(in Saradindu Mukherji, ed.: Prabodhan 2, Delhi 2018)
Introduction
Does the central Sanskrit term dharma
have an exact equivalent in English or other languages? Rajiv Malhotra
recommends to use the word dharma in English untranslated. At first
sight, we must admit that no English word does justice to the range of meanings
of dharma. But the dharma translators should not go down without
a fight: we are at least going to give it a try.
The question presupposes another
one: what does dharma mean? Once we agree on an answer, we are free to
spot equivalents in other languages, if we can find them. Whether we will be
able to do so, we can only say at the end.
The Vedic concept ṛta
Before focusing on the Hindu concept
of dharma, it is common to study the Ṛg-Vedic concept of ṛta,
“the going”, “pattern of motion”, “sequence”, “cosmic order”, “natural law”. It
is represented by the night sky and thus the sequence and orderly motion of the
stars; as well as by the orderly sequence of the seasons (ṛtu). Its
natural visual glyph is the svastika, embodiment of the archetypal cycle
with distinct phases. Its antonym is anṛta, “disorder”.
The parts together form a whole, the
seasons form the year or the “seasons’ cycle” (ṛtucakra); but each of
them is different. A cycle of different phases connected with the seasonal
cycle and the nightly cycles, that is what we know as a zodiac. We are
not specifying here which division our zodiac uses, into how many phases per
revolution: 2 (northern & southern half, dark & light, elsewhere yin
& yang), 4, 6, 12 (later called rāśicakra), 24, 27 or 28
(Vedic nakṣatracakra), 360. Nor by which name or symbol, if any, these
parts of the whole are characterized; we merely mean any cycle within which
distinct phases are discernible.
In some contexts, ṛta is
treated as more or less synonymous with satya, with both translated as
“truth”. Its antonym anṛta is therefore also translated as “untruth”.
Classic example is the maxim from the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, now India’s
national motto: Satyam eva jayate na anṛta, “Truth truly prevails, not
untruth.” While “order” and “truth” may be related concepts, they are
nonetheless distinct. In what context are they brought so closely together that
they can be summed up in a single word, ṛta?
Imagine that an adolescent son is
announcing to his father that he plans to do one of the foolish things that
young lads happen to do. His father warns him that this will lead to sorry
consequences. The son, headstrong, proceeds anyway, and feels very brave and
independent. But all too soon, unfortunate things happen as a consequence, and
he comes to regret his initiative. He returns home to his father, who (perhaps,
like in the Gospel, forgives the Prodigal Son, but nonetheless first) says: “I
told you so!” Being a father myself, and having been a headstrong son myself, I
know from experience that fathers do say this. This does not come from some
shady oracular knowledge of the future but from life experience, i.e. from
having lived through (or having seen) sequences of events in reality where one
type of action typically leads to a corresponding type of reaction.
Some actions invariably lead to the
same consequences. When you see clouds gathering, you can predict that it is
going to rain. Then, once it does start raining, you can say: “I told you so.”
Prediction is based on the knowledge of sequences, at some point further
explained as “cause and effect”, which later becomes a central theme in Indian
philosophy. “Orderly sequence”, “sequence following an established law”, is
thus intimately connected with “true prediction”, and hence with “speaking
truth”.
There is also a more direct link
between “cosmic cycle” or “cosmos”, and “truth”. Anyone with a bit of
experience of reality knows that certain statements which cannot be shown to be
mistaken, nevertheless make no sense when put in context; or that a conduct
that is defensible in itself, becomes less advisable when seen against the
background of the whole. One has to consider the further ramifications before
taking a decision on a course of action, or to check with the larger framework
before making a truth claim. As GWF Hegel, the German philosopher best known in
India for his hostile commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā, said: Das
Wahre ist das Ganze, “the true is the whole”.
A similar Chinese concept
Among the Chinese, a narrowly
corresponding term for ṛta is 道 dao, “path”, “way”, and more precisely 天道 tiandao, “way of heaven”. Its visible embodiment was the daily (seeming)
course of the stars around the earth, the orderly movement of constellations, the
day cycle and year cycle.
This character does not, however,
have the meaning “truth”. No translatable of ṛta there. For this second meaning, we
need a different character: 真 zhen, “true”. Well, at least, that is its modern meaning. But the
word has a history that illustrates well how “sequence” may have shaded over
into “truth”.
