Karma in the Shiv Puran: Deeds, Fruits and Liberation

Where the Shiv Puran speaks about karma

The Shiv Puran has no single chapter titled "karma". The teaching is spread across several Samhitas, spoken by different voices: Shiva himself, the sage Sanatkumara, the bard Suta, the wind-god Vayu and the sage Upamanyu. This page follows each passage in turn and says who is speaking. Chapter and verse numbers follow the J.L. Shastri edition used across this site, and every statement about the text is tied to a citation above. Our own comments are set apart under their own heading near the end.

The Sanskrit word karma means "deed" or "action". In the passages below it is used for ordinary deeds and their results, and also for ritual works such as the karmayajna, the sacrifice-by-ritual that Upamanyu lists among the ways of worship. The context shows which sense is meant.

No deed is lost

The plainest statement comes in the Kotirudra Samhita, chapter 23. Parvati asks Shiva about the holy city of Kashi, and in his answer he states the law in general terms. A deed, once done, is not exhausted even after hundreds of crores of kalpas, and the fruit of a deed, good or bad, has to be experienced (v. 39). He then sorts the results. Deeds that are wholly inauspicious lead to hell, wholly auspicious ones lead to heaven, and a mixture of the two leads to human birth. The quality of that birth depends on which side outweighs the other (vv. 40-41).

The same verses name the end of the matter: the wearing away of both good and bad is liberation (v. 41).

Three kinds of karma

Shiva goes on to divide the karma that binds into three, a scheme he says comes from the ritual part of the Veda (vv. 42-44).

• Sanchita, the stored deeds, are those of earlier births.
• Prarabdha is the karma whose fruit is being lived through in this present birth.
• Kriyamana is whatever is being done now, in this birth, good or bad.

The verses then give each kind its own way out. Prarabdha is wiped out only by experiencing it, and there is no other route. The other two can be destroyed by worship and similar means (v. 45). The chapter ties this to Kashi, claiming that the full wiping out of actions happens only there (v. 46), and that someone who bathes in the Ganga at Kashi sees the current and stored karma destroyed (v. 48). It also repeats that Prarabdha is spent only by enjoying it (v. 49). Readers should keep in mind that this is a chapter praising a pilgrimage place. The general law is stated first, and the Kashi claims come after it.

Deeds of mind, speech and body

In the Uma Samhita, chapter 5, Vyasa asks Sanatkumara about the beings whose sins lead to great hells. Sanatkumara begins by sorting deeds by the channel they travel through: the mind, the voice and the body, with four kinds of each (vv. 3-5). Wrongful longing for another's wife or wealth and ill-will toward others are among those of the mind. Idle chatter, lies, harsh words and backbiting belong to speech. Forbidden food, violence and theft are of the body. So the text counts a hostile thought as a deed with consequences, not only an act that others can see.

A reader should know that the long lists which follow in chapters 5 and 6 mix kinds of wrong. Some are widely recognised moral wrongs, such as theft, cruelty and breaking promises. Others are offences against ritual, teacher, caste duty or devotion to Shiva, for example hating Shiva (ch. 5, v. 7). The text sets these side by side, and we report them as the text gives them.

What follows death

According to Sanatkumara in chapter 7, every living being goes to Yama's abode, and the fruit of deeds must be undergone (vv. 1-4). The text says the good approach it by a gentle route, and sinners by a dreadful one (vv. 5-6). In chapter 6 he says that wealth stays behind in the house, and relatives turn back at the cremation ground, but merit and sin go with the person (v. 37).

Heaven in this account is not the end. Yama tells the virtuous that after they have enjoyed heaven and their merit runs out, they return to receive the fruit of whatever small wrong they did (ch. 7, v. 47). Chapter 16 adds that sin and merit amount to hell and heaven, and that one gives pain and the other pleasure and rebirth (v. 36). Sanatkumara goes further and calls happiness and misery passing changes of the mind, and names knowledge as the highest (vv. 37-38). Even a good outcome is temporary.

Why the soul is bound

The Vidyeshvara Samhita, chapter 18, is where Suta explains bondage. The soul (jiva) is tied by the eight primary elements beginning with Prakriti (vv. 2-4). The body arises from them, the body acts, and the action produces another body, so birth and deed go on in a chain (v. 5). The causal body is there for the soul to experience the results of its deeds: happiness from virtue, misery from sin (vv. 6-7). Suta compares the bound soul to something turning on a wheel, tied by a rope of deeds (v. 8). The remedy he names is to worship the maker of the wheel, Shiva, who stands beyond Prakriti (v. 9).

In the Vayaviya Samhita (purva part), chapter 5, Vayu gives the same picture in other terms. He says karma is merit and sin, and its fruits are happiness and misery (vv. 25-28). The soul is covered by a stain that has no beginning, and enjoyment exists to wear down karma. The stain is removed by grace gained through piety, and then the soul becomes equal to Shiva (vv. 25-28).

What loosens the bond

Several of these passages name Shiva's grace as what finally loosens the bond. Suta teaches that Prakriti and the rest come under control through Shiva's grace, and that a deed done with Shiva in view brings about his favour (Vidyeshvara ch. 18, vv. 13-14). The bonds loosen by stages, and the devotee passes through the states the text names, such as living in Shiva's world, gaining his likeness and finally complete union (vv. 17-23). Elsewhere Shiva says he cannot be won by rites, austerity, mantra repetition, postures or knowledge apart from faith (Vayaviya, uttara, ch. 10, v. 15). Sanatkumara in the Uma Samhita says that of all expiations the remembrance of Shiva is the best, and that regret after a wrong is itself a form of expiation (ch. 16, vv. 29-30).

Acting without clinging to the fruit

The Vayaviya Samhita (uttara part), chapter 10, records Shiva telling the goddess that merit and demerit are both karma, and both stand in the way of liberation, so the yogi should give up both (v. 41). He adds that a person is not bound by performing rites merely; one who performs them out of desire for their fruits is bound, so the fruits should be given up (v. 42). In chapter 22 Upamanyu says the same of ritual action. It is of two kinds, with a specific desire and without, and the person with desire grows more attached to craving, while the one without desire is led, over later births, to union with Shiva (vv. 45-51).

Interpretation and what this page does not claim

What follows is commentary and not scripture. This page draws only on the passages cited above, not on the whole of the Shiv Puran, so it cannot say what other chapters add. Within these passages, our reading (an interpretation, not a statement of the text) is that the weight falls less on reward and punishment than on bondage and release. Deeds bear fruit, but the chapters keep returning to the question of how the soul gets free, and their answer is Shiva's grace, with faith and renunciation of fruits as the human side of it. Modern writers often summarise karma as "choices shape the future". The passages here do say that deeds bear fruit, but they place that inside a larger teaching about bondage, rebirth and liberation. Liberation, in our reading, is the closing of the account, not a larger pile of good deeds. Anything beyond that, such as how a person should read their own circumstances, is not in the verses we cite.