Download Karma (1917) a story of Buddhist ethics PDF book by Paul Carus





Soon after the first appearance of Karma in the columns of The Open Court, several applications to translate the story were received, and the requests granted. Some of these translations have appeared, others may still be expected. A few translations were made without the author's knowledge. A German edition was published by the Open Court Publishing Co. Altogether one Japanese, one Urdu, three German, and two French renderings are present in the author's possession. It is possible that the story also exists in Icelandic,^ Tamil, Singhalese, and Siamese versions. A Hungarian edition is in preparation. A Russian translation was made by Count Lee Tolstoy, who recommends the story to his countrymen and sums up his opinion as follows :This tale has greatly pleased me both by \ts artlessness and its profundity. The truth, much slurred in these days, that evil lAn Icelandic translation has been made by the Rev. Matthias Jochum- son of Akureyri, Iceland, and must have appeared in the Icelandic periodical of which he is editor, but we do not know whether it has appeared in book- form.can be avoided and well achieved by personal effort only and that there exist no other means of attaining this end, has here been shown forth with striking clearness. The explanation is felicitous in that it proves that individual happiness is never genuine save when it is bound up with the happiness of all our fellows. From the very moment when the brigand on escaping from Hell thought only of his own happiness, his happiness ceased and he fell back again into his former doom.