Actually, I don't consider myself to possess even the slightest authority to answer this question.
But since the question came from a good friend, Aditya Joshi (who is the author of a very creative blog himself), I thought I should share what little I have learned/heard/read about dharma here.
Since this page is open to the entire world, let's hope some learned person shall read this some day and throw more light on it, so that both Aditya and I are benefited.
In the posti on gItA, I had written at one place: "... dharma (not to be confused with religion) ..."
And this is what prompted Aditya to ask :
What is 'Dharma' in Gita if not religion?
Is it 'Duty'?
How is it different from 'Karma'?
Or is it that 'Dharma' is the ideally expected 'Karma'?
We can actually remove the clause 'in Gita' from the first question.
Because, nowhere in the traditional wisdom has the word dharma been used to mean religion (at least until the Muslim invasions in the medieval era).
Dharma does not mean religion
1.
The 18-day war between Kauravas and Pandavas is also referred to as dharma-yuddha.
If dharma meant religion, was the religion of Kauravas different from that of Pandavas ?
2.
धर्म-शाला, धर्मार्थ दवाखाना, राज-धर्म, पुत्र-धर्म, शेजार-धर्म (मराठी), धर्मसंकट
(dharma-shaalaa, dharmaartha-davaakhaanaa, raaja-dharma, putra-dharma, shejaara-dharma, dharma-samkata)
These words are used so commonly in day-to-day life, that one probably overlooks the use of the word dharma in them. But does dharma-shaalaa mean a religious school ? Or does raaja-dharma mean the religion of the king ?
3.
अग्नि का धर्म है उष्णता । - the dharma of fire is heat.
Is 'heat' a religion ? Definitely not !
Thus it is clear that dharma does not mean religion.
In fact, English (and many western languages) does not have a word that can completely and entirely convey the meaning of dharma.
This is because the concept of dharma itself is not known in the west.
Dharma is not a single special case, though.
There is no पुण्यम् (punyam) in English, either (although there is पापम् (paapam). This may be due to the concept that all humans are a result of the 'original sin' commited by Adam and Eve - as against the Indian concept 'अमृतस्य पुत्राः वयम्' - अथर्ववेद, meaning we are the sons of immortality).
The concept of dharma is a speciality of the Hindu philosophy (you may call it Indian, or Oriental philosophy, it's one and the same) .
It is common to Jainism, Budhism, Sikhism, Taoism and all the lesser-/better-known philosophical schools of the east.
Anyway.
So dharma does not have a parallel in English.
But does religion have a parallel in samskrut ?
Yes. It is called पन्थः (panthah) or मतम् (matam).
One can see words like जैनमत (jain-mata), बौद्धमत (bauddha-mata), मतान्तरण (mataantarana = religious conversion) being commonly used in many Indian languages.
Unfortunately, in Marathi, it's almost always जैनधर्म, बौद्धधर्म, धर्मांतरण.
So religion is pantha or mata. Fine.
But what is dharma ?
The two definitions of dharma
1.
The first one says -
धारणात् धर्मः इत्याहुः (Krishna in Mahabharata - 12.110.11)
[ dhAraNAt dharmaH ityAhuH ]
dharma is that concept, by virtue of which all the elements are held together.
This is a very clear and simple definition indeed.
In fact, if we look at the etymology of the word dharma, it emerges from the samskrut root धृ (dhru) meaning 'to hold'.
For example, raaja-dharma. That is what is holding the raajaa and the prajaa.
The moment the king deviates from his raaja-dharma, he ceases to be a raajaa.
(In fact, the traditional pledge a king had to take at his coronation was "This bhoomi is my wife from now on, and the people living on it, my children. I shall take care of them as a father would of his children. And if I ever fail in doing so, my raaja-purohita shall punish me with his dharma-danda")
2.
The other definition is -
यतोऽभ्युदयनिःश्रेयससिद्धिः स धर्मः ।
[yatobhyudayanihshreyasasiddhih sa dharmah]
dharma is the one through which both अभ्युदय (abhyudaya) and निःश्रेयस (nihshreyasa) are achieved.
What is this abhyudaya and nihshreyasa ?
In the simplest terms, it means this-worldly and other-worldly goals, respectively.
Other(?) interpretations
One can also find explanations of the word dharma given as:
- righteous duty : putra-dharma = a son's duty towards his parents
- nature (स्वभाव) : अग्नि का धर्म है उष्णता ।
- natural laws : even contemporary literature sometimes refers to 'nature-call' as निसर्गधर्म
- etc.
This is all I know about dharma.
I am afraid I have added to Aditya's confusion, instead of reducing it.
The reason is I am myself a bit confused about the exact meaning of dharma.
That's why I put a question mark in the last subsection's title.
I am not sure if these are other interpretations or they simply follow from the two definitions we discussed.
If a son does not fulfill his righteous duty, he is no longer a son for his parents, and also, his other-worldly record is bound to go down.
Heat is the thing by virtue of which fire holds to be fire, and without it, it ceases to be fire.
And if one does not attend to nature calls, this-worldly goals are definitely not going to be achieved due to ill-health.
Sometimes I feel dharma is all of these things and also something more.
PS: We shall discuss karma very soon
