/Karma/, or Sanskâra which is sometimes used as its synonym,--though the latter gives a slightly different shade of meaning,--comes from the Sanskrit root _kṛ_, “to do,” “to make,” “to perform,” “to effect,” “to produce,” etc. Both terms mean activity in its concrete as well as in its abstract sense, and form an antithesis to intelligence, contemplation, or ideation in general. When karma is used in its most abstract sense, it becomes an equivalent to “beginningless ignorance,” which is universally inherent in nature, and corresponds to the Will or blind activity of Schopenhauer; for ignorance as we have seen above is a negative manifestation of Suchness (_Bhûtatathâtâ_) and marks the beginning or unfolding of a phenomenal world, whose existence is characterised by incessant activities actuated by the principle of karma. When Goethe says in Faust, “In Anfang war die That,” he uses the term “That” in the sense of karma as it is here understood. When karma is used in its concrete sense, it is the {182} principle of activity in the world of particulars or nâmarûpas: it becomes in the physical world the principle of conservation of energy, in the biological realm that of evolution and heredity etc., and in the moral world that of immortality of deeds. Sanskara, when used as an equivalent of karma, corresponds to this concrete signification of it, as it is the case in the Twelve Chains of Dependence (_Nidânas_, or _Pratyâyasamutpâda_).[84] Here it follows ignorance (_avidyâ_) and precedes consciousness (_vijñâna_). Ignorance in this case means simply privation of enlightenment, and does not imply any sense of activity which is expressed in Sanskâra. It is only when it is coupled with the latter that it becomes the principle of activity, and creates as its first offspring consciousness or mentality. In fact, ignorance and blind activity are one, their logical difference being this: the former emphasises the epistemological phase and the latter the ethical; or, we might say, one is statical and the other dynamical. If we are to draw a comparison between the first four of the Twelve Nidânas and the several processes of evolution that takes place in the Tathâgata-garbha as described above, we can take Ignorance and the principle of blind activity, sanskâra, {183} in the Twelve Chains as corresponding to the All-conserving Soul (_âlayavijñâna_), and the Vijñâna, consciousness of the Twelve Chains, to the Manovijñâna, and the Nâmârûpa to this visible world, _viṣaya_, in which the principle of karma works in its concrete form. As we have a special chapter devoted to “Ignorance” as an equivalent of karma in its abstract sense, let us here treat of the Buddhist conception of karma in the realm of names and forms, i.e. of karma in its concrete sense. But we shall restrict ourselves to the activity of karmaic causation in the moral world, as we are not concerned with physics or biology. _The Working of Karma._