Dharma

Dharma, Sanskrit term incorporating a number of interrelated concepts central to Hinduism: the nature of the world, the social order, cosmic law, and social law. One of the “four goals of humanity” (along with pleasure, profit, and release), dharma represents the belief that the way things are (descriptive law), for example, the sun rises in the east, is inseparable from the way things should be (prescriptive law), for example, Brahmins should not eat beef. The Sanskrit textbooks of dharma (Dharmasutras and Dharmasastras), with their argumentative commentaries, attempt to reconcile the particular, relativistic dharma of caste (svadharma, what each person is and should therefore do) with the general, absolute dharma of a universal ethics (sanatana dharma, eternal dharma, what all people should do: tell the truth, refrain from killing, be virtuous, and the like).