karma part two

 Origins

The earliest appearance of the word "karma" is found in the Rigveda. The term karma also appears significantly in the Veda.

 According to Brahmanas, "as his creations is born to the world he has made" and one is placed in a balance in the other world for an estimate of one's good and evil deed. It also declares that as a man is 'constituted' by his desires, he is born in the other world.

     
Translations of Karma
           
 The earliest evidence of the term’s expansion into an ethical domain is provided in the Upanishads.

 In the Brhadaranyaka, , Yajnavalkya expressed: “A man turns into something good by good action and into something bad by bad action.”
 The doctrine occurs here in the context of a discussion of the fate of the individual after death.

The doctrine of transmigration of the soul, concerning fateful retribution for acts committed,
appears in the Rig Veda (Mandala 1, Sukta 24, Mantra 2),[11] with words like " (You must also know that one God to be a giver of rebirth, none else can do this work. It is he who gives birth to emancipated
persons also through parents at the end of MahaKalpa.)"

 Rebirth is also mentioned in the Yajur Veda (Mandala 3, Mantras 53-54):

We call the spirit hither with a hero-celebrating strain, Yea, with the Fathers’ holy hymns (53)

The spirit comes to us again for wisdom, energy, and life, That we may long behold
the Sun 

The belief in rebirth is,  evident in the Brāhmaṇas, where words like

punar-mrtyu (re-death), punar-asu (coming to life again) and punarajati (rebirth) are used to denote it.

 Radhakrishnan acknowledges that other scholars interpret certain punarmrtyu verses of Rigveda to be discussing "repeated deaths";
 however, he suggests that it might also be re-interpreted to imply rebirth, as in "come home once again".