Dharma

A multivalent term meaning righteousness, duty, moral order, and the good that one does.

Overview

Dharma is notoriously difficult to translate — the Sanskrit dictionary has a whole page of meanings. It covers morality, decency, duty, and religion. In the purushartha framework, dharma means the good that one does in the widest sense.

In the Vedantic scheme, the good one does generates good karma, and good karma in turn produces more artha (wealth) and kama (pleasure). So dharma is a worldly aim — but one with a reach wider than wealth or pleasure alone.

Dharma also frames the Gita’s opening verse. The battlefield at Kurukshetra is called Dharmakshetra — the field of dharma, where right and wrong are decided. Swami reads this symbolically: the field of life itself is the field on which dharma is worked out.

The karma chain. In the law of karma, dharma is the entry point: dharma → punya (merit) → sukha (happiness). Its opposite adharma runs the parallel chain to dukha. This is the transactional moral causality all Indian traditions — Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh — share.

Related concepts

• One of the purushartha
• Opposite of adharma
• Generates good karma, which produces more artha and kama
• Path of karma-yoga re-reads dharma as liberating action
• Related figure: duryodhana, who admits knowing dharma but not acting on it

In the Gita

• 01-summary: Kurukshetra is Dharmakshetra — the field of dharma.

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 1 [05:14]: Dharma means morality, decency, religion — a wide term.
• Ep. 1 [05:30]: In the purushartha framework, dharma is the good we do.
• Ep. 1 [49:02]: Kurukshetra is called Dharmakshetra — the field of dharma.
• Ep. 7 [36:58]: Dharma as the first term of moral causation — dharma → punya → sukha. Vivekananda’s “Good, good; bad, bad; and none escape the law.”