---
type: Concept
bundle: nyaya-vaisheshika
bundle_version: 0.9.0
id: karma
title: Karma
iast: Karma
devanagari: कर्म
description: 'Motion, the third Vaiśeṣika category: physical movement of the five kinds (utkṣepaṇa throwing-up, apakṣepaṇa throwing-down, ākuñcana contraction, prasāraṇa expansion, gamana locomotion) that inheres momentarily in a substance and causes conjunction and disjunction; NOT the moral law of action-and-consequence, NOT ritual action, NOT "energy" or "force".'
darshana:
- Vaiśeṣika
school_scope: 'CRITICAL cross-bundle collision, the sharpest in the corpus. Vaiśeṣika karma is bare physical motion, one of the seven categories of being. It is a completely different object from the pan-dharmic moral karma (the law of action and its fruit across lives) shipped in dharma-foundation v0.1. Vaiśeṣika does account for moral desert, but it files it under adṛṣṭa (an unseen quality, a guṇa of the self), NOT under the padārtha karma. The identical word names two unrelated things: a kind of motion, and a law of ethical causation.'
text_source: Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 1.1.7; Praśastapāda, Padārthadharmasaṃgraha
tags:
- karma
- motion
- action
- vaisheshika
- ontology
not:
- term: the moral law of action and consequence (karma of dharma-foundation v0.1)
  why: 'This is the most dangerous conflation for this term, and the reason the concept earns its own file. In dharma-foundation and pan-dharmic usage, karma is the impersonal law by which deeds leave saṃskāras that ripen as future experience across lifetimes. In Vaiśeṣika ontology, karma is none of that: it is one of five kinds of physical motion inhering momentarily in a substance. Vaiśeṣika places moral desert under adṛṣṭa, an unseen quality of the self, not under the padārtha karma at all. The two doctrines share only the word.'
  instead: 'Define Vaiśeṣika karma as motion: one of five species (utkṣepaṇa upward throwing, apakṣepaṇa downward throwing, ākuñcana contraction, prasāraṇa expansion, gamana locomotion) that inheres in a substance, lasts only an instant, and produces the conjunctions and disjunctions by which the world rearranges. For the ethical law across lives, use the dharma-foundation v0.1 sense of karma, and note that Vaiśeṣika handles that work through adṛṣṭa.'
- term: ritual action (karman in the Mīmāṃsā or karma-kāṇḍa sense)
  why: 'In Mīmāṃsā and the Veda''s action-portion, karman means prescribed sacrificial and ritual act, the doing of enjoined rites. Vaiśeṣika karma is morally and ritually neutral bare motion: a falling stone and a rising arm are karma in exactly the same categorial sense. The ritual sense imports injunction and merit that the ontological category does not carry.'
- term: energy, force, or momentum (the physics reading)
  why: 'The atomism tempts a modern gloss, but Vaiśeṣika karma is not a conserved quantity or a vector cause. It is a category of being: a real, instantaneous, quality-like occupant of a substance that causes contact and separation. There is no magnitude that is conserved, no force law; motion here is a kind of thing that inheres, not a measure of a thing''s state.'
related:
- /concepts/saptapadartha.md
- /concepts/dravya.md
- /concepts/guna.md
timestamp: '2026-07-03'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Karma -- कर्म

**Not:** the moral law of karma, ritual action, energy or force

## What It Actually Means

Karma, motion, is the third Vaiśeṣika category, and after substance and quality it completes the trio of what a thing is, what it is like, and what it does. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 1.1.7 fixes exactly five kinds: utkṣepaṇa (throwing upward), apakṣepaṇa (throwing downward), ākuñcana (contraction), prasāraṇa (expansion), and gamana (locomotion, the catch-all for all other movement). A karma inheres in a single corporeal substance, is itself momentary, and is the direct cause of the conjunctions (saṃyoga) and disjunctions (vibhāga) by which the world is continually rearranged. Like a guṇa it depends on its substance and cannot itself bear qualities or further motion; unlike a guṇa it is intrinsically transitive, a doing rather than a being-thus. The overwhelming hazard for this term is not internal but cross-bundle: 'karma' is also the great pan-dharmic word for the moral law of action and its fruit across lifetimes, treated fully in dharma-foundation v0.1. Vaiśeṣika does not deny that law, but it does not locate it here; ethical desert is carried by adṛṣṭa, an unseen quality of the self. An AI that reads Vaiśeṣika karma as the law of moral causation, or reads the moral law as a species of physical motion, will produce confident error in both directions.

## Audience Metaphor

A stagehand and a judge both speak of 'a motion,' and mean nothing alike: one means a thing physically moved across the stage, the other a formal deed with consequences to be weighed. Vaiśeṣika karma is the stagehand's motion, the literal rise of an arm, the fall of a stone, the reach of a hand, a bare movement that briefly inheres in the mover and then is gone. The moral karma of the wider tradition is the judge's kind: a deed entered into a ledger that settles across lifetimes. Vaiśeṣika keeps that ledger too, but under a different heading (adṛṣṭa), not under motion. Read the stage direction as a verdict and you misfile the whole scene.

## Citations

1. Vaiśeṣika Sūtra 1.1.7 (the five motions) -- see [references/vaisheshika-sutra.md](../references/vaisheshika-sutra.md)
2. Praśastapāda, Padārthadharmasaṃgraha (karma among the categories; adṛṣṭa as the seat of moral desert) -- see [references/padarthadharmasamgraha.md](../references/padarthadharmasamgraha.md)
3. Cross-bundle warning: the moral law of karma in dharma-foundation v0.1 -- a wholly different scheme (ethical causation across lives, borne by adṛṣṭa here); never merge
