Question:easy
Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows.
India is renowned for its diversity. Dissimilitude abounds in every sphere, from the physical elements of its land and people to the intangible workings of its beliefs and practices. Indeed, given this variety, India itself appears to be not a single entity but an amalgamation, a "construct" arising from the conjoining of innumerable, discrete parts. Modern scholarship has, quite properly, tended to explore these elements in isolation. (In part, this trend represents the conscious reversal of the stance taken by an earlier generation of scholars whose work reified India into a monolithic entity, a critical element in the much maligned "Orientalist" enterprise.) Nonetheless, the representation of India as a singular "Whole" is not an entirely capricious enterprise, for India is an identifiable entity, united by, if not born out of, certain deep and pervasive structures. Thus, for example, the Hindu tradition has long maintained a body of mythology that weaves the disparate temples, gods, even geographic landscapes that exist throughout the subcontinent into a unified, albeit syncretic, whole.
In the realm of thought, there is no more pervasive, unifying structure than karma. It is the "doctrine" or "law" that ties actions to results and creates a determinant link between an individual's status in this life and his or her fate in future lives. Following what is considered to be its appearance in the Upanishads, the doctrine reaches into nearly every corner of Hindu thought. Indeed, its dominance is such in the Hindu world view that karma encompasses, at the same time, life-affirming and life-negating functions, for just as it defines the world in terms of the "positive" function of laying out a doctrine of rewards and punishments, it also defines the world through its "negative" picture of action as an all but inescapable trap, an unremitting cycle of death and rebirth.
Despite, or perhaps because of, karma's ubiquity, the doctrine is not easily defined. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty reports of a scholarly conference devoted to the study of karma where, although the participants admitted to a general sense of the doctrine's parameters, considerable time was spent in a "lively but ultimately vain attempt to define...karma and rebirth". The base meaning of the term "karma" (or, more precisely, in its Sanskrit stem form, karman, a neuter noun) is "action". As a doctrine, karma covers a number of quasi-independent concepts: rebirth (punarjanam), consequence (phala, literally "fruit," a word that suggests the "ripening" of actions into consequences), and the valuation or "ethic-ization" of acts, which marks them as either "good" (punya or sukarman) or "bad" (papam or duskarman).
In a general way, however, for at least the past two thousand years, the following passage (from the well known text, the Bhagavata Purana) has held true as a statement of the main elements of the karma doctrine: "The same person enjoys the fruit of the same sinful or meritorious act in the next world, in the same manner and to the same extent, according to the manner and extent to which that (sinful or meritorious) act has been done by him in this world." Even so, depending on the context in which the doctrine appears, ranging from its use across a wide range of literary sources to its use at the popular level, not all these elements may be present, though in a general way they may still be implied.
Question: The base meaning of karma is:
Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows.
India is renowned for its diversity. Dissimilitude abounds in every sphere, from the physical elements of its land and people to the intangible workings of its beliefs and practices. Indeed, given this variety, India itself appears to be not a single entity but an amalgamation, a "construct" arising from the conjoining of innumerable, discrete parts. Modern scholarship has, quite properly, tended to explore these elements in isolation. (In part, this trend represents the conscious reversal of the stance taken by an earlier generation of scholars whose work reified India into a monolithic entity, a critical element in the much maligned "Orientalist" enterprise.) Nonetheless, the representation of India as a singular "Whole" is not an entirely capricious enterprise, for India is an identifiable entity, united by, if not born out of, certain deep and pervasive structures. Thus, for example, the Hindu tradition has long maintained a body of mythology that weaves the disparate temples, gods, even geographic landscapes that exist throughout the subcontinent into a unified, albeit syncretic, whole.
In the realm of thought, there is no more pervasive, unifying structure than karma. It is the "doctrine" or "law" that ties actions to results and creates a determinant link between an individual's status in this life and his or her fate in future lives. Following what is considered to be its appearance in the Upanishads, the doctrine reaches into nearly every corner of Hindu thought. Indeed, its dominance is such in the Hindu world view that karma encompasses, at the same time, life-affirming and life-negating functions, for just as it defines the world in terms of the "positive" function of laying out a doctrine of rewards and punishments, it also defines the world through its "negative" picture of action as an all but inescapable trap, an unremitting cycle of death and rebirth.
Despite, or perhaps because of, karma's ubiquity, the doctrine is not easily defined. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty reports of a scholarly conference devoted to the study of karma where, although the participants admitted to a general sense of the doctrine's parameters, considerable time was spent in a "lively but ultimately vain attempt to define...karma and rebirth". The base meaning of the term "karma" (or, more precisely, in its Sanskrit stem form, karman, a neuter noun) is "action". As a doctrine, karma covers a number of quasi-independent concepts: rebirth (punarjanam), consequence (phala, literally "fruit," a word that suggests the "ripening" of actions into consequences), and the valuation or "ethic-ization" of acts, which marks them as either "good" (punya or sukarman) or "bad" (papam or duskarman).
