Dharma

(2) A deity, seen as the personification of
dharma as religious duty. In the
Mahabharata, the latter of the two great
Hindu epics, the five Pandava brothers,
who are the epic’s protagonists, all have
divine fathers, and the eldest brother
Yudhishthira is the son of Dharma.
Yudhishthira and his brothers belong
to a kingly (kshatriya) family, but
Yudhishthira himself shows great concern for truth, righteousness, and compassion. None of these are proverbial
kshatriya qualities, which tend to stress
courage and martial valor, and
Yudhishthira’s qualities are usually
explained by invoking the influence of
his divine father. A different sort of
Dharma cult arose in medieval Bengal,
from the commingling of Buddhist,
Muslim, and Hindu ideas. In this cult
Dharma was worshiped as the formless
single supreme Lord (probably reflecting
the influence of Islam), but the worship
of Dharma contained many similarities
with Bengali Hindu rituals. For further
information see Shashibhushan B.
Dasgupta, Obscure Religious Cults, 1962.