Talk:Sharing and Transference of Karmaphala between Individuals/Groups:Transferring Another’s Bad Karma to Oneself

By Vishal Agarwal

Śāstras record several other scenarios where the karma of one person can transfer to another. All these cases are meant to motivate human beings to continue doing the correct thing all the time and avoid evil acts and persons who behave in an evil manner.

The doer can transfer the merit of his good karma to another person, and one can take on another’s bad karma onto oneself voluntarily. But no one can voluntarily snatch another’s good karma, nor can the doer of a bad karma forcibly transfer his demerit to another.

The Mitākṣarā commentary on Yājñavalkya Smṛti 1.9.211 states that one can transfer the merit of his good karma-s to his parents, children, the deva-s or to guru, but he cannot transfer the demerit of his evil deeds to anyone else. Citing Bṛhaspati, the text enumerates the following ways of contact in which one can take on another person’s evil deeds:

1. Sharing bed.
2. Sharing seat.
3. Eating in the same row (in close proximity) to the evildoer.
4. Sharing cooking pots with the evildoer.
5. Consuming the evildoer’s food.
6. Becoming the purohita (priest) of a sinner.
7. Teaching the Vedas to an evildoer or learning the Vedas from an evildoer.
8. Sexual relationship with an evildoer.
9. Eating food from the same utensil as the evildoer.

Not all of these actions (or other actions) are equally grievous for transferring evil karma. For example, casual joking and talking with an evil person is less intense than having the evildoer as one’s priest or Vedic teacher.

A ceremony named ‘Katto’ was practiced at the death of Hindu kings in ancient times. Most recently, it was practiced in 2001 after the murder of King Birendra of Nepal. A vegetarian brāhmaṇa was made to eat meat, offered some personal possessions of the King, paid a substantial sum of money and made to ride off as an exile from the Kathmandu valley on the back of an elephant. It was believed that the brāhmaṇa would thereby take the bad karma of the deceased King upon himself.