Question / प्रश्न 31

प्रश्न  / Question  31

What is Dharma and What is Sanatan Dharma?

धर्म क्या है, और सनातन धर्म क्या है? 

उत्तर  / Answer :

धर्म / Dharma is The Law Universal that maintains, holds to and strictly governs this whole existence everywhere at all times and places for all sentient beings  and insentient things irrespective of the individuals.

धर्म / Dharma is therefore the सत्य / Truth and not subject to speech, because and obviously, the speech / language distorts the essense of Truth to a great extent. Then Truth is lost irretrievably, greatly  and धर्म / Dharma too remains unseen.

Then further determination and decay of धर्म / Dharma takes place, custom and  traditions turn धर्म / Dharma into अधर्म / Adharma and Vidharm / विधर्म and many different and contradicting beliefs and faiths cause chaos and straighten in the human mind and society at large.

At the global scale this results in wars and the wars are forced upon, justified as crusade and jihad.

The three western religions are stark  evidence to this fact.

In comparison, the Religions of the East in unison and coherence speak of what is true धर्म / Dharma, worth the name.

The fundamentals of this धर्म / Dharma or सनातन धर्म / The Sanatana Dharma has been stated already in the beginning of this Answer.

These comprise of :

अहिंसा / ahinsA, सत्य /satya, अस्तेय / asteya, ब्रह्मचर्य / Brahmacharya and the last is -- अपरिग्रह /  aparigraha.

The Treatise on the Yoga of Maharshi Patanjali narrates these very same five cardinal principles and refer to them as यम / Yama सार्वभौम पञ्च महाव्रत meaning the Universal Law, everyone should follow without exception and in no condition to be violated. 

The Hindu, The Buddhists, The Jain, and The Sikh traditions / religions agree to this and that is why they are different forms of the same Sanatana Dharma. Manusmriti however speaks directly in the following words :

सत्यं ब्रूयात् प्रियं ब्रूयात् न ब्रूयात् सत्यमप्रियम्।।

प्रियं च नानृतं ब्रूयात् एष धर्म सनातनः।।

The same is found in the Buddhist text hammapada in the following words :

एस धम्म सनंतन।।

In Sikh Tradition :

एक ओंकार सतनाम।।

Expresses the same sense of :

"What is Dharma?"

Jain too insist that the True धर्म / Dharma is Sanatana Dharma only.

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