Chapter 8 · 26 sūtras
Bondage of Karma
Bandha Adhyāya
Chapter 8 explains what happens to karmic matter once it has flowed in. Five causes — wrong faith, non-abstinence, carelessness, passions and activity — bind matter to the soul. Every bond has four aspects: prakṛti (its type), sthiti (its duration), anubhāga (its intensity) and pradeśa (its quantity). The chapter then enumerates the eight fundamental karmas with their subdivisions, gives the maximum and minimum durations of each, explains that intensity depends on passions while quantity depends on activity, and closes by dividing all karma into puṇya and pāpa.
Learning objectives
- List the five causes of bondage in order and explain why mithyādarśana is first.
- Name the eight karmas and distinguish ghātī from aghātī.
- Explain the four aspects of bondage with the laddu analogy.
- State which aspect is governed by passion and which by activity.
- Recall the maximum duration of mohanīya and of āyu karma.
- Explain why destroying the four ghātī karmas produces omniscience.
Key concepts
- Five causes of bondage
- Mithyādarśana, avirati, pramāda, kaṣāya, yoga. They are eliminated in that order along the guṇasthāna ladder; the last to go is yoga itself, at the fourteenth stage.
- Eight karmas
- Four ghātī (destructive of the soul's nature): jñānāvaraṇīya, darśanāvaraṇīya, mohanīya, antarāya. Four aghātī (affecting embodiment only): vedanīya, āyu, nāma, gotra.
- Four aspects (bandha-catuṣṭaya)
- Prakṛti — what kind of effect; sthiti — for how long; anubhāga — how strongly; pradeśa — how much matter. The classic analogy is a sweet: its ingredient (type), shelf life (duration), sweetness (intensity) and size (quantity).
- Passion vs activity
- Kaṣāya determines sthiti and anubhāga; yoga determines prakṛti and pradeśa. This is why a passionless soul, though still active, binds karma that lasts only an instant.
- Mohanīya as chief
- With 28 subtypes and the longest maximum duration (70 koṭākoṭi sāgaropama), deluding karma is called the king of karmas — destroy it and the other three ghātī karmas fall within an antarmuhūrta.
Diagrams
Four destroy the soul's powers; four shape embodiment (8.4-8.5).
Every bond is fixed in four respects (8.3).
The ladder presupposed throughout chapters 8-10.
Reference plates
Large master charts for this chapter. Tap to open full screen and zoom.
Karma status at each guṇasthāna
Which of the eight karmas is present, in subsidence (upaśama) or destroyed (kṣaya) at each of the fourteen stages, with the upaśama and kṣapaka paths after stage 10.
Chapters 8, 9
Karma and the fourteen guṇasthānas — complete map
The eight karmas split into ghātiyā and aghātiyā, the state of the soul at each stage, the detail of darśana- and cāritra-mohanīya, and the journey from bondage to liberation.
Chapters 8, 9, 10
148 karma prakṛtis
The full sub-division of the eight main karmas — 93 ghātiyā and 55 aghātiyā prakṛtis — including the sixty-two divisions of mohanīya and the ninety-three of nāma karma (8.4-8.14).
Chapter 8
Karma bondage — how karma actually binds
Yoga to āsrava to kaṣāya to bandha, the five causes of inflow, the four intensities of passion, and the four dimensions of bondage: prakṛti, sthiti, anubhāga and pradeśa (6.1-6.5, 8.3-8.4).
Chapters 6, 8
The four ghātiyā karmas compared
Jñānāvaraṇīya, darśanāvaraṇīya, mohanīya and antarāya side by side — what each obstructs, its everyday analogy, where it is destroyed and what its destruction yields.
Chapters 8, 10
Master summary sheet — the whole system on one page
Six dravyas, seven tattvas, eight karmas, twenty-eight mohanīya prakṛtis, fourteen guṇasthānas, samyagdarśana and its eight aṅgas, four kaṣāyas × four intensities, nine no-kaṣāyas, the ratnatraya, five samitis, three guptis and the full journey from mithyātva to mokṣa.
Chapters 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Broad classification of karmas
A full tree: ghātiyā vs aghātiyā, karmas directly controllable by the soul vs not, darśana- and cāritra-mohanīya, the sixteen kaṣāya-mohanīya, the nine no-kaṣāyas, and what each intensity of passion does and where it drops away.
Chapters 8, 9
Sūtras
26 key sūtras of this chapter, with word-level notes and cross-links.
- 8.1
मिथ्यादर्शनाविरतिप्रमादकषाययोगा बन्धहेतवः
mithyādarśanāviratipramādakaṣāyayogā bandhahetavaḥ
Wrong faith, non-abstinence, carelessness, passions and activity are the causes of bondage.
Five causes in descending order of gravity. Each one presupposes those after it, so removing the first weakens all the rest — which is why the path begins with right faith and not with austerity.
- 8.2
सकषायत्वाज्जीवः कर्मणो योग्यान्पुद्गलानादत्ते स बन्धः
sakaṣāyatvājjīvaḥ karmaṇo yogyānpudgalānādatte sa bandhaḥ
Because it has passions, the soul takes in matter fit to become karma; that is bondage.
