Comments on: The Christian Rawls

By: Biology and Justice: First Cut « Liberal Biorealism

Biology and Justice: First Cut « Liberal Biorealism — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:15:07 +0000

[...] doctrines, and seriously considered preparing for the Episcopal priesthood. Indeed, I find this summary of Rawls’ undergraduate thesis (which I presume is accurate enough on the point): Fundamental to the thesis is a rejection of [...]

By: Amod Lele

Amod Lele — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:38:23 +0000

No, I haven’t encountered such references. It is something that’s made me wonder about the redirection of puṇya, whether pāpa cannot be similarly redirected, but I’ve never seen anything to that effect.

I would still describe the two as antonyms, but you are right that they are not exact mirror images of each other.

By: elisa freschi

elisa freschi — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:26:50 +0000

Thanks for your reply. I understand from your reply (and from my question) that puṇya and pāpa are not a close pair of antonyms. I remember texts speaking of puṇya being transferred, but I cannot recall instances of pāpa being transferred (to enemies in black magic, for instance). Do you?

By: Amod Lele

Amod Lele — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:35:58 +0000

I've never understood puṇya and pāpa to be the actions themselves, but rather their spiritual results, or at least the mechanism of those results. After all one can transfer puṇya from person to person (according to Śāntideva and most Mahāyāna texts) - it's not the actions being transferred, it's not that one changes it so that the recipient actually becomes the one who performed the karmically good action. Rather, puṇya and pāpa are the "fruitfulness" of actions, the means by which those actions produce results like good and bad rebirths. I have heard of modern Indians referring to actions themselves as pāp; maybe that usage derives from older āstika texts. But I don't think it's what we see in Buddhist or Jain works. (Even in modern Thailand, giving to monks is described as tham boon, making puṇya - it is not itself puṇya.)

By: elisa freschi

elisa freschi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:11:28 +0000

Thanks for pointing out Rawls’ thesis (I did not know about). I am sorry to ask just a lateral question, but do you really think that pāpa is “bad karma”? I have always been thinking that the concept of pāpa is not dependent on the theory of karman, so that pāpa has bad karman as result, but it is not conceived as a synonym of “bad karman”.
I agree with your point “demerit” is only a (possible) consequence of pāpa and not pāpa in itself. I guess that the equation is smoother in regard to puṇya, where the link to “merit” seems to be more direct –at least in the texts I am aware of. In fact, a bad thing one has not willingly caused is still a pāpa (I am thinking of the popular example of a cow who dies because it struggles –in vain– to get rid of the rope one has tied around its neck and is eventually choked). But it would be difficult to call this a “demerit”, as if it were not primarily independent of the subject.
As a translation of pāpa I would rather think at something like “evil”. But I would be happy if you could correct my view.