In a general way, however, for at least the past two thousand years, the following passage (from the well known text, the Bhagavata Purana) has held true as a statement of the main elements of the karma doctrine: "The same person enjoys the fruit of the same sinful or meritorious act in the next world, in the same manner and to the same extent, according to the manner and extent to which that (sinful or meritorious) act has been done by him in this world." Even so, depending on the context in which the doctrine appears, ranging from its use across a wide range of literary sources to its use at the popular level, not all these elements may be present, though in a general way they may still be implied.
Question: The base meaning of karma is:
India is renowned for its diversity. Dissimilitude abounds in every sphere, from the physical elements of its land and people to the intangible workings of its beliefs and practices. Indeed, given this variety, India itself appears to be not a single entity but an amalgamation, a "construct" arising from the conjoining of innumerable, discrete parts. Modern scholarship has, quite properly, tended to explore these elements in isolation. (In part, this trend represents the conscious reversal of the stance taken by an earlier generation of scholars whose work reified India into a monolithic entity, a critical element in the much maligned "Orientalist" enterprise.) Nonetheless, the representation of India as a singular "Whole" is not an entirely capricious enterprise, for India is an identifiable entity, united by, if not born out of, certain deep and pervasive structures. Thus, for example, the Hindu tradition has long maintained a body of mythology that weaves the disparate temples, gods, even geographic landscapes that exist throughout the subcontinent into a unified, albeit syncretic, whole.
In the realm of thought, there is no more pervasive, unifying structure than karma. It is the "doctrine" or "law" that ties actions to results and creates a determinant link between an individual's status in this life and his or her fate in future lives. Following what is considered to be its appearance in the Upanishads, the doctrine reaches into nearly every corner of Hindu thought. Indeed, its dominance is such in the Hindu world view that karma encompasses, at the same time, life-affirming and life-negating functions, for just as it defines the world in terms of the "positive" function of laying out a doctrine of rewards and punishments, it also defines the world through its "negative" picture of action as an all but inescapable trap, an unremitting cycle of death and rebirth.
Despite, or perhaps because of, karma's ubiquity, the doctrine is not easily defined. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty reports of a scholarly conference devoted to the study of karma where, although the participants admitted to a general sense of the doctrine's parameters, considerable time was spent in a "lively but ultimately vain attempt to define...karma and rebirth". The base meaning of the term "karma" (or, more precisely, in its Sanskrit stem form, karman, a neuter noun) is "action". As a doctrine, karma covers a number of quasi-independent concepts: rebirth (punarjanam), consequence (phala, literally "fruit," a word that suggests the "ripening" of actions into consequences), and the valuation or "ethic-ization" of acts, which marks them as either "good" (punya or sukarman) or "bad" (papam or duskarman).
In a general way, however, for at least the past two thousand years, the following passage (from the well known text, the Bhagavata Purana) has held true as a statement of the main elements of the karma doctrine: "The same person enjoys the fruit of the same sinful or meritorious act in the next world, in the same manner and to the same extent, according to the manner and extent to which that (sinful or meritorious) act has been done by him in this world." Even so, depending on the context in which the doctrine appears, ranging from its use across a wide range of literary sources to its use at the popular level, not all these elements may be present, though in a general way they may still be implied.
Question: The base meaning of karma is:
Show Hint
Find the single sentence that defines the "base meaning" of the Sanskrit term karman.
Updated On: Jul 10, 2026
- Reward and punishment.
- Only those actions which yield a "phala".
- Any action.
- Ripening of actions into consequences.
Show Solution
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
This is a direct lookup question, so the most reliable check is to see whether each option restates the passage's exact definition sentence or instead borrows wording from a nearby but different concept.
- Reward and punishment: this describes the "positive" and "negative" functions of karma discussed in paragraph two, which is about consequences, not the base meaning of the word karma itself; ruled out.
- Only those actions which yield a "phala": "phala" is introduced afterward as consequence or fruit, a separate quasi-independent concept, not a condition attached to the base meaning; ruled out.
- Any action: the passage states plainly that the base meaning of karman is "action", with no qualifier limiting it to good, bad, or fruit-bearing acts; this matches exactly.
- Ripening of actions into consequences: this phrase is lifted almost word for word from the passage's definition of "phala", not from its definition of the base meaning of karma; ruled out.
Since three of the four options borrow language the passage uses for other, related ideas, and only one option repeats the base-meaning sentence itself, option (CC) stands as correct.
Let us summarize:
- The passage separates the base meaning of karma (action) from its later concepts like phala and reward or punishment.
- Watch for options that copy wording from a nearby but different definition in the passage.
So the base meaning of karma is any action, confirming option (CC).
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