कल्पान्तरे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

Benefits considered in separate page.

What is dharma?

One can think of dharma as a collection of role-appropriate codes of good behavior which benefits other beings (fellow members of the society, animals, the plants, the spirits …). The dharma has very powerful motivations and theory behind it (explained later in this page). They may be explicitly codified or they may be informal.

For the purpose of this article, dharma is NOT the following directly:

A collection of teachings.
- (As in the buddhist saying “dhammam sharaNam gachChAmi”)
The essential nature of an object (Though that sense is an inappropriate generalization).
Rituals only (being narrower than the intended meaning here).

Emergence of hindu thoughts on dharma:

The ancient Hindu obsession with the concept of dharma is huge. There is a mountain of dharmashAstra works.
- For a more thorough treatment, please see History of the Dharmashastras - P V Kane (links here).

[M12, M12E]

Classic mImAMsA statement -

चोदनालक्षणोऽर्थो धर्मः।
dharma is that which is ordained (in the shAstras)

yato’bhyudayaniḥśreyasasiddhis sa dharmaḥ

kaNAdaH

“धारणाद्धर्म इत्याहुः
धर्मो धारयते प्रजाः” - महाभारतम्

Types of dharma

Many are the roles in society, and accordingly the Hindu thought-stream has produced many such codes of behavior, which broadly fall into two categories:

pravRtti-dharma (dharma that benefits other beings)
nivRtti-dharma (dharma that withdraws from pravRtti-dharma-s, seeking ultimate liberation or mokSha).

pravRtti-dharma is traditionally of many kinds :

sAdhAraNa-dharma, which is common to all beings.
visheSha-dharma, which is context-specific.

visheSha-dharma

guNa-dharma - professional/ social role specific. Eg. the dharma of the father, the dharma of the mother, the dharma of a son, the dharma of a king (../irrespective of whether he is a kShatriya), the dharma of an engineer etc.. rAja-dharma or the government’s dharma is particularly important. See examples here.
varNa-dharma - Social community specific. Eg. brAhmaNa-dharma, kShatriya-dharma etc.. More here.
Ashrama-dharma - stage-of-life-dharma. brahmachAri-dharma, gRhastha-dharma, vAnaprastha-dharma, saMnyAsa-dharma
- Combined with varNa-dharma, this becomes varNAshrama-dharma.
naimittika-dharma - Circumstancial dhrama. Eg. prAyashchitta for sins.
- Apat-dharma - dharma in emergency and extraordinary situations.
  - ChAndogya upaniShad where a Brahmin begged for ucchisTha beans from a person of a lower varna which was justified as there was scarcity of grain/beans…but he rejected the ucchisTha water offered by the same person as unlawful since there was no scarcity of water.

nitya vs naimittika

There is also the nitya vs naimittika classification.

svadharma

sAmAnya + visheSha dharmas applicable the perspective of an individual is called sva-dharma (“स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेयः, परधर्मो भयावहः”). It is derived from shAstra-s, not upbringing. It’s “यथा-शक्ति"ness depends on factors such as environment, knowledge, vAsana-s etc.. though.

Form

Many smRti-s divided their recommendations into three parts. AchAra, vyavahAra and prAyashcitta. [UPSC05 IM]
Right behavior (AchAra)
- (saMskAra) - Rites of passage that “prepare” a certain entity (individual or the womb etc..) for some function.
Socially approved and genuine repentance of mistakes (prAyashchitta)
Dealings (vyavahAra) - Conventions governing interactions amongst multiple people. Eg: Disputes, property inheritence, trails etc..

yaJNa

Sacrifice in exchange of gain received, sharing. This is a fundamental concept in AchAra and vyavahAra.

Each of the debts (RNa-s) are fulfilled using a corresponding (a daily and seasonal) sacrifice. This includes:
- Sacrifice for deities (daiva-yaJNa) by oblations, humans (mAnuSha-yaJNa) by donating food and wealth, sages and teachers (ARSha-yaJNa) by preserving and propagating knowledge, environment (bhUta-yaJNa) by planting trees and feeding animals.
Important components of yajjna are faith in the nobility of the act ( shraddhA ), dAna (which is sAttvika if done without expectation of return favors from that source).

