Śivasaṃhitā 1.27

The verse introduces the mechanism of rebirth (punarjanma) as the direct consequence of karma’s exhaustion. The expression pāpabhogāvasāne («at the end of the experience of sinful karma») is revealing: even infernal suffering is a form of bhoga, of experience that «consumes» accumulated karma. When that balance is spent, the cycle does not end — it simply restarts.

Punarjanma («being born again») combines punar- (again, once more) with janma (birth, from the root jan-). The adverb khalu at the verse’s close adds a tone of emphatic certainty, almost of warning: «certainly», «without any doubt». There is no automatic escape at the conclusion of a karma cycle; the debt is settled, but the machinery continues.

This verse is crucial for understanding why the Śivasaṃhitā does not merely propose accumulating puṇya but aims at liberation (mokṣa). The exhaustion of negative karma does not free the being: it leads back to birth, where new actions generate new karma. Only the transcendence of the pāpa/puṇya duality, which the text will develop in subsequent chapters, breaks the cycle.