Benefits

Survival, thriving and competitive advantage

  • From the point of view of nature, in the context of competing cultural memes, the ultimate value of dharma memeplex is the fitness benefit it provides to the society.

  • In all likelihood, as the wise have noted (20151212), it was this memeplex (esp: notion of dharma, shAstra-s and a strong brahma-kShatra social system) that was instrumental in its votaries sweeping away and dominating all resistance across vast swathes of geography and time; while assimilating and adapting new entrants and peripheral practices of other pagans.

  • An example of the depth of artistic influence in South East asia : [Muj].

  • However, dangerous threats have emerged (see “modern context” below.)

  • That this was an important motivation for holding to dharma is apparent from highly regarded sayings such as : “धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः” “धर्मो धारयते प्रजाः”।

  • Following dharma-shAstra is said to benefit even dasyu-s. Eg. kAyavya of mahAbhArata (GP)

Contemporary evidence (द्रष्टुं नोद्यम्)

A study by Bryan Pesta and colleagues finds a strong positive association between average IQ and average SES across ethnic groups in the UK. Indians have high socio-economic success relative to their cognitive ability - reverse of Gypsy-s and white-carribeans.

Local/ family level

यथाह वेङ्कटनाथार्यः -

परित्यागे +++(सति)+++ सद्यस् स्व-पर-विविधानर्थ-जननाद् -
अ-लङ्घ्याम् आमोक्षाद् अनुसरति शास्त्रीय-सरणिम् ॥ ३८ ॥

Even direct perception tells us that families with less AchAra tend to break and wither away - within a generation or two; in contrast to those that don’t (lending credence to “आचार-प्रभवो धर्मः”).

However much one who has deviated from it, one can begin one’s return;
and one observes near-immediate benefits due to it (in the same spirit as “if you are on the wrong train, every stop is the wrong stop; the sooner you get off the better”)

Other motivations and essential spirit

  • Below, we consider the essence of the dharmashAstra, rather than the details, in our quest to gather the noble spirit of the shAstra.
  • Specific beliefs and motivations are nowhere as important as compliance - this naturally allows diversity of beliefs. For example, kRShNa encouraging arjuna in bhagavadgItA :

अव्यक्तोऽयम् अचिन्त्योऽयम्
अविकार्योऽयमुच्यते।
तस्माद् एवं विदित्वैनं
नानुशोचितुमर्हसि।।2.25
अथ चैनं नित्यजातं
नित्यं वा मन्यसे मृतम्।
तथापि त्वं महाबाहो
नैवं शोचितुमर्हसि।।2.26।।

  • All this admirable thinking about the dharma partly emerged out of an urge to emerge out of chaos, harmonize social roles and rituals of various groups of people; so as to achieve a happy and fit society. Aesthetic refinement in our social behavior (which includes AchAra and saMskAra) is one component of achieving it. [PV Kane here.]

To be happy, keep others happy.

It also addresses the very real fact that most people cannot be truly, lastingly happy if they do not do something for the happiness of others -because:

  • innate conscience
    • The golden rule and a desire to do good. [FB15]
    • प्रमाणम्
      • विद्वद्भिः सेवितः सद्भिर्नित्यं अद्वेषरागिभिः । हृदयेनाभ्यनुज्ञातो यो धर्मस्तं निबोधत॥ २.१ इति मनुः।
      • वेदोऽखिलो धर्ममूलं स्मृतिशीले च तद्विदाम् । आचारश्चैव साधूनाम् आत्मनस् तुष्टिरेव च ॥ इति मनुः।
    • The law of karma: This innate conscience was strengthened and formalized by the theory of karma (which involves supernatural beliefs about reward and punishment). Parts of the dharmashAstra, called karmavipAka, deal with associating misfortunes in this life with bad deeds in past lives.
    • RNa - gratitude or indebtedness and Rta.
      • We feel indebted to nature, the deva-s, our parents, teachers, society etc.. This feeling of indebtedness and the need to sustain the systems that nurtured us was formalized in terms of RNa-s. RNa-s can only fulfilled by dharma.
      • “जायमानो वै ब्राह्मणस्त्रिभिः ऋणवा जायते ब्रह्मचर्येण ऋषिभ्यो यज्ञेन देवेभ्यः प्रजया पितृभ्यः । एष वा अनृणो यः पुत्री यज्वा ब्रह्मचारी वा” इति तैत्तिरीयसंहितायाम्।
      • This acknowledgement of indebtedness is in turn based on the concept of Rta (divine order in the universe), through which interconnectedness of various beings is known and felt.
        • So, there is a very pleasant feeling of rising above the self (I, me, my …) to a higher (social, even cosmic) level of thinking.
    • Expositions: shatAvadhAnI gaNesha here.
  • Social costs and benefits
    • This includes the fact that people made unhappy by our happiness end up wrecking our happiness or at least being indifferent to it.
  • Supporting quotes:
    • सुखार्थाः सर्वभूतानां मताः सर्वाः प्रवृत्तयः । सुखं च न विना धर्मात् तस्माद्धर्मपरो भवेत् ।। - अष्टाङ्गहृदयम्, वाग्भटः।