The character 真 is used in the
oracular Book of Changes (易經 Yijing, -11th century), especially in the frequent expression 利真 li zhen. 利 li
means “auspicious”, and the expression is often translated as “fixity/constancy
is auspicious”. But that is the modern meaning, “modern” here meaning younger
than Confucius, who lived around -500. From then on, the old text is given
moralistic meanings, but the ancient meaning was another one, purely
divinatory: “auspicious oracle”. Indeed, 真
nowadays means “true”, and has also carried extended meanings like “reliable”,
“constant”, but few modern people would think of the meaning “prediction,
oracle”. Yet, that was the meaning in the Book of Changes, the most
influential text in Chinese civilization.
The semantic span from “prediction”
to “truth” in the Chinese word 真 zhen echoes the span from “heavenly cycle” to “truth” in the Sanskrit
word ṛta. The basis of prediction is in either case the knowledge of
patterns and sequences.
Varuṇa
The personification of ṛta among
the Vedic gods is Varuṇa, lord (Asura) of heavenly hosts, the
star-studded night sky, the oceanic expanse above us. His counterpart Mitra
represents the day sky, monopolized by the sun. In the Iranian tradition and
its derived Mithraic cult among the Romans, Mithra c.q. Mithras is simply the
sun.
In another dimension, his
counterpart is Indra. Foremost among the Gods are Indra
and Varuṇa: “One kills Vṛtra
etc. in battle, the other protects religious observances.” (RV 7:83:9) Whereas Indra is the God of strong vs. weak, of
vigour and power, Varuṇa is the God
of good vs. evil, of law-compliant vs. law-defiant, of norms and morality. In
the war between Iranians and Vedic Indians, the former will veer towards Varuṇa, the latter towards Indra,
but originally both gods were worshipped by both peoples.
Varuṇa is
the first one of the twelve Ādityas, “suns”, also named the “charioteers
of ṛta”. He is iconographically depicted as sitting on a makara,
a sea monster that in different contexts may be a dolphin or a crocodile. Makara
happens to signify Capricorn in the Hellenistic zodiac (rāśicakra),
meaning the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, when the sun’s
northward course (uttarāyaṇa) sets in, the Hindu equivalent of the Yuletide.
Prehistorical woodhenges and stone circles with astronomical alignments teach
us that it was the principal feast of the year worldwide.
He disciplines
sinners, but also confers mercy: “Have mercy, spare me, Varuṇa.” (RV
7:89:1) Or: “Free us from sins committed by our fathers… Not our own will
betrayed us, but seduction, thoughtlessness, oh Varuṇa, wine, dice, or
anger.” (7:86:5-6) He makes his devotee medhira,
“wise” (RV 7:87:4), meaning that he has and confers medhā, “wisdom”, the Sanskrit equivalent of Iranian mazdā.
Ṛta international
Varuṇa is even more present in the Iranian tradition, though known by his
form of address Ahura Mazdā (corresponding to Sanskrit Asura Medhā),
“Lord Wisdom”. There too, he is the personification of cosmic order and truth, aša
or arta, best known as a prefix in proper names, such as of the several
Achaemenid emperors called Artaxerxes.
(It is even thought that British
king Arthur, folk-etymologically derived from Welsh artus, “bear”,
actually refers to a Roman officer of Iranian provenance, because after the
withdrawal of the Roman army in the 5th century, the Roman veterans
settled in Britain were the only ones capable of organizing a defence against
the Saxon invaders; namely to one Artorius, who had been recruited at
the empire’s Hungarian border, where Iranian Sarmatians had settled.)
That Ahura Mazdā is the equivalent of Varuṇa
helps explain why the polarity good/evil becomes so central in Mazdeism.
Friedrich Nietzsche considered this god’s prophet Zarathustra as the pioneer of
moralism, of an exaggerated sense of good and evil, which is why his book on his
vision of a post-moralistic world order (in which the prophet is cured from his
moralistic “folly”), was called Also sprach Zarathustra, “thus
spake Zarathustra”.
