Karma isn't a revenge fantasy. It's residue.

'Karma is a b*tch.' 'Karma's coming for you.' In everyday English, karma has become a kind of delayed revenge: the universe will punish the people who wronged you, ideally in a way you get to watch.

Nearly every Indian tradition with a concept of karma would wince at that. Jainism would wince hardest, because its version is the most precise and the least interested in revenge.

In Jain philosophy karma is literally physical: incredibly subtle particles of matter (pudgala) floating throughout the universe. When you act, whether in body, speech or mind, you draw these particles toward your soul. Whether they stick, and how hard, depends on the passions behind the action: anger, pride, deceit, greed.

Stuck karma ripens later, sometimes much later, as the conditions of your life: your body, your circumstances, your tendencies, your suffering and joy. There's no judge and no one keeping score. It's more like residue building up on a lens, gradually dimming the soul's natural clarity.

Here's the twist. Jainism says good karma (punya) is also bondage. It gets you a pleasant life or rebirth, but it's still karma, still stuff stuck to the soul. The classic image is golden chains versus iron chains. Both are chains.

Liberation (moksha) means shedding all of it. That's done by stopping new karma from sticking (samvara, through vows and self-awareness) and burning off what's already there (nirjara, through austerity and inner discipline).

Jainism's answer is uncomfortable: their karma is their business. Yours is yours. And hoping they suffer is anger and ill-will, which is you binding fresh karma to your own soul in real time.

The revenge version of karma keeps you focused outward, on them. The Jain version turns the camera around. What's sticking to you right now, while you're thinking about them?