ABSTRACT
Just as the conception of an ātman in brahminical speculation can be traced from the notion of a small entity residing in the heart to that of the universal reality of all things, so the doctrine of karma, “ action,” develops until it becomes a universal principle of ethics. Any act as judged by its results may be good or bad. This is a far wider conception than the question of right and wrong. Early man’s welfare depended on his being able to discover from his experience what actions were advantageous and what injurious. He had to form theories. Two of these are the belief in magic and the belief in divine beings. How these beliefs began is not our present concern, for the earliest Indian societies were far from being primitive in the sense of being near the actual beginnings of human development.