A complete definition of bondage in one sūtra: it is a physical event (matter is absorbed) with a psychological cause (passion) affecting a non-physical entity (the soul).
- 8.3
प्रकृतिस्थित्यनुभावप्रदेशास्तद्विधयः
prakṛtisthityanubhāvapradeśāstadvidhayaḥ
Its types are: nature, duration, intensity and quantity.
Every karmic bond is fixed in four respects at the moment of binding. All later karma theory — transfer, premature rise, intensification, reduction — operates on these four variables.
- 8.4
आद्यो ज्ञानदर्शनावरणवेदनीयमोहनीयायुर्नामगोत्रान्तरायाः
ādyo jñānadarśanāvaraṇavedanīyamohanīyāyurnāmagotrāntarāyāḥ
The first (nature) is of eight kinds: knowledge-obscuring, perception-obscuring, feeling-producing, deluding, lifespan-determining, body-making, status-determining and obstructive.
The eight-fold classification that organises the entire Jain karma literature. Each is traditionally illustrated: a veil over the eyes, a doorkeeper, honey on a sword's edge, wine, a fetter, a painter, a potter, a treasurer.
- 8.5
पञ्चनवद्व्यष्टाविंशतिचतुर्द्विचत्वारिंशद्द्विपञ्चभेदा यथाक्रमम्
pañcanavadvyaṣṭāviṃśaticaturdvicatvāriṃśaddvipañcabhedā yathākramam
They have five, nine, two, twenty-eight, four, forty-two, two and five subdivisions respectively.
Total 97 in the primary count, expanded to 148 when nāma-karma's subtypes are fully enumerated. Mohanīya's 28 make it the most complex.
- 8.6
मतिश्रुतावधिमनःपर्ययकेवलानाम्
matiśrutāvadhimanaḥparyayakevalānām
(Knowledge-obscuring karma is) of the sensory, scriptural, clairvoyant, mind-reading and omniscient kinds.
The five subtypes correspond exactly to the five knowledges of chapter 1 — each knowledge has its own specific veil.
- 8.7
चक्षुरचक्षुरवधिकेवलानां निद्रानिद्रानिद्राप्रचलाप्रचलाप्रचलास्त्यानगृद्धिवेदनीयानि च
cakṣuracakṣuravadhikevalānāṃ nidrānidrānidrāprācalāprācalāprācalāstyānagṛddhivedanīyāni ca
(Perception-obscuring karma covers) visual, non-visual, clairvoyant and omniscient perception, together with the five kinds of sleep karma.
Perception-obscuring karma veils the undifferentiated first grasp of an object before knowledge specifies it, and includes sleep and torpor as literal obscurations of waking awareness.
- 8.8
सद्वेद्यमसद्वेद्यम् च
sadvedyamasadvedyam ca
Feeling-producing karma is of two kinds: pleasant and unpleasant.
Vedanīya is likened to a sword coated with honey — pleasant feeling still cuts, since both varieties keep the soul tied to bodily experience.
- 8.9
दर्शनचारित्रमोहनीयकषायनोकषायवेदनीयाख्यास्त्रिद्विनवषोडशभेदाः
darśanacāritramohanīyakaṣāyanokaṣāyavedanīyākhyāstridvinavaṣoḍaśabhedāḥ
Deluding karma is faith-deluding and conduct-deluding, with three, two, sixteen and nine subdivisions.
Faith-deluding has 3 (mithyātva, samyag-mithyātva, samyaktva-prakṛti); conduct-deluding has 16 kaṣāyas (four passions × four intensities) and 9 no-kaṣāyas (laughter, liking, disliking, grief, fear, disgust and three sex-dispositions).
- 8.10
नरकतिर्यग्योनिमनुष्यदेवानि
narakatiryagyonimanuṣyadevāni
Lifespan karma is of four kinds: hellish, animal-and-plant, human, and celestial.
Āyu-karma is unique among the eight in that it is bound only once per lifetime, usually in its final third, and fixes the very duration of the next embodiment.
- 8.11
गतिजातिशरीराङ्गोपाङ्गनिर्माणबन्धनसंघातसंस्थानसंहनन...
gatijātiśarīrāṅgopāṅganirmāṇabandhanasaṃghātasaṃsthānasaṃhanana…
Body-making karma determines realm, class, body, limbs, formation, binding, structure, figure, skeletal joint, and much more.
The 'painter' karma. It decides everything about the embodiment a soul receives, down to voice quality, gait and whether one's presence is pleasant to others.
- 8.12
उच्चैर्नीचैश्च
uccairnīcaiśca
Status-determining karma is high or low.
Gotra determines the family and social setting into which one is born. The tradition is emphatic that it determines circumstance, not spiritual worth or capacity.
- 8.13
दानादीनां च
dānādīnāṃ ca
And likewise (five kinds) for obstructive karma, beginning with obstruction to giving.
