Yazata
Valued Senior Member
The Sanskrit word 'dharma' appears to be derived from an Old Indo-European word meaning something like 'hold'. We still see remnants of that meaning in some IE languages. (I believe that there's a Lithuanian derivative that means 'horse's reins'.) Apparently sometime in its movement into Central Asia, the word took on the meaning of 'uphold', as in the idea of a tent-pole.
By the time we encounter it in India, the word seems to have become much more generalized. "Dharma upholds both this-worldly and other-worldly affairs" (Mahabharata 8.69.58). The Dharmashastras ('dharma treatises') kind of mix together moral, political and ritual concerns. Proper morality upholds social life, proper politics upholds the state, while the proper performance of the Brahmanical sacrifices upheld man's relationship with the gods.
In its most cosmic sense, dharma upholds the order of the cosmos (rta) itself. And as the centuries passed, the concepts of dharma and rta merged, so that what upholds the cosmic order became identified with that cosmic order. So dharma is identified with truth. "Verily, that which is dharma is truth... Verily, both these things are the same" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.14).
It also becomes identified with karma since behavior that upholds the cosmic order brings good results while behavior that subverts it brings bad results.
The different Indian religions all absorbed this idea of dharma.
In Buddhism, the idea of dharma becomes psychologized, as referring to what upholds the practitioner in the search for the end of suffering. But the ontological meaning is still prominent in Buddhism as well, so that dharma is simultaneously true knowledge of the principles that uphold reality. Thus the goal in Buddhism is to get one's psychology more in tune with the way things really are. It appears that the earliest Buddhists referred to what we today call 'Buddhism' as 'dharma-vinaya', or 'dharma discipline'. This band of ancient forest ascetics saw what they were doing as a path of self-discipline.
As time went on, as Buddhism became a popular religion and as its doctrines were committed to writing, the word 'dharma' takes on yet another meaning, that of the Buddhist teachings in written scriptural form.
Finally, it needs to be said that there's another more technical meaning of 'dharma' that one sometimes sees. This one seems to be ultimately derived from the Sanskrit grammarians. They started using 'dharma' to mean something like 'property', perhaps because they thought of the properties of objects as being what upheld the objects' identities as whatever they are. And we see the Buddhist scholar-monks adopting and making use of this technical usage in their abhidhamma project, in which they tried to disassemble all possible experience into not-further-reducible psycho-physical atoms, which they called 'dharmas'. (Kind of reminiscent of the role that 'elementary particles' play in modern physical thinking, perhaps.)
By the time we encounter it in India, the word seems to have become much more generalized. "Dharma upholds both this-worldly and other-worldly affairs" (Mahabharata 8.69.58). The Dharmashastras ('dharma treatises') kind of mix together moral, political and ritual concerns. Proper morality upholds social life, proper politics upholds the state, while the proper performance of the Brahmanical sacrifices upheld man's relationship with the gods.
In its most cosmic sense, dharma upholds the order of the cosmos (rta) itself. And as the centuries passed, the concepts of dharma and rta merged, so that what upholds the cosmic order became identified with that cosmic order. So dharma is identified with truth. "Verily, that which is dharma is truth... Verily, both these things are the same" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.14).
It also becomes identified with karma since behavior that upholds the cosmic order brings good results while behavior that subverts it brings bad results.
The different Indian religions all absorbed this idea of dharma.
In Buddhism, the idea of dharma becomes psychologized, as referring to what upholds the practitioner in the search for the end of suffering. But the ontological meaning is still prominent in Buddhism as well, so that dharma is simultaneously true knowledge of the principles that uphold reality. Thus the goal in Buddhism is to get one's psychology more in tune with the way things really are. It appears that the earliest Buddhists referred to what we today call 'Buddhism' as 'dharma-vinaya', or 'dharma discipline'. This band of ancient forest ascetics saw what they were doing as a path of self-discipline.
As time went on, as Buddhism became a popular religion and as its doctrines were committed to writing, the word 'dharma' takes on yet another meaning, that of the Buddhist teachings in written scriptural form.
Finally, it needs to be said that there's another more technical meaning of 'dharma' that one sometimes sees. This one seems to be ultimately derived from the Sanskrit grammarians. They started using 'dharma' to mean something like 'property', perhaps because they thought of the properties of objects as being what upheld the objects' identities as whatever they are. And we see the Buddhist scholar-monks adopting and making use of this technical usage in their abhidhamma project, in which they tried to disassemble all possible experience into not-further-reducible psycho-physical atoms, which they called 'dharmas'. (Kind of reminiscent of the role that 'elementary particles' play in modern physical thinking, perhaps.)