These can be split into two sub-forms:

iShTa - vaidika yAga-s relevant to only initiated dvija-s
pUrta
- Construction of public utilities (wells, agrahAra-s to house the Arya-conservativist brAhmaNa class, schools, temples, dharmashAlA-s …)
- Contributing food and grains
  - Offering food to guests and strangers - even to chaNDAla-s (part of the daily vaishvadeva rite for brAhmaNa-s)
  - An important form is offering food to brahmachArins and students. A varient was in wide practice in karNATaka (vAradanna) and Andhra (vArAlu) as the weekday’s meal system. (“Vedic voices” book)

Compromising lower ideals for higher ideals

To achieve a higher good (and never for mere personal gain), one may need to sacrifice lower ideals. For example:
- One may need to behave dishonorably towards a dishonorable enemy. So, means and ends are intertwined.
- See kauShitaki “knowing indra” text and other ideas under “subjugation to the “ultimate reality”” here.
- Personal loyalties and friendships should not supersede one’s notion of what’s right and proper. This is what sItAparityAga and verses such as “द्वेष्योऽपि संमतः शिष्टस्तस्यार्तस्य यथौषधम् । त्याज्यो दुष्टः प्रियोऽप्यासीदङ्गुलीवोरगक्षता” tell us.
- “For the sake of dharma, for the sake of the larger good, for the sake of lasting welfare, one has to adopt some unfair practices and use some immoral methods. But one who undertakes this must necessarily be selfless and intelligent. This is the path shown by Krishna in the Mahabharata.” says shrI gaNesha.
The need to overcome populism and vain show-off:
- One drawback we hindus had was misplaced generocity - a paucity of ruthlessness. The source is nothing but moral weakness and fragility. These people want approval and admiration of others. This is the disease that motivated moronic actions right from dharmarAja to (supposedly) PrithvirAja Chauhan to Nehru and Gandhi. Think what kind of disaster it would have been if kRShNa thought that way. Alas! this consciousness found in bhIma and kRShNa turned out to be so rare!
Supporting events
- That yudhiShThira gave duryodhana his choice of weapon and combatant when he emerged from the lake hiding spot, and kRShNa scolded him - “Again, even now you are gambling! A deceitful person should be destroyed with deceit without this kind of show.”

bhIma to yudhiShThira

“धर्मलेशप्रतिच्छन्नः
प्रभवं धर्मकामयोः।
अर्थमुत्सृज्य किं राजन्
दुःखेन परितप्यसे ॥
…
एवमेव मनुष्येन्द्र
धर्मं त्यक्त्वाऽल्पकं नरः।
बृहन्तं धर्ममाप्नोति
बुधानामेष निश्चयः॥”.

शठं प्रति शाठ्यम्।

दाक्षिण्यं स्वजने दया परिजने शाठ्यं सदा दुर्जने
प्रीतिस्साधुजने नयो नृपजने विद्वज्जनेष्वार्जवम् ।
शौर्यं शत्रुजने क्षमा गुरुजने कान्ताजनॆ धृष्टता
ये चैवं पुरुषाः कलासु कुशलाः तेष्वेव लोकस्थितिः ॥
- नीतिशतकम्

Modern context

Flaws in older thought
- In classical dharmashAstra work, a major flaw was an excessive focus on ritual, hair-splitting arguments, unnecessary subdivisions.
  - Perhaps that arose from the need to encode and ratify contemporary informal conventions.
Many of the specific recommendations of the dharmashAstra literature are no longer applicable in this modern age because our context is different in terms of:
- multi-culturalism,
- technology
- locus within societies that have deviated too far from the classical patterns.

Parallels elsewhere

maat of the Egyptians

“Just as dharma has the divine dimension of the laws laid down by the great gods Mitra and Varuṇa (captured in the śruti) at the base of the yasag was the old “divine law” of the Turks and Mongols known as the törü which is said to have been promulgated by the god Köke Möngke Tengri. On this rested the yasag of the great Khan which was like the smṛti brought to humans by Yama and our law-giver father Manu. Among the Mongols it seems to have inspired later reforms of law like the “Code of Altan Khan” promulgated by Altan Khan in the 1500s. … shaikh against the Mogol tyrant Akbar’s wishes we see him increasingly remodeling his law as per the yasag of Chingiz Khan and moving away from the sharia.” [MT]