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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the doctrine of Karma as developed initially among Hindus, Jains and Buddhists in India from the first millennium BCE. Common to each is an idea, broadly, that you reap what you sow: how you act in this world has consequences either for your later life or your future lives, depending on your view of rebirth and transmigration. From this flow different ideas including those about free will, engagement with the world or disengagement, the nature of ethics and whether intention matters, and these ideas continue to develop today.

With

Monima Chadha\nProfessor of Indian Philosophy and Tutorial Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford

Jessica Frazier\nLecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

And

Karen O\u2019Brien-Kop\nLecturer in Asian Religions at Kings College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production

Reading list:

J. Bronkhorst, Karma (University of Hawaii Press, 2011)

J. H. Davis (ed.), A Mirror is for Reflection: Understanding Buddhist Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2017), especially \u2018Buddhism Without Reincarnation? Examining the Prospects of a \u201cNaturalized\u201d Buddhism\u2019 by J. Westerhoff

J. Ganeri (ed.), Ethics and Epics: Philosophy, Culture, and Religion (Oxford University Press, 2002), especially \u2018Karma and the Moral Order\u2019 by B. K. Matilal

Y. Krishan, The Doctrine of Karma: Its Origin and Development in Br\u0101hma\u1e47ical, Buddhist and Jaina Traditions (Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 1997)

N.K.G. Mendis (ed.), The Questions of King Milinda: An Abridgement of Milindapa\xf1ha (Buddhist Publication Society, 1993)

M. Siderits, How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2022)

M. Vargas and J. Dorris (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology (Oxford Univesrity Press, 2022), especially \u2018Karma, Moral Responsibility and Buddhist Ethics\u2019 by B. Finnigan

J. Zu, 'Collective Karma Cluster Concepts in Chinese Canonical Sources: A Note' (Journal of Global Buddhism, Vol.24: 2, 2023)