Prarabdha-Karma

“Begun karma” — the specific slice of one’s accumulated karma that has produced the present body and is playing itself out across this lifetime. Distinct from stored karma (sanchita-karma) not yet ripened, and from fresh karma (agami) being generated now.

Overview

Vedanta’s karma-ledger has three parts:

1. Sanchita — the total accumulated stock from infinite past lives.
2. Prarabdha — the portion already “begun”: it has generated this body and this circumstance, and must run its course.
3. Agami / kriyamana — new karma being generated by present action, which will be added to the sanchita stock.

The concept matters especially for jivanmukti. When enlightenment happens, sanchita and agami are rendered inoperative — sanchita burns up because there is no longer a karta for it to attach to; agami stops being generated because the realized person no longer acts from karta-hood. But prarabdha is already in motion: this body has a lifespan baked in, and that will play out. So the enlightened being continues in the body until prarabdha is exhausted. At that point the body dies; and unlike in the unenlightened case, the subtle and causal bodies also dissolve — no new body follows.

This explains the familiar Vedantic observation that enlightened people still suffer illness, physical limitations, and eventual death. It is not a failure of their realization. It is prarabdha. The realized person knows this — as in Shivananda‘s “Oh, you mean the body? That’s not good at all” — and is unshaken by it.

The analogy Vedanta uses: the potter’s wheel keeps spinning after the pot is off and the potter has stepped away. Existing momentum must exhaust itself; no new motion is imparted.

Related concepts

• karma — the general law
• jivanmukta — the living-liberated one, living out prarabdha
• sanchita-karma — the unripened store (red link for now)
• moksha — the release; at videha-mukti, all three karma-stocks end
• samsara — sustained by prarabdha’s repeated generation of new bodies

In the Gita

• 02-22 — body-changing is driven by prarabdha
• 02-26-27 — “death is certain for the born; birth is certain for the dead” — this is prarabdha’s logic under ignorance

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 10 [61:25]: Prarabdha defined — “well begun”; the slice of karma that has given the current body; determines lifespan and major life events.
• Ep. 10 [73:53]: At the end of prarabdha, the enlightened one’s subtle body also dissolves — samkhya’s bhoga-apavarga idea imported into Advaita.