I would like to know if the Karma of parents has any effect on their children?
Or are they independent and have to realize their own Karma (prārabdha/sañcita)?
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no, karma of parents does not effect children or anyone, everyone has to do their own karma to decide their destiny.– Vikas RanaCommented Jun 5, 2015 at 7:07
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Most of the karma that one has is his own, but in some cases it is possible to get some of the karma of the parents. There are some examples of this in the scriptures. See below one such example in the answer by Keshav Srinivasan.– brahma jijnasaCommented Jan 13, 2017 at 10:10
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4 Answers
Yes, the Karma of parents does affect their children.. Here is what Brihaspati's brother Uchathya tells Vishnu's incarnation Mandhata (whom I discuss here) in this chapter of the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata:
The tears shed by weeping men afflicted with falsehood slay the children and animals of those that have uttered those falsehoods. Like a cow a sinful act perpetrated does not produce immediate fruits. If the fruit is not seen in the perpetrator himself, it is seen in his son or in his son's son, or daughter's son.
But to that I would put one qualification: the family that you are born into is ultimately determined by your actions in past births, as I discuss here. So even if you are punished for your parents' sin, the punishment you experience may also be due to the actions you did in past births that made you be born into that family in the first place.
answered Jan 13, 2017 at 5:19
Namaste
Children are born a couple based on the combined net effect of their karma. It is said in jyotisha sastra that the happening (often bad if any) child's first four years are result of mother's own karma, the next four years that of father's, the next four years of that individual.
Children can give and take life of their parents i.e. children born on amavasya when Moon is merged in sun, indicates, loss of maternal love & affection, hence considered to be a bad omen by some. Similarly children in purnima when sun & moon are bright reflects parents affection in plenty.
Moon represents mother, Sun represents father. If either of them afflicted then that karaka suffers, say like a child born during eclipse, depending it lunar or solar eclipse, one would suffer for Rahu would be in close degrees with Moon/Sun. Rahu = shadow
Every individual brings his own fate & destiny. It is a beauty of nature's law that using jyotisha sastra, with one horrorscope, presuming the jyotish is a learned one, one can predict three generations before & after ... i.e. one can predict on father/mother, grandfather/grandmother, children & grand children, prosperity of brothers/sisters.
Devaki-Vasudev prayed and got children, seven got killed by Kamsa, eight child survived (Lord Krishna) who gave moksha to his parents. However, the first seven children brought grief & sorrow to their parents.
Every soul of an animate or inanimate, has its own individual karma, plus its family karma (Bhagirath who brought goddess mother ganga to mother earth), community karma & state, country karma
Person born in America enjoys better privileges than an African born = country karma. Similarly extend it for other segments too.
The short answer is "yes" and "no." A more descriptive "short" answer is that the karma of the parents in their past life affects the karma of the child, but the karma of the parents in the current life does not.
We are linked by karma to everyone else in the world, because the actions and abilities of others do, quite obviously and factually, affect us. When the jīva takes a body as the child of a certain set of parents, it is not randomly. Because the parents' karma determines their place in life, and that situation in life will affect the upbringing of the child and the child's current and future actions, behavior, attitude, conduct, and life situation, the child's karma is affected by the parents' karma in their past life--their "karmic debt" is affected by their place in life and their sufferings as a result of their parents' place in life. This is simply a logical deduction. If, of course, you have any objections to this, feel free to let me know, because I know this may be imperfect in several ways.
Wendy Doniger (controversial, I know) says in her book On Hinduism on page 104 (this book wasn't the one that was banned):
...the transmigrating soul is said to mix its own inherited karma with the karma of each of the new parents to form the cumulative karma of the new child.
To support this statement, she gives a reference to some other work or maybe even Hindu scripture in the endnotes--however, I am unable to access the reference because I could only obtain a preview from Google Books. I encourage anyone with the full version to leave a comment informing me of the reference.
However, what the parents do in the current life does not affect the karma of the child in the current life, except by indirect means (if the parents instill bad values in the child by setting a bad example, the child may commit wrongdoing later in life). But a theft, for example, by one of the parents will not affect the child. There is no reason to think it would. Philosophically, it creates some extremely obvious problems. As far as I know (and there's a really good chance I might be wrong here), the scriptures doesn't explicitly deny this idea, but see Bhagavadgītā 5.13:
sarvakarmāṇi manasā sannyasyāste sukhaṃ vaśī | navadvāre pure dehī naiva kurvanna kārayan
This may be translated very, very literally as:
Having [completely] forsaken all actions mentally, that which is embodied [i.e., the soul] happily remains one who has control (i.e., the controller) in the city of nine gates (i.e., the body), not doing, not causing [anyone] to do [anything].
Now if renunciation means that the soul becomes the controller, and no action will take place, then the parents' current actions cannot affect the child's current karma. Otherwise, religious renunciation could take place, but the soul would not become the controller and it could not be said to be in true "inaction" (as described in this verse) because it still would be accumulating karma. Thus, the parents' karma in the current life does not affect the child's karma unless the child chooses to follow in the steps of the parents and commit some crime.
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Doniger cites "Doniger O'Flaherty, 'Karma and Rebirth'." Now I assume that's a reference to her book "Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions". It's a collection of essays by different authors, but the only essay written by Doniger herself is "Karma and Rebirth in the Vedas and Puranas", so I assume that's where the information comes from. Here's the essay: gdurl.com/q3nJ Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 23:29
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2But concerning your idea about the karma of our parents' past births affecting us, I think that's backwards. Your past karma determines what set of parents you'll be born to; see my answer here, where I quote from the Garuda Purana: hinduism.stackexchange.com/a/2049/36 "The righteous man having enjoyed heaven, is born in a stainless family." So it's not like you'll accidentally be born into a family that's in a better or worse situation than what your own past karma would dictate. Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 23:37
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So you can't say "If my parents had committed more sins in their previous birth, my life would be worse off now." No, if your parents had committed more sins in their previous birth, you would have been born to a different set of parents. So your parents' deeds in a past birth have no causal influence on what happens to you. Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 23:40
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"Thus, the parents' karma in the current life does not affect the child's karma unless the child chooses to follow in the steps of the parents and commit some crime." I don't see how that follows at all. Assuming your argument is valid, all it says is that a person who practices renunciation does not incur any effects of karma generated by his parents. But what about those who don't follow renunciation, but still don't follow in the steps of their parents in committing crimes? How does your argument demonstrate that such people are unaffected when their parents commit an act of theft? Commented Jul 17, 2015 at 23:50
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Hmm...I wasn't thinking about how even your birth situation will be decided by karma. But also then how is it possible that it seems that some good children have bad parents and vice versa? Now with regard to the last comment, what I was trying to say was that if controlling your own actions with your own mind is enough to avoid accumulating karma, then even those who don't practice renunciation will only accumulate karma from themselves. Otherwise, those who do practice renunciation wouldn't be able to avoid accumulating karma from the parents. I don't know if that makes more sense now.– AdityaSCommented Jul 18, 2015 at 13:08
A child is affected by his parents Karma so does the parents by child's karmas. It is their Prarabdha which bring them together as a family and therefore, the results of their respective karma are affecting others. A Prarabdha is defined as the collection of Karmas whose fruits are supposed to be bore by a given soul in upcoming life. A Prarabdha is decided before the body is been assigned to a soul. Therefore, there is absolutely no chance for a soul to escape from these Prarabdhas. Close to 70% of our life is affected by this Prarabdha.
A science behind Karma is very complex and subtle to be understood by a common man. Therefore, the best option is to continue doing good karmas.