It is
possible, though not obvious from the Vedic text, that Varuṇa’s identity with the Iranian enemies’ god Ahura Mazdā had something to do with his
decline and gradual disappearance from the later Ṛg-Vedic horizon. Book
X has no hymn for him anymore, and later Hinduism forgot him. He declines both
in power and in moral stature, so that the Yajur-Veda treats him
with wariness. Likewise, the Varuṇa-related
concept of ṛta, “righteousness”,
“world order”, “normative succession of phases in a cycle”, “truth”, dwindles
and vanishes. It is more or less replaced by Dharma.
Dharma
The term dharma , which for
now we will leave untranslated, comes from the root *dhṛ, “bear, support,
sustain, keep”. It is related to Latin firmus, “firm, closely-knit”, and
Old English darian, “lie motionless, lurk”; its reconstructed
Indo-European root connotes fixity, keeping motionless. Within Sanskrit, it is distantly
related to dhruva, “pole star”, “earth axis”, and more closely to the
suffix -dhara/-dhāra, “carrying” (as in vasun-dharā, “goods-bearer,
earth”); and dhṛti, “steadiness”. In the body, it may be likened to the
hard part, the skeleton with the backbone, which gives structure to the whole. Dharma
is symbolized by a bull standing firm.
Dharma may imply firmness, but in Hindu belief it is not always evenly
firm. In the Golden Age (Kṛta Yuga) the dharma-bull is standing
on all fours, in the Silver Age (Tretā Yuga) on three feet, in the
Bronze Age (Dvāpara Yuga) on two, and in the Iron Age (Kali Yuga)
on just one foot. This differentiation in time is the basis of a division
between eternal sanātana dharma, which is always valid, and yuga
dharma, the norms specific for a particular age. It is a typically Vaiṣṇava
belief that whenever dharma risks getting defeated, it is restored by
divine intervention, especially by Viṣṇu’s incarnations such as Rāma
and Kṛṣṇa. Though very widespread, however, such beliefs postdate the first
use of the term dharma and are not part of its definition, so here we
need not consider them further.
In the Ṛg-Veda, the term dharma already appears dozens of times, often
connected with ṛta. It takes centre-stage in the Mahābhārata, a
story illustrating the decline of dharma and the effort to uphold it
through a dharmayuddha (usually translated as a “war of righteousness”
or “just war”; definitely not “war of religion”), with the formal though
bitter victory being scored by the dharmarāja or “king of
righteousness”, Yudhiṣṭira, whose biological father is called Dharma.
But it also continues
the meaning “truth” from the older term ṛta. As the Bṛhadāraṇya Upaniṣad
(1:4:14) says: “Nothing is higher than dharma. Thenceforth even a weak man rules a stronger with the
help of dharma, as with the help of a king. Truly that dharma is the truth (satya);
therefore, when a man speaks the truth, they say, ‘He speaks the dharma’;
and if he speaks dharma, they say, ‘He speaks the truth.’ For both are the
same.”
The concrete details of the
application of Dharma are elaborated in the Dharmaśāstras,
usually rendered as “Law Codes”. The most famous is the Mānavadharmaśāstra,
attributed to the patriarch Manu. Some forty times, the Ṛg-Veda
mentions him: as an ancestor, as the Father of
Mankind, and implicitly as a law-giver. The extant text of his Mānavadharmaśāstra hardly predates the
Christian age, but the idea of a normative system established anciently by Manu,
though its details must have evolved, was already present in the Veda.
Dharma itself is the word used by Hindus for what we translate as
“Hinduism”. An expression attested only in the last centuries, and that modern
Hindus will use when asked for the self-designation of Hinduism, is Sanātana
Dharma, “eternal dharma”. Though probably recent, this usage is
based on the ancient assertion, both in the Mahābhārata and by the Buddha,
that “this Dharma is Sanātana”, eternal. Normally the term dharma
by itself is enough to designate Hinduism in the large sense, i.e. including
Jainism, Buddhism, Veerashaivism, Sikhism, the Ramakrishna Mission and other
sects whose belonging to the Hindu fold has been rendered controversial.
Dimensions of dharma
From the actual usage of the word by
Hindus, we gather that there are two dimensions to dharma. One is
vertical and concerns the relation with the divine, including the required
rites, observances, pilgrimages and celebrations (yes, it can be a duty to
celebrate). Here it approaches the English word religion in meaning. The
Constitutional term secularism, in the sense of “religious neutrality”,
is therefore often translated in Sanskritized Hindi as dharma-nirpekṣatā.