Citizen building: Emphasis Duties, rather than rights

  • Citizen building »> material “achievements” like infrastructure building/ wealth accumulation. This was an ideal the dharmashAstra writers strove for, with their great emphasis on AchAra and prAyashcitta.
    • If our countrymen put dharma (and its motivators such as compassion and aesthics) above money and things, we would be much stronger and happier.
  • The hindu-s have classically focused on duties (motivated by dharma), far more than “rights” (for which the word adhikAra, meaning eligibility, is used by modern people.)
    • “Any “right” must have a preexisting positive or negative duty on part of the other party.” So, they exist - but the emphasis is on another party.
  • This emphasis on rights vs duties is very important, since it results in a difference between whether the emphasis is on:
    • oneself
    • or on the divine natural order of things (Rta), society, and one’s role in it.
  • An emphasis on dharma, rather than rights, results in far greater general happiness and social harmony. The latter yields more easily to confrontation and inimical fragmentation.
  • Analogy:
    • The system of framing a person’s role in society (duties vs rights) makes as much difference in its functioning as the representation of numbers does in calculation (hindu place-value number system vs roman/ egyption/ babylonian systems).
  • This is a fundamental difference of worldview between hindu and western civilizations.
    • Our ancestors wrote mountains of dharmashAstra-s, not the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights.
  • It was a grave travesty and disaster that the Indian constitution (../1950-) emphasized more on rights than duties. Example of how things should have gone instead is shown here.

Self-enforcement

  • Focus on or shifting the frame to self-enforcement. prAyashcitta (voluntary expiation) »> daNDa (punishment), resulting in less friction and strife.
  • As the sage Nassim Nicholas Taleb has said, a mere verbal apology should not count, since it does not really stop recidivism. There should be “skin in the game”. Given that such is the case, the prAyashcitta frame is extremely valuable.
  • dharma is partly self-enforced (via AchAra, some vyavahAra and prAyashchitta), partly community enforced (via insistence on prAyashchitta) and partly state-enforced (via daNDa).
  • Example from a household: “Whenever one of us violates something we agree is the dharma (getting angry, neglecting to do something important, avoiding alien tongues etc.. ) an appropriate prAyashcitta is demanded (eg. a japa of “मन्युरकार्षीत्”, cleaning the house ) — and volunturily performed. This has increased conformance to relatively high standards of the dharma (as negotiated and agreed upon) with **far** less friction, compared to earlier attempts at relying on daNDa.”[WP]

Contrast with externally enforced law.

  • Law codified by the state is but one small prescriptive aspect of dharma (called daNDa).
  • Law is inadequate, and self-enforcement is needed for a healthy society. Hence, the latter should be emphasized more.
Jap vs US
  • Consider the difference between the American reliance on laws and the Japanese reliance on customs as experienced by Shiba Ryotaro.

“Japan, France, Korea, Denmark were not created out of laws, but rather began as organizations of people, and modern laws simply reordered those organizations. America is the opposite. The law cast its net over a broad [empty] territory, and eventually immigrants arrived and pledged themselves to those laws, so that the country is nothing more than the sum of its laws. … America is a country with only a civilization. Can someone coming from a country full of culture (customs) even imagine that? People like me, who live surrounded by culture (customs), have no need to write it down as laws. … In the case of Japan, most people go through life without ever needing the services of a civil lawyer. But America is the country with the most lawyers in the world.”

  • A memeplex that places emphasis in the following order: scholarship in sacred lore (brAhmaNa-s) » governance and defence (kShatriya-s) » commerce (vaiShya-s) » service (shUdra-s).
    • This orients a society to hold sacredness and spirituality above mere material achievements.

Harmonization of social groups

  • The system of four varNa-s (../mostly determined by birth), with their varying duties, was used to harmonize society (more here). Keeping in mind relatively deeper principles of the dharma and changed circumstances, this part of the essential spirit may now be abandoned in favor of other systems.

Summaries

PV Kane in v1.

“In the foregoing pages most of the classical works and the most prominent writers on Dharmasastra during a period of about twenty five centuries have been passed in review. The number of authors, and works on dharmasastra is legion.

All these numberless authors and works were actuated by the most laudable motives of regulating the Aryan society in all matters, civil, religious and moral, and of securing for the members of that society happiness in this world and the next. They laid the greatest emphasis on the duties of every man as a member of the whole Aryan society, as a member of the particular class to which he belonged and very little emphasis on the privileges of men. They created great solidarity and cohesion among the several classes of the Aryan society in India in spite of their conflicting interests and inclinations and enabled Hindu society to hold its own against successive aggressions of foreign invaders. They preserved Hindu culture and literature in the midst of alien cultures and in spite of bigoted foreign domination.

There is no doubt that the authors on dharmasastra in their desire to evolve order out of chaos and to adjust and harmonise the varying practices of people with the dicta of ancient sages were guilty of the faults of raising hair-splitting arguments, divisions and sub-divisions and also of thinking that religious rites and formularies were the be-all and end-all of human existence. But living as most of the later writers did in the midst of aggressive and violently unsympathetic cultures and rulers and possessing no powerful central government that sympathised with their ideals, they were driven more and more to revolve within their own narrow grooves and could not see far in order to regulate society in a free and buoyant spirit.

In spite of these defects, the work done by the writers on dharma&stra should excite our admiration and entitles them to the regard of all those that are interested in the study of the vicissitudes of Hindu society for thousands of years. "