Antarāya blocks giving, receiving, enjoying, re-enjoying, and exertion of energy — it does not create incapacity but obstructs the exercise of a capacity that is actually present.
- 8.14
आदितस्तिसृणामन्तरायस्य च त्रिंशत्सागरोपमकोटीकोट्यः परा स्थितिः
āditastisṛṇāmantarāyasya ca triṃśatsāgaropamakoṭīkoṭyaḥ parā sthitiḥ
The maximum duration of the first three and of obstructive karma is thirty koṭākoṭi sāgaropamas.
Duration figures give a sense of scale: even the shorter bonds outlast worlds. The point is urgency — a moment of intense passion can commit the soul for aeons.
- 8.15
सप्ततिर्मोहनीयस्य
saptatirmohanīyasya
Seventy koṭākoṭi sāgaropamas for deluding karma.
More than double any other. Delusion binds the longest because it is the root that keeps regenerating the other bonds.
- 8.16
विंशतिर्नामगोत्रयोः
viṃśatirnāmagotrayoḥ
Twenty koṭākoṭi sāgaropamas for body-making and status karma.
The aghātī karmas concerning embodiment bind for shorter periods than the ghātī karmas — they shape the vehicle, not the driver.
- 8.17
त्रयस्त्रिंशत्सागरोपमाण्यायुष्कस्य
trayastriṃśatsāgaropamāṇyāyuṣkasya
Thirty-three sāgaropamas for lifespan karma.
Measured in plain sāgaropamas, not koṭākoṭi — matching the maximum lifespan in the seventh hell and the Anuttara heavens.
- 8.18
अपरा द्वादशमुहूर्ता वेदनीयस्य
aparā dvādaśamuhūrtā vedanīyasya
The minimum duration of feeling-producing karma is twelve muhūrtas.
Minimum durations are stated for the aghātī group and show how briefly a bond can hold when passion is nearly absent, as in the case of near-liberated souls.
- 8.19
नामगोत्रयोरष्टौ
nāmagotrayoraṣṭau
The minimum duration of body-making and status karma is eight muhūrtas.
Continuing the enumeration of minimum durations, nāma and gotra can bind for as little as eight muhūrtas under the weakest possible activity and passion.
- 8.20
शेषाणामन्तर्मुहूर्ता
śeṣāṇāmantarmuhūrtā
For the rest, the minimum duration is an antarmuhūrta.
The remaining karmas — the four ghātī plus āyu — have a minimum duration of less than a muhūrta, reachable only by souls of exceptionally reduced passion.
- 8.21
विपाकोऽनुभवः
vipāko'nubhavaḥ
Fruition is the experience of intensity.
Anubhāga is not the karma but its felt force when it matures — the same type of karma may fruit mildly or devastatingly depending on the passion at binding.
- 8.22
कषायाविरतीन्द्रियक्रियाः पञ्चचतुःपञ्चदशसंख्याः पूर्वस्य भेदाः
kaṣāyāviratīndriyakriyāḥ pañcacatuḥpañcadaśasaṃkhyāḥ pūrvasya bhedāḥ
Passions, non-abstinence, senses and activities — five, four, five and twenty-five in number — are the causes of the earlier one, intensity.
This sūtra traces anubhāga-bandha to its finer causes, showing intensity as a graded function of how many passions, vows-not-kept, sense-indulgences and activities are operative.
- 8.23
नामप्रत्ययाः सर्वतो योगविशेषात्सूक्ष्मैकक्षेत्रावगाढस्थिताः सर्वात्मप्रदेशेष्वनन्तानन्तप्रदेशाः
nāmapratyayāḥ sarvato yogaviśeṣāt sūkṣmaikakṣetrāvagāḍhasthitāḥ sarvātmapradeśeṣvanantānantapradeśāḥ
According to the kind of activity, subtle karmic particles occupying the same space-points as the soul are absorbed at all its space-points, infinite-fold in number.
Pradeśa-bandha explained physically: karmic matter is already present everywhere; activity determines how much of it is assimilated, and it binds at every point of the soul at once.
- 8.24
योगः प्रदेशस्य
yogaḥ pradeśasya
Activity is the cause of quantity.
Restated plainly after the physical description in the previous sūtra: the sheer volume of karmic matter absorbed is governed by yoga, not by kaṣāya.
- 8.25
सद्वेद्यशुभायुर्नामगोत्राणि पुण्यम्
sadvedyaśubhāyurnāmagotrāṇi puṇyam
Pleasant-feeling karma, auspicious lifespan, body-making and status karma are merit.
Merit is not a separate substance but a label for the auspicious varieties of the aghātī karmas. The remainder — including all four ghātī karmas — is pāpa.
- 8.26
अध्यवसायनिमित्तश्च केवलिनाम्
adhyavasāyanimittaśca kevalinām
For omniscient beings, (pradeśa-bandha of sātā-vedanīya alone occurs, caused) by mental disposition, not passion.
Even the passionless kevalin still has vibrational activity and so binds a token, instantly-fruiting particle of pleasant-feeling karma — proof that yoga alone, without kaṣāya, cannot cause lasting bondage.