However, serious Hindus reject this
choice of translation because to their minds, dharma is an entirely
positive concept, so you don’t need to keep it at arms’ length the way Western secularism
was meant to keep the Churches away from state power. For them, Nehruvian secularists
only express their ignorance by treating dharma as a synonym for
“religious denomination”. Rather, it approaches “religiosity”, not the series
of denominations such as Shiism, Sunnism or the Christian Churches. They prefer
pantha-nirpekṣatā., “sect neutrality”, in the more precise sense of
impartiality vis-à-vis all religious denominations.
The second meaning is horizontal and
concerns the relation with your fellow creatures, human and other. Here, it
comes to mean “righteousness”, “ethics”, “deontology”, “law”, “justice”, “responsibility”,
“rules of conduct: duties and prohibitions”. As they say in Hindi: Yeh merā
dharm hai, “this is my duty”.
To sum up: dharma has two
dimensions. One is the correct relation of the part to the whole, of the
lower-order entity to the higher-order entity: religion. The other is the correct
relation of the part to the other parts: ethics, duty.
This combination promises to
militate heavily against the translatableness of the term dharma. It is not
equal to “righteousness”: at least its religious meanings fall outside of this
domain. Conversely, dharma is not equal to “religion”: the latter term
would exclude the purely ethical dimension, even when “religion” has its most
uncontroversial sense of “awe for the sacred”. Moreover, there is also a specific
contrast with the typically Christian overlay of the originally more general
term “religion”.
Religion
English has been taught to Indians
mostly through mission schools, and has even more outspoken Christian
connotations than it would already have acquired by a thousand years of
Christian dominance in England. The result is that Indians entirely conceive of
“religion” as a Christian term: a box-type system, to which you either belong
or not, and of which you have to unquestioningly accept the items of belief,
regardless of what science would say about them. It is a system to which you
can convert, viz. by “burning what you used to pray to, and praying to what you
used to burn” (as Clovis was told by his baptizer, 496). That is about as far away
from dharma, in any attested sense, as you can get.
But religion has a pre-Christian
meaning which would bring it already much closer to dharma. In Latin, religio
originally had a meaning still enunciated by Cicero. It came from a verb religere,
“to reread”, “to verify”, “to do something with utmost care” (just like in Hindi
dhyān se), “to pay full attention”; exactly the way the word regio,
“administrative zone”, “province”, is derived from the verb regere, “to
administer”. So, religio meant “scrupulousness”, “full attention”, and
in fact it sometimes still has that sense in modern English: to do something
“religiously” means doing it very carefully, with utmost attention.
But with Christianization, religion
became “belief system”, or “set of truth claims about the divine”. The Church
father Lactantius wrongly analysed religio as a derivative from religare,
“to bind anew”, “to reunite”. This perfectly fit Christian theology, which saw
man as severed from his original closeness to God in the Garden of Eden through
original sin, suffering from his separation from Him in this vale of tears, but
now brought back closer to God by Jesus. (In India, there is a parallel dispute
about the word yoga: pious types say it means “union” with the divine, sceptics
that it merely refers to “yoking” the thoughts and “disciplining” the mind into
focusing and becoming still.) At any rate, it is only after this Christian
reading of religion has been pin-pricked that an approximation with dharma
can even be considered.
Law
In Chinese, the Buddhist term dharma
in the sense of “the Buddhist system” (a combination of liberation-orientedness
and a daily morality of compassion and virtue) is translated as fa 法, “law”. It carries through the Indian meaning of “the Buddhist
way”, but has not been chosen at random. It was selected for its already
ancient meaning of “law”, “method”. And indeed, when you look at Buddhism from
the outside, what you get to see is not so much the Buddhist doctrine but mostly
the observance of the Buddhists injunctions. A very large part of the Buddhist
canon is made up of prescribing a set of rules, a way of life deemed conducive
to meditation and ultimately to liberation.
The translation of Dharma Śāstra
as “law book” is only approximative. It has excursions into cosmology and the
religious sphere, and when dealing with human conduct, it is partly descriptive
before being prescriptive. In turn, its prescriptions are partly a matter of
general moral norms and only partly specific enforceable laws. These are
moreover limited in reach, because the final word of pañcāyat (village
or caste council) decisions is also admitted, as well as the right of competent
specialists in council to introduce changes in the letter of the prescribed law
all while maintaining its spirit. But the translation does have a basis in
reality.
