The Law of Karma in Hinduism and the Problem of Evil Introduction A Hindu “may be a theist, a pantheist, atheist, communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does.” – Frits Staal, Rules Without Meaning: Ritual, Mantras and the Human Sciences (1989) The Third Law of Motion of Isaac Newton in classical mechanics states that “for every action, there is always an equal and opposite reaction.” This has come to be universally accepted because its validity is empirically observable in the natural world. Hinduism has its own philosophical and theological theory that closely resembles Newton’s Third Law of Motion called “karma.” In this paper, the law of karma will be discussed and its relationship with the concepts of “atman”, “samsara”, and “moksha”. Furthermore, this doctrine will be discussed in relation to the problem of evil that has plagued Western philosophies and religion.