Dharma is a Hindu concept meaning duty, law, ethics, religion, righteousness, justice, obligation, and order. It varies based on an individual’s Varna-Asrama-Dharma, which is specific to their caste and stage of life. Classical Hinduism’s texts explain its importance and meaning.
Dharma is a concept originating in the religious theology or dogma of Hinduism. The term is a derivative of the Sanskrit root, Dhr, which means to support, support or sustain. Dhr can also be used to wear, remember or carry something.
As one might expect, a word like Dharma, which has substantial religious meaning, is full of meaning. Within the Hindu religion, especially classical Hinduism, there are three main texts which are the primary sources of reference for Hindu ideas of Dharma, each of which explains its meaning and importance through both explanation and interpretation. ‘example. These are the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, which contains the well-known section or subtext known as the Bhagavad Gita, and the Manu Dharmasmrti.
In general, Dharma is the holder of the cosmic order and can be loosely translated into English words such as duty, law, ethics, principles, religion, righteousness, justice, obligation, order, etc. For Hindus, this concept can perhaps be understood as a conceptual system of guidelines to be followed in life. The aforementioned texts, for example, serve to answer the question of how one’s position relates to family, society, the world and the cosmos. The answer is to follow the Dharma. It contextually relates the individual to the greater.
More specifically, the Dharma of classical Hindu daily life can be understood in terms of its own Varna-Asrama-Dharma. Varna are the levels into which traditional Hindu society was divided. Asramas are the stages of life through which most people in traditional Hindu society were believed to pass. Thus, one’s Varna-Asrama-Dharma indicates the specific set of Dharmic rules for individuals. There is no universal set of morals and Dharmic principles that are appropriate for every person. For example, in traditional Hindu society, the four Varnas are Brahmins or priests, Ksatriyas or warriors, Vaisyas or commoners, and Sudras or servants. Each group has its own Dharma. For the Brahmin, it is peace and safe keeping of knowledge and truth. For the Ksatriyas, it is honesty and law enforcement, perhaps to the point of waging war.
The Dharma will also be different for each Asrama, or stage of life, and will be linked to a specific goal of the Asrama and the repayment of specific debts of the Asrama. The four basic stages of life are Student, Head of Household, Retired or Forest Dweller, and Renunciate. For a student, the goal is actually the Dharma, living in celibacy by learning the knowledge of the Vedas and repaying debts to sages by learning what they learned. For a householder, the goals are Kama, or pleasurable love leading to reproduction, and Artha, or the accumulation of wealth. In this way, a householder repays debts to ancestors by having children and to the gods by spending money on honorary rituals. For a retiree or forest dweller, there is no real goal, all debts are considered paid off, and the family lineage has been secured because one’s child has had a child – ideally. For a renunciate, the goal is Moksa, or liberation from all attachments which keep him trapped in the cycle of rebirths.
Although these ideas of Dharma, along with the Hindu god pantheon, religious myths, and caste system, seemed to crystallize by the time of classical Hinduism, about 200 BC to AD 1100, this concept was formerly and continues to be of the utmost importance and open to exegesis. For example, within classical Hinduism it was a basis for the development of social ideology, for the structure of individual participation in society. Conversely, the gradual dissolution of the caste system in modern Hinduism likely leads to the eventual use of the term suadharma, which does not abide by such strict and society-specific guidelines as Varna-Asrama-Dharma.
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