The Mānava Dharma Śāstra
distinguishes between different levels of dharma. Sāmānya or sādhāraṇa
dharma consists of “universal” do’s and don’ts, paralleled in the
religious sphere by some festivals and forms of worship in which everyone
participates. The following ten prescriptions given by Manu have universal
application: dhṛti, “steadiness”; kṣamā, “forgiveness”; damā,
“discipline”; asteya, “non-stealing”; śauca, “cleanliness”; indriya-nigraḥ,
“sense control”; dhī, “mindfulness” ; vidyā, “knowledge”; satya,
“truthfulness”; akrodha, “non-anger”.
People with a Christian frame of
reference, such as India’s Nehruvian secularists, often make the comparison
with the Ten Commandments, but this is superficial. The Ten Commandments are
given on two stone tables. The second one contains practical injunctions: “Thou
shalt not kill”, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife”, etc. These do
correspond to similar injunctions in the Dharma Śāstras and have a similar intention, viz. guaranteeing a harmonious
life in society. Moralists in both the Biblical and the Dharmic traditions
might add that they also make for harmony with yourself since, in Baruch de
Spinoza’s words, “virtue is its own reward”. They stem from the experience of
the earlier generations: a society is successful (and an individual is more
contented) if it abides by these rules, but falls apart if it does not. By
contrast, the first stone table contains something unrelated: a brand-new
theology, featuring monotheism, rejection of icons, and a taboo on uttering the
Yahweh’s name. Apparently Moses tried to give more credibility and authority to
his new-fangled theology by linking it with an old and widely respected
morality, as if the latter logically followed from the former.
Other “lawgivers” propose variations on Manu’s
list, with synonymous or different virtues, but we get the idea. In fact, one
of the possible translation of dharma is a generalization of these
separate virtues as “virtue”. The several virtues are synthesized in the Golden
Rule, e.g. in the Mahābhārata
(Śānti-Parva 167:9), adviser Vidura
recommends to king Yudhiṣṭhira: “Study of the scriptures, austerity, sacrifice,
generosity, social welfare, forgiveness, purity of intent, compassion, truth
and self-control — these are the ten treasures of character. (…) Therefore, one
should live with self-restraint and by making dharma the main focus, one
should treat others as one treats oneself.” This Golden Rule is found back also
in the Tirukkural (316), the Padma Purāṇa (19:358), and elsewhere.
Next to these general ethical rules, Manu acknowledges
a viśeṣa dharma, “special
dharma”, or svadharma, “own dharma”: specific duties and taboos
for every age group and class, paralleled in religion by specific festivals and
forms of worship for every community.
Svadharma is rarely conceived as individualistic, the way Westerners would
understand the term. It reminds them of Friedrich Nietzsche’s maxim: “There is
only one way in the world that no one can go except you. Don’t ask where it
leads. Follow it!” When Kṛṣṇa advises Arjuna to take up his svadharma,
he doesn’t mean some hyper-individual duty but the duty of his entire warrior
caste, viz. to accept the challenge of battle.
Yet, Hinduism does have some very
individual path stipulated for you. You and your siblings come from the same
gene pool, had the same types of food, the same education etc., and yet your
destinies can be very different. Ever since the Chāndogya Upaniṣad
introduced the notion of reincarnation, on which the doctrine of karma
(roughly, ethical causality between incarnations) was superimposed, most Hindus
will say that these individual destinies are the result of each brother’s very
individual itinerary through successive incarnations. So the weight of all your
past incarnations with their unfinished agendas, their action-at-a-distance (karma)
into the present, imposes a unique life-duty on you.
This may well be true, but is not
what we mean by dharma, a notion that predates the doctrine of karma
in its reincarnationist sense. Whether one believes or not in reincarnation, in
an afterlife, or in God: the notion of dharma always applies. Indeed,
dharma is secular par excellence: it is a common ground, a meeting-place
between people of all persuasions.
A Greek equivalent?
