ABSTRACT
In a Buddhist context, karma denotes the cause and effect relations which obtain between an act and certain other acts which have preceded and will succeed it, particularly if any of those acts can be classified as kuśala or akuśala. For Buddhism, karma is the prajñaptic term that came to signify all the determinants which manipulate and direct the course of sentient beings' existence. However karma was not always accorded such a preeminent role. Initially Buddhists saw karma as only one of many determining factors which influenced the course of one's existence. Eventually all the determining factors were reduced, in one way or another, to karma. Each action is involved in a rigorous, complex economy with its own past and future. The 'value' which accrues to an action within the temporal structure is a moral, ethical value. The mechanical theory of action, in which causes lead to effects, which in turn become causes of subsequent effects, and so on.
