Dharma & Truth

The concept of dharma is unique to eastern philosophies and religions. It encompasses the wide concepts of duty, righteousness, action, truth, and law. Dharma signifies the obligation, binding upon every man who desires that his action should bear fruit, to submit himself to the laws that govern the universe and to direct his life in consequence. That obligation constitutes his duty.”Thus, dharma covers the eternal order of universe as well as any particular situation in the life of a human being. The holistic conceptualization of dharma suggests that any human activity, including inaction, potentially has wide reaching consequences.

There are religious texts,scriptures, and treatises on law that relate to Dharma, but these are some times contradictory to each other. The best way that one can understand the concept of dharma is through the words and actions of Krishna, particularly in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita links the concepts of dharma and karma yoga. Krishna tells Arjun that it his dharma to fight against adharma without any expectation of reward or without regard for the result of the war. Whether he will win or lose is immaterial. The only thing in his control is his karma or action, which is to fight. The rationale of the actions and behavior of Krishna are puzzling to everyone. Arjuna, his close friend and disciple is able to follow Krishna's instructions and perform actions in the war only due to his faith in Krishna, although his mind and reason are not fully convinced. He questions Krishna again and again (although very respectfully) through different stages of the war even though Krishna has already explained all reasons for why Arjuna should fight and what his duty is. Arjuna is able to stay on the path of dharma during the Mahabharata war only because he has Krishna as his mentor and guide throughout.

However every time Krishna's instructions are simple from the point of view of karma yoga. Any other way of understanding dharma will be too complex for the mind to comprehend. The simplest way to stay on the path of dharma is by doing your duty without expectation for reward or without attachment to the result. By following this path of karma yoga, one will also acquire knowledge and wisdom and the ability to discriminate between what is right and wrong.

Truth is of relevance not on its own but only in the context of dharma. Dharma over rides truth in the Mahabharata. Krishna asks Yudhistira to be technically truthful (not technically lie) and tell Drona that Ashwatthama (the elephant) is dead. Krishna's rationale of this is that Drona is the biggest enemy of dharma in the war of dharma versus adharma and to remove such a barrier to dharma is dharma. The Mahabharata tells us that the adharmic are often as strong as or stronger than the dharmic. This may be because they are not constrained by any moral code, and may in fact, be victors in most battles and wars in the short term. It is therefore necessary to evolve strategies to fight them, taking advantage of their weaknesses. The world is not a level playing field. Those who are not on the path of dharma take short cuts to acquire knowledge, pleasure, revenge, wealth, and power by usurping what is not rightfully theirs. The dharmic route is a certain and permanent one but typically takes longer. The wise ones play to their own strengths and the opponent's weaknesses in a war of dharma versus adharma.

Episode of the lake - Dharmaraja's questions

During the period of exile in the forest, Yudhistira finds that his brothers have been killed while attempting to drink water from a lake. The killer is a mysterious celestial entity, who tells him that he cannot drink the water without answering all his questions or he will face the same consequences as his brothers. This is a defining point of transformation in the great epic Mahabharata. By gambling away his kingdom, his brothers and staking his wife on a game of dice, he showed that he was unworthy of being a king, an elder brother, and a husband. He had no right to stake his brothers, his wife, or his kingdom because they were not his property. A king is merely a custodian and protector of the kingdom. He is a servant of the people and they are not his servants. It is the duty of the husband to protect his wife and by gambling away her dignity and self-respect he had proved to be unworthy of being a husband.

The lake episode is the event in which Yudhistira atones for his sins of gambling away his brothers and himself and thereby proves himself worthy of being a king in the future. His brothers died after drinking the water. They were warned by the celestial entity and told that they cannot drink the water unless they answered his questions, but they were so consumed by pride that they thought they could take whatever they needed by force. The brothers paid for their pride, but Yudhistira revived them by his wisdom and knowledge of dharma. Yudhistira had theoretical knowledge of virtue and righteousness but he had not applied it in practice. This episode was one where he had begun the process of applying his theoretical knowledge. During the gambling episode, Yudhistira broke the rules of dharma by not just staking his brothers, but by staking his brothers who were sons of Madri before staking his brothers who were sons of Kunti. However, when he was asked which brother he would revive if he could revive first, he chose Nakul, because he should be fair to Madri. This gesture atoned for the previous sin of staking Nakul before staking sons of Kunti. Because he upheld virtue, the mysterious entity, who was the king of Dharma blessed him with victory, because victory is always with the one who is the guardian of dharma.