form, his learning, his family, his fame, his strength, his success in commerce, or his austerities, he is laying up the inauspicious Gotra karma which will surely cause him to be born in a low-caste and despised family in the next life ; if on the other hand he sternly curbs his conceit and that constant criticizing and censuring of others which is the surest proof of pride, and also in every possible way takes care of animals, then birth into a high caste will be his reward.
viii. Antarāya
karma.
All of us have been bewildered by the ineffectiveness of viii.
some people ; they seem to have everything in their favour ^ntaraya
and yet they muddle away every opportunity that life offers
them. The Jaina find the answer to this puzzle in their
belief in Antardya karma, the karma that always hinders.
If we are wealthy and so generous that we long to revel
in the keen joy of giving, and yet never do give, we know
that in a past life we accumulated the karma that prevents
giving [Ddndntardya karma). If we realize the profit that
is sure to follow a certain course of action, and yet we never
act on this realization, we must have accumulated Ldbhdn-
tardya karma. If in spite of our wealth we never really
enjoy our possessions or our luxuries, either continuously
or even for an instant, the cause is either Bhogdntardya
or U pahhogdntardya karma. The last hindering karma
{Vlrydntardya karma) prevents our using our will or our
bodily strength as we should hke to do. The convenience
of this belief is obvious. Life in India is for Indians, as
it is for Europeans, a constant and unending fight against
slackness, in which Europeans have the advantage of
periodic visits to a cool climate to brace their moral as
well as their physical fibre, and have also a tonic belief
in the dignity of work and the gospel of exercise. Jaina
have none of these advantages, but recline on the ener-
vating doctrine of Antaraya karma, which provides those
of them who are lazy with an excuse for every sort of
inertia.
