Dharma

“ We must also consider how he managed to reconcile the apparently inconsistent positions of monk and monarch.
Dharma, or Dhaṁma, means to a Hindu the rule of life for each man as determined by his caste and station, or, in other words, the whole duty, religious, moral, and social, of a man born to occupy a certain position in the world. For many ages past this conception of dharma has been inseparably associated with the notions of caste. Each caste has its own dharma, and conduct most proper for the member of one caste is reprehensible in the highest degree for a member of another. ”

“ Dharma is something, Captain Hawksworth, without which life no longer matters. No Christian, or Muslim, has ever been able to understand dharma, since it is the order that defines our castes—and those born outside India are doomed to live forever without a caste. Dharma defines who we are and what we must do if we are to maintain our caste. Warfare is the dharma of the Kshatriya, the warrior caste. ”

“ Only in a harmonious development is to be found that permanent force of coherence which we call Dharma. If the harmony be destroyed, so is the dharma and — Dharma eva hato hanti — if the dharma be destroyed, it destroys in turn. ”

“ The Wisdom of the Dharma-Dhātu, blue in colour, shining, transparent, glorious, dazzling, from the heart of Vairochana as the Father-Mother, [78] will shoot forth and strike against thee with a light so radiant that thou wilt scarcely be able to look at it.
Along with it, there will also shine a dull white light from the devas, which will strike against thee in thy front.
Thereupon, because of the power of bad karma, the glorious blue light of the Wisdom of the Dharma-Dhātu will produce in thee fear and terror, and thou wilt [wish to] flee from it. ”

“ When doing so, they give birth to vision, wisdom, understanding, and Bodhi.
“ [5] Moreover, you should fully know the Noble Truth of Suffering, a dharma that has never been heard before, and which is to be contemplated. When doing so, it gives birth to vision, wisdom, understanding, and Bodhi. [6] When the Noble Truth of the Accumulation of Suffering has been known, then it should be severed. This is a dharma that has never been heard before, and which is to be contemplated. When doing so, it gives birth to vision, wisdom, understanding, and Bodhi. ”

“ According to the different stages of man’s moral evolution, different kinds of merit, dharma or adharma, accrue, and these again regulate the various physical and mental phenomena according to which a man may be affected either pleasurably or painfully. It must, however, be always remembered that the dharma and adharma are also the productions of prakṛti, and as such cannot affect it except by behaving as the cause for the removal of the opposite obstructions—the dharma for removing the obstructions of adharma and adharma for those of dharma. ”

“ If the atoms are looked at from the point of view of the change and accession of new qualities, they may be regarded as liable to destruction, but if they are looked at from the point of view of substance (dravya) they are eternal.
Dharma, Adharma, Âkâs'a.
The conception of dharma and adharma in Jainism is absolutely different from what they mean in other systems of Indian philosophy. Dharma is devoid of taste, touch, smell, sound and colour; it is conterminous with the mundane universe (lokâkâs'a) and pervades every part of it. ”

“ In this hell they must stay for many thousands of autumns.
6. 'Material prosperity (artha) is the principal cause of the world's regular striving after the triad of objects. Whoso injures artha, injures righteousness (dharma) too [44] . How is it possible, then, that the injurer of righteousness by destroying material prosperity, should not stay in hell?
[28]
7. 'Thou hast sinned, being attached to charity and destroying thy wealth, which is the root of dharma. ”

“ Only when the tree begins to take shape do you come to see its dharma, and then you can affirm without doubt that the seed which has been wasted and allowed to rot in the ground has been thwarted in its dharma, in the fulfilment of its true nature. In the history of humanity we have known the living seed in us to sprout. We have seen the great purpose in us taking shape in the lives of our greatest men, and have felt certain that though there are numerous individual lives that seem ineffectual, still it is not their dharma to remain barren ”

“ Such deeds are always accompanied by a sense of deep humility and thankfulness in the heart of the householder. “It is the dharma, which may be translated as the man-ness of man, of every householder to provide handsomely for the needs of a Brahman, and he does this from a sense of religious and social duty as well as from a desire for a religious blessing.” ”