In the case of Greek, Indians
themselves have chosen a term translating dharma. Translation of Hindu
terminology is not some colonial ploy, as many Indian chauvinists think. In one
of Aśoka’s rock edicts (-258 BC) in Afghanistan,
the Prakrit text comes with a translation in Aramaic and Greek. There, dharma
is translated as eusebeia.
Eusebeia is derived from eu, “good”, “in
harmony with”, “tending towards”; and sebomai, “to revere”. Thus it means
“awe for the sacred”, “piety”, a reverential attitude: the defining core of
religion, even more fundamental than venerating gods. By extension, it also
means “conduct pleasing to the gods”, or to others above you, as in “filial
piety”; and “spiritual maturity”. Its opposite is dyssebeia,
“mindlessness”, “irreverence”.
In certain
contexts, however, is can also mean “right conduct towards others”, both
relatives and strangers; “public-spiritedness”. It is then personified as wife
of nomos, “law” in the strict juridical sense. So, it is both religion and
ethics, like dharma.
A Semitic equivalent?
One of the best semantic
approximations of dharma is the Semitic root D-I-N. In Arabic, دين dīn means “debt”, “obligation” (Sankrit ṛṇa), “duty”, “system
of duties”, “law”; but also “religion”.
Thus, Arabian Paganism is called the dīn al-abā’ikā, “the
ancestors’ dharma”. When Moghul emperor Akbar launched a
newly minted religion, he called it dīn-i-Ilāhī, “divine religion”,
symbolized by his newly built city Ilāhābād, “divine city” (called Allahabad
by the British), on the confluence of the Gaṅgā and the Yamunā,
symbolizing the synthesis of Hinduism and Islam.
The related Hebrew, however, has
developed the term more exclusively towards the sphere of “right relation to
others”, “law”. Thus, dīn, “to judge”; dīnah, “judgment”; dayān,
“judge”.
Like with Christianity appropriating
the term religio, Islam has appropriated the term dīn, as
witnessed in names like Saifu’l-dīn (Saifuddin), “sword of islam”. But
as is well-known, Islam is both a doctrine-cum-worship and a
political-juridical system. Thereby, and in spite of the ideological
reorientation that Islam brought, it continues the combination of both
dimensions that inhered already in the pre-Islamic term dīn.
A Germanic equivalent?
The same shading-over between
devotion and a way of life is found in Scandinavian trú (Dutch trouw),
as in Asatrú, “loyalty to the Aesir/gods”, Vanatrú,
“loyalty to the Vanir” (another class of gods, like in the early Ṛg-Veda
the Asuras next to the Devas), Vortrú, “loyalty to the
early (customs)”. These are names modern neo-Heathens give their own religion.
It contains a certain worship of the ancient Germanic gods but also a code of
conduct, largely of modern coinage, such as the list of “the nine virtues”,
another variation on the list of virtues given by Manu.
In Britain, similar movements exist,
also harking back to the ancestors’ pre-Christian religion to the extent it can
be reconstructed. They speak of truth, one of the meanings of ṛta
and dharma, or rather its more romantic-sounding variation, troth
(as in the Rolling Stones song: “I pledge my troth to / Lady Jane”). “The
Troth” is how many neo-Pagans refer to their own religion. It mainly means “to
be true”, e.g. to one’s give word, “loyalty”, “being faithful”, “solidity”.
This word trú/true/trouw is
related to trust, but ultimately derives from the same root as tree:
Indo-European *deru, whence Sanskrit daru. As an icon of robustness
and solidity, the tree has come to be used figuratively. Semantically, this
corresponds neatly with the term dharma’s connotation of “sustaining”,
“conferring a backbone”. Nevertheless, its range of meanings does not entirely
match that of dharma.
Conclusion
After examining a few foreign
candidate-equivalents to the concept of dharma, we find that at least
pre-Christian Greek and pre-Islamic Arabic approximate it very well, though
still not perfectly, with Chinese and pre-Christian Germanic not far behind.
Nevertheless, a perfect translation that could be introduced to simply replace
the term dharma, remains elusive. For now, the best thing to do is simply
to leave the word dharma untranslated.
We hope, nonetheless, that this
failed attempt to find a perfect equivalent outside Sanskrit has had is uses.
In particular, it should stimulate a rethinking of the distinction, but also
the relatedness, between the religious and the ethical dimensions of human
life. The one does not need the other, but man needs both.
