‘Dharma’ versus ‘தருமம்’

I have always had a big mental tussle over what goes by the label 'Dharma' ever since I first came to understand the real scriptural (Vedic) meaning of the word (in Sanskrit). Till then, I had mistakenly believed that it was merely the Sanskrit equivalent of the Tamil word 'tharmam' (or, more correctly, 'tharumam' - 'தருமம்') and bearing the same meaning.

Most of my generation would have first drawn the meaning of the Tamil 'tharumam' not from any dictionary (how troublesome!) but from the popular Tamil cinema lyric 'tharumam thalai kaakum..... ' (தருமம் தலை காக்கும்), made famous by our great MGR! It meant being charitable, compassionate and doing good. In that sense, it falls within the scope of aRam (அறம்) expounded by Aiyyan Thiruvalluvar.

But it would dawn upon me only much later that the Vedic 'Dharma' is NOT the same as Tamil 'tharumam'. In fact, Dharma - as Varnashrama Dharma – turns out to be shockingly discriminatory and socially divisive in the way it conceives, structures and administers duty and justice in society.

Even a great treatise like the Bhagavad Gita is convoluted by the need to weave into it the centrality of Dharma (Note 3). Apparently, the same has been the compulsion of all Sanskritic epics and puranas; perhaps, the Upanishads are the only exceptions.

Mahatma Gandhi was straining himself to explain why he was drawing a message of NON-VIOLENCE from the Gita: I didn't understand Gandhiji when I first read him, and I still don't (obviously, I must not have been evolving during all these intervening years!). Perhaps, it is President Bush who is the most evolved soul around today, seeming to have taken to heart Gita's message of non-violence: he bombed Baghdad without anger in his heart AND with detachment (he only wanted to spread democracy & save the world - and, of course, the oilfields - from the terrorists) AND it is next the turn of Iran for some lesson in Bushite non-violence!

IF Dharma falls, as it will AND must for the sake of India and the people of India, it will be Brahmanism / Vedism that will collapse with it. If the Brahmanists/Sanskritists have any sense left in them, they must quickly do some serious soul-searching. It would be laughable to blame India’s encounters with Islam and the British colonialists for the obnoxious caste system, as some Hindutva writers have been doing of late (click here), either out of sheer desperation or massive confusion. For their part, the adherents / inheritors of the Tamil/Dravidian tradition of Hinduism (Note 1) would have to extricate from the Sanskrit texts those parts that are consistent with their (non-varnashramic) tradition (Note 2).


Note 1:

The oldest tradition of Hinduism is characteristically Tamilian / Dravidian, comprising Saivism and Maliyam / Vaishnavism, and precedes Vedism. There are two major disconnects between the Dravidian and Vedic traditions of Hinduism: in terms of doctrine (Varnashramam) and ritual (yagam / yajna). The doctrinal split is the worse of the two, fundamental and unbridgeable.


Note 2:

Mr Pathmarajah Nagalingam ( owner of website www.siddha.com.my ) writes in akandabaratam@yahoogroups.com (13 March 2006) as follows:

"......Most of varnashrama is in the smirthis, which I call the 'varnashrama texts'. The idea is to delink, to separate the shruti from the smirthis. Without the smirthis; that is, the manu shastras and itihasas as well as all late puranas, then Hinduism is varna free!

There are a few sutras, probably about 7 or 8, in the vedas and upanishads that seems to support varna. These 'must have been' later additions, interpolations or misinterpretations - because for every varna sutra in the vedas, we can show ten others that defy such thinking.

To me the vedas and upanishads are clearly saivite texts and not anything else, no matter what other sectarians may wish to see or trace their origins to. Seen in a non sectarian light, it is a very 'saivite' document as it is all encompassing. Besides it quite clearly says the vedas were given by Lord Rudra to Brahma. So its our heritage.

The smirthis are not our heritage."


Note 3: (inserted 14 March 2006)

1. There is no question about the depth and profundity of the Gita. But my anguish and quarrel is over the fact that all of the spell-binding exposition by Lord Krishna turns out - in the final analysis - to be directed towards buttressing the cruel ideology of Varnashramam. It is as if the All-Knowing Lord has willingly (as he is All-Knowing, it canNOT be UNwittingly) become the mouthpiece of a socially divisive and oppressive ideology. It is not unlike talented journalists (even researchers) today who get ‘hired’, ‘commissioned’ or ‘embedded’ by governments or corporate interests to promote a certain cause or line of thinking in their writings.

2. The fundamental difference between the Hindu castes and the classes of other societies (e.g. Western) is set out in an earlier post Social inequalities: the Varnashramic difference. And in the face of the volumes that the Manusmrti talks about varna (caste), how could we hope to escape the odium of castes by merely re-naming them as classes?

3. Gita’s Krishna Himself says that it would be better to perform one’s (inherited) duty badly than perform some other duty excellently. How could one go along with that line of reasoning. Or is this an interpolation? If so, let us take out such interpolations (or, mark them out as worthy of repudiation) so that the Gita will not serve to buttress Varnashramam.


Comments may be forwarded to: anbarul@yahoo.com