“ Underlying this universe of phenomena and change there is a unity. It is the basis of all being. It is within all being and all being rests in it. It is because of this common background that men are able to apprehend it. This universal basis we call dharma, or law. Its characteristics are that everything born grows old, is subject to disease and death; that the teachings of Buddha purify the mind and enable it to obtain supreme enlightenment ”

“ The very name Alâta@sânti is absolutely Buddhistic. Compare Nâgârjuna's kârikâ, B.T.S., p. 206, where he quotes a verse from the S'ataka.]
[Footnote 2: The use of the word dharma in the sense of appearance or entity is peculiarly Buddhistic. The Hindu sense is that given by Jaimini, "Codanâlak@sa@nah arthah, dharmah." Dharma is determined by the injunctions of the Vedas.]
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production, for it being of the nature of absence of production it could never change its nature. ”

“ Having requested that the pupil might be sent away, and having cleared the room, he said to the jogi, ‘O holy man! what punishment for the heinous crime of witchcraft is awarded to a woman in the Dharma-Shastra?’ [71]
‘Great king!’ replied the devotee, ‘in the Dharma-Shastra it is thus written: “If a Brahman, a cow, a woman, a child, or any other person whatso [Pg 93] ever, who may be dependent on us, should be guilty of a perfidious act, their punishment is that they be banished the country.” ”

“ Each posture of the hands has its own meaning, and there are much more than five mudrâs even in the hînayânistic countries like Siam where one doesn’t know any Dhyâni-Buddha.
This also refers to the posture of the sixth, for a long time unexplained Buddha on the highest encircling wall whose mudrâ was rightly called dharma tyakra [81] . Thumb and index, circularly joined together, represent the tyakra, god Vishnu’s disc, the sun, the symbol of the dharma, the buddhistic Doctrine. ”

“ In the temple, dedicated to Dharma Thākur by Lāu Sen—King of Mainā, in the 11th century, Dharma is still worshipped as a tortoise. The other objects of creation were the serpent Ananta, and the earth; and then from the Lord came Çakti. known as Durgā.
We need not proceed further with this catalogue of theological reveries. The Çunya Purāṅa gives details about the method of worshipping Dharma. We find Çiva, Viṣṅu, Brahmā and a host of Paurānik gods mentioned in this book in a strange way. They discharge functions which have little in common with those attributed to them by the Hindus. ”

“ According to the Sāṃkhya-Pātañjala theory dharma, merit, can only be said to accrue from those actions which lead to a man’s salvation, and adharma from just the opposite course of conduct. When it is said that these can remove the barriers 86of the prakṛti and thus determine its modifications, it amounts almost to saying that the modifications of the prakṛti are being regulated by the moral conditions of man. ”

“ He mystically discourses on শঙ্খ, [9] which however, is as remote from সঙ্ঘ, as is the popular conception of Dharma-thākur, from that of the historical Buddha. Evidences of their Buddhistic origin.There are passages which distinctly prove the Buddhistic origin of the poems. In the Çunya Purāṅa, which lays down rules for Dharma worship, there is a line,—"ধর্ম্মরাজ যজ্ঞ নিন্দা করে"— (Dharma Rāj condemns sacrifices) . This sounds like a translation of the well-known line in honour of Buddha by the poet Jaydeva—"নিন্দসি যজ্ঞ বিধিরঽহ শ্রুতি জাতং". ”

“ Of the three asa@msk@rta dharmas âkâs'a (ether) is in essence the freedom from obstruction, establishing it as a permanent omnipresent immaterial substance (nîrûpâkhya, non-rûpa) . The second asa@msk@rta dharma, apratisa@mkhyâ nirodha, means the non-perception of dharmas caused by the absence of pratyayas or conditions. Thus when I fix my attention on one thing, other things are not seen then, not because they are non-existent but because the conditions which would have made them visible were absent. The third asa@msk@rta dharma, pratisa@mkhyâ nirodha, is the final deliverance from bondage. ”

