Prārabdha Karma
Prārabdha Karma · pra-ārabdha karma, “karma that has begun to bear fruit”
Grammar: neuter noun phrase: prārabdha, “begun” (from the root rabh, to begin, with pra and ā), and karma (action and its fruit): “the karma that has begun”. The bare word prārabdha, the past participle used as a neuter noun, “that which has been begun”, stands for the same karma, already set in motion.
Meaning: the karma done in former births whose fruit has already begun in this life; it runs its course until it is spent, and with the life-span it decides the time of death. The body and senses are under its sway; it brings pleasure and pain without effort. The one who knows the ātmā accepts what it brings and does not think himself the doer.
In the scriptures: Pushkara speaks of prārabdha karma in his teaching on the purification after a death, where he turns the mourners’ hearts to dharma.
Knowing that all in the world must die some day, one should practise dharma, which alone goes with the jīva wherever he goes. To Kāla (time) no one is dear and no one hateful. When the span of life and the prārabdha karma are complete, death comes suddenly and takes the jīva away. One whose time has not come does not die even if struck by hundreds of arrows; one whose time has come dies even if touched with the tip of a blade of kuśa, and medicines and mantras cannot save him. As a calf goes straight to its own mother, so karma done in a former birth follows its doer. The jīva himself cannot be killed and never dies; as one puts on a new garment, he leaves the former body and takes a new one. Therefore grief over death should be given up (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 159).
In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Nārada tells Vyāsa that by Kāla and prārabdha karma sense-happiness comes to the jīva wherever he is, just as sorrow comes (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 5), and that his own body of five elements fell when the karma that began it was finished (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 6). Prahlāda tells the daitya boys the same: sense-pleasure comes without effort in every birth under prārabdha karma, just as pain does (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 6).
Prārabdha karma keeps the body of the knower until it falls. Devahūti‘s body, full of tapas and yoga, with hair scattered and garment in disarray, was protected only by prārabdha karma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 33). Brahmā tells Priyavrata that the jīvanmukta keeps the body while prārabdha lasts, without “I and mine”, like one awake recalling a dream (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 1). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that prārabdha produced the body with its prāṇas and senses; while it lasts the body moves, but the one steadfast in the Ātmā, like a drunkard who does not care whether his cloth is on, takes no notice whether it sits, stands, goes or returns, and does not again take up “I” and “mine” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 13).
The body of the knower. As a drunk man does not notice his cloth, the jñānī pays little heed whether his body sits, stands, goes or comes by prārabdha. The body lives while prārabdha remains, but the established yogī does not take such a body again; it is mithyā like a thing in a dream (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 28). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that the undiscerning man identifies with the body under prārabdha, thinks himself the doer and is bound (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 11).
Nārada tells Dhruva that nothing outside causes sorrow; a man’s ajñāna does, and men get honour and dishonour by prārabdha karma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 8). Pṛthu enjoyed only the bhogas that came as the fruit of prārabdha karma, to be rid of it, and taught that Īśvara’s māyā-śakti, Kāla which stirs it, the jīva’s vāsanās and prārabdha karma together make the body arise; the assembly told him that they had wandered in saṃsāra by the prārabdha karma called daiva (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 21). Bharata saw that the prārabdha that had given him bhogas was coming to its end (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 7); it was prārabdha karma itself that came as the fawn and made him slip from yoga (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 8); and as Jaḍabharata he carried Rahūgaṇa‘s palanquin, wearing out his prārabdha karma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 10). In the forest of saṃsāra, the jīva in calamity hangs by the creeper of prārabdha karma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 14). Citraketu, accepting Pārvatī‘s śāpa, said that the devatās only point out what prārabdha brings (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 17), and Bṛhaspati says that whatever the cause of death, the jīva only experiences his prārabdha (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 6).
What comes by prārabdha. Kapila tells Devahūti that the seeker is content with what comes of itself by prārabdha, eats in measure, reflects and lives alone; among the limbs of yoga are doing one’s dharma as one can, avoiding adharma and contentment with what prārabdha brings (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapters 27–28). Dattātreya tells Prahlāda that he lives experiencing his prārabdha, having withdrawn from striving for happiness, and is happy; the body and senses are under prārabdha, so the karmas of a dependent man seeking happiness through them are in vain (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 13). Like the python, the sādhaka eats what comes, tasty or not, plenty or scant, accepting it as prārabdha (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 8). Śrutadeva of Mithilā received each day by prārabdha just what the body needed, never more (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 86). The bhikshu of Avanti suffered sorrows of every kind again and again and took them as his prārabdha, to be borne (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 23). Nārada tells Yudhishṭhira that sorrow from prārabdha is conquered by ātma-nishṭhā (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 15).
Meeting and parting. Hiraṇyakaśipu tells his mother that beings meet and part by the force of prārabdha, and that living together is like a brief meeting at a water-shed on the road (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 2). Kaṃsa tells Devakī and Vasudeva that sons experience their own prārabdha and that beings under daiva do not stay together (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 4). Nanda tells Vasudeva that the condition of man rests on prārabdha alone, and that one who knows it as the cause of his joy and sorrow is not deluded by them (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 5). Jarāsandha says that he feels neither sorrow nor joy, knowing that Kāla, set in motion by prārabdha, keeps the world in turmoil (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 54).
Delusion by prārabdha. Worn thin by the vrata, Diti one day ate and slept at the sandhyā without washing her mouth, hands and feet; prārabdha caused that delusion in her (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6, Chapter 18). The gopa boys came, by prārabdha, to the digestive fire of Aghāsura, and Śrī Kṛshṇa, the giver of abhaya to all beings, saw the helpless children who had no other protector (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 12). Their minds bewildered by prārabdha, the gopas and the cattle drank the poisoned water of the Yamunā and fell lifeless on the bank (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 15). At Prabhāsa the Yādavas, their discernment destroyed by prārabdha, drank sweet liquor that ruins the judgement (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 30). Kapila says that those who leave the amṛta of the gāthās of Śrī Hari for bad stories, like swine eating filth, are destroyed by their own prārabdha (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 32).
Related terms: Karma · Kāla · Āyus · Jīva · Dharma · Punarjanma · Daiva · Karmāśaya · Jīvanmukta
Sources
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 159
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 5–6; Skandha 3, Chapters 27–28, 32–33; Skandha 4, Chapters 8, 21; Skandha 5, Chapters 1, 7–8, 10, 14; Skandha 6, Chapters 17–18; Skandha 7, Chapters 2, 6, 13, 15; Skandha 10, Chapters 4–5, 12, 15, 54, 86; Skandha 11, Chapters 8, 11, 13, 23, 30; Skandha 12, Chapter 6