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leading to total withdrawal and contemplation. The last stage marks the preparation
for final liberat ion and shedding of egoist ic as well as alt ruist ic t endenc ies, sinc e t he
renunciant has to exercise extreme disinterestedness. It also involves breaking wit h
the c ustomary patterns of family and soc iety and bec oming an autonomous
individual.
Dharma (duty). Dharma, as we said, is an all-embracing conception and is perhaps
unique to Indian thought. But the term is also rather diffuse as it has many and
varying meanings, beginning with ‘fixed princ iples’ in the Vedas and ranging from
‘ordinanc e, usage, dut y, right , just ic e, moralit y, virt ue, religion, good works,
func tion or c harac teristic s’ to ‘norm’, ‘righteousness’, ‘truth’ and muc h else (Kane,
1969 , 1.1:1–8). T he word is derived from t he Sanskrit root dhr, meaning t o form,
uphold, support, sustain, or to hold together. It c ertainly c onnotes the idea of that
whic h maint ains, gives order and c ohesion t o any given realit y, and ult imat ely t o
nature, societ y and t he individual. As will be not ic ed, dharma t akes over from t he
Vedic idea of organic unity (a la rita) and shifts more towards the human
dimension. In t his respec t it parallels Hegel’s idea of Sit t lic hkeit (t he ac t ual et hic al
order t hat regulat es t he c onduc t of t he individual, family, c ivil life, and st at e) more
than it does Kant’s ideal c onc eption of the Moral Law. Nevertheless, to a Hindu
dharma suggests a ‘form of life’ whose sanc tion lies beyond individual and even
group or collective preferences.
Law makers brought the notion of dharma more down to earth by devising a
comprehensive system of social and moral regulations for each of the different
groups, subgroups (caste, rulers. etc) within the Hindu social system, as well as
spec ifying c ert ain universal duties inc umbent on all. Voc ational nic hes, duties,
norms, and even punishments are differently arranged for different groups, and the
roles and requireme nt s also vary in t he different life-cycle stages for the different
groups. Thus, while the wife of a ‘t wic e-born’ (the three higher classes) may take
part in c ert ain Vedic rit es, a shudra (t oiler) would be risking punishment if he or
she so much as hears the Vedas recited — to say nothing of those who fall outside
t he c lass-caste order, and aliens like us! (Manu, 2.16, 67; 10.127.)
More often than not though, dharma is invoked as though it were an objec tive
possibilit y, when in fac t it merely gives an overall form t o a syst em of posit ive law,
mores and regulat ions whic h are c ult ural imperat ives, the c ontents of whic h are
det ermined by various fac t ors, more part ic ularly t he voic e of t radit ion, c onvent ion
or c ustom, and the c onsc ienc e of the learned. Dharma then provides a ‘frame’ for
what is et hic ally proper or desirable at any one t ime. What gives coherence to the
conception itself is perhaps its appeal to the need to preserve the organic unity of
being, to ‘make’ justic e where justic e is due, and to minimize the burden of karma,
if not also to free the individual from its enc umbranc es. But what do we understand
by the c onc ept of karma?
Karma (action–effect). T he basic idea here is t hat every c onsc ious and volit ional
ac tion an individual engages in generates c onditions for more than the visible
effec t, suc h that the net effec t of an ac tion X may manifest it self at a lat er t ime, or
perhaps its trac es remain in the ‘unc onsc ious’ and get distributed over another
time. X may combine the residual effect of Y to generate a compounded effect in
some future moment. And this in turn bec omes a determinant of another ac tion, Z,