotes the physical and metaphysical particles that bind the soul. Shah then discusses the Jaina conception of karmans as coloured particles classified by colours (kṛṣṇa, śukla, etc.), stressing that the doctrine of karmic colours predates Jainism and may derive from pre‑Aryan traditions. By synthesising sources from Yoga, Buddhism and Jainism, the article proposes that the dual usage of rajas as a qualitative state and as karmic matter has led to conceptual overlap, and clarifying this distinction helps illuminate the metaphysics of karma across traditions.