“ Seven days hence, Takshaka, the lord of snakes, shall take the sinful king to the horrible abode of Death.’ And the father said to the enraged son, ‘Child, I am not pleased with thee. Ascetics should not act thus. We live in the domains of that great king. We are protected by him righteously. In all he does, the reigning king should by the like of us forgiven. If thou destroy Dharma, verily Dharma will destroy thee. If the king do not properly protect us, we fare very ill; we cannot perform our religious rites according to our desire. ”

“ But the Vedic gods hang like a mist upon the edge of battle, and are all but idle spectators of the scene. Abstractions, as well as the All-god, have routed them, and Dharma or Duty is a greater god than Indra. But there is an older side to this, as we shall presently show. On the moral side the heroes of the epic profess great belief in the power and awfulness of this god Duty. And so far as go rules of chivalry, they are theoretically moral. Practically they are savage, and their religion does not interfere with their brutal barbarity. ”

“ Then it goes on to say that the validity of the Vedas depends on the fact that it leads us to prosperity and salvation. Then it turns back to the second sûtra and says that salvation comes as the result of real knowledge, produced by special excellence of dharma, of the characteristic features of the categories of substance (dravya) , quality (gu@na) , class concept (sâmdânya) , particularity (vis'e@sa) , and inherence (samavâyay) [Footnote ref 1] . ”

“ If any one attacks our Buddhist friends for atheism, they have only to refer (if they can admit a synthesis of northern and southern doctrines) to the conception of Dharmakâya, of Him who is 'for ever Divine and Eternal,' who is 'the One, devoid of all determinations.' 'This Body of Dharma,' we are told, 'has no boundary, no quarters, but is embodied in all bodies.... All forms of corporeality are involved therein; it is able to create all things. Assuming any concrete material form, as required by the nature and condition of karma, it illuminates all creations.... ”

“ By suchness (in Sanskrit bhûta-tathatâ, in Chinese Chên ju) is meant absolute truth as contrasted with the relative truth of ordinary experience. [112] The word is not illuminating nor likely to excite religious emotion and the most that can be said for it is that it is less dreary than the void of Nâgârjuna. Another and more positive synonym is dharma-dhâtu, the all-embracing totality of things. It is only through our ignorance and subjectivity that things appear distinct and individuate. Could we transcend this subjectivity, isolated objects would cease to exist. ”

“ There were only the passing dharmas or manifestations of forms and qualities, but there was no permanent underlying dharma or substance. Sâ@mkhya also holds in the continual change of dharmas, but it also holds that these dharmas represent only the conditions of the permanent reals. The conditions and collocations of the reals change constantly, but the reals themselves are unchangeable. The effect according to the Buddhists was non-existent, it came into being for a moment and was lost. ”

“ Dharma is obedience to the command of the Shastra or Holy Writ of the Hindoos to do certain things, such as the performance of sacrifices, which are not generally done, because they do not belong to this world, and produce no visible effect; and not to do other things, such as eating meat, which is often done because it belongs to this world, and has visible effects. ”

“ On thee." "More will I give thee," said the king,
"But wait, most noble saint! Nought have I left!
Even my wife and child are sold." Replied
The Brâhman: "Hold! be silent! Further time
Than the remaining fourth part of to-day
I grant thee not." Enraged, he turned away,
Departing with the money. And the king,
Immersed in grief and fear, with face cast down,
Cried out: "If there be any one of you
Who wants a slave, let him make haste and speak
While day remains." Then Dharma, putting on
The form of a Cha.n.dâla, hastily
Came forward, taking pity on the king. ”

“ Then all the disciples of the Lord, both such as were under training and such as were not, who had received from the Lord the prediction as to their (future) supreme enlightenment, all the eight thousand monks raised their joined hands towards the Lord and said: Let the Lord be at ease. We also will divulge this Dharmaparyâya, after the complete extinction of the Lord, in the last days, the last period, though in other worlds. For in this Saha-world, O Lord, the creatures are conceited, possessed of few roots of goodness, always vicious in their thoughts, wicked, and naturally perverse. ”