title: The Vedic Origins of Karma : Cosmos As Man in Ancient Indian Myth and Ritual
author: Tull, Herman Wayne.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 0791400948
print isbn13: 9780791400944
ebook isbn13: 9780585088464
language: English
subject Karma, Vedic literature--History and criticism.
publication date: 1989
At the most basic level, the Vedic tradition employed the term karman, from the Sanskrit root /kr ("to do"), to describe the "doing" of the sacrificial ritual. However, over the many centuries during which it represented India's "culturally hegemonous" system of belief and practice, the Vedic sacrifice developed into an entity of astounding complexity, and the ''doing'' of the sacrifice became more than a matter of simple action.
Karma, as a "doctrine," emerges from these complex structures; the textual point of this emergence is the early Upanisads. This textual epoch represents a "privileged" point in the history of the Indian tradition; for these texts represent at once the furthest edge of Vedic sacrificial thought and the first stage in the rise of classical Hindu thought.
And at this point certain notions, such as karma, attain the stature of "doctrines"; that is, they are articulated in ways quite similar to their later existence as the presuppositions for nearly all (post-Vedic) Hindu thought.
The aim of this book is to examine and delineate the Vedic structures leading to this emergence, for, I believe, the earliest statements of karma in the Upanisads look back to structures, patterns, and paradigms already containedin both ideology and practicein the Vedic rite. And, though not all these structures may have been "originally" Vedic, before the karma doctrine emerges in the Upanisads, its antecedents were already entrenched within the sphere of the established Vedic tradition. MsSVig
author: Tull, Herman Wayne.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 0791400948
print isbn13: 9780791400944
ebook isbn13: 9780585088464
language: English
subject Karma, Vedic literature--History and criticism.
publication date: 1989
At the most basic level, the Vedic tradition employed the term karman, from the Sanskrit root /kr ("to do"), to describe the "doing" of the sacrificial ritual. However, over the many centuries during which it represented India's "culturally hegemonous" system of belief and practice, the Vedic sacrifice developed into an entity of astounding complexity, and the ''doing'' of the sacrifice became more than a matter of simple action.
Karma, as a "doctrine," emerges from these complex structures; the textual point of this emergence is the early Upanisads. This textual epoch represents a "privileged" point in the history of the Indian tradition; for these texts represent at once the furthest edge of Vedic sacrificial thought and the first stage in the rise of classical Hindu thought.
And at this point certain notions, such as karma, attain the stature of "doctrines"; that is, they are articulated in ways quite similar to their later existence as the presuppositions for nearly all (post-Vedic) Hindu thought.
The aim of this book is to examine and delineate the Vedic structures leading to this emergence, for, I believe, the earliest statements of karma in the Upanisads look back to structures, patterns, and paradigms already containedin both ideology and practicein the Vedic rite. And, though not all these structures may have been "originally" Vedic, before the karma doctrine emerges in the Upanisads, its antecedents were already entrenched within the sphere of the established Vedic tradition. MsSVig