burn me”). The rite’s success stems from
the truthfulness of the first condition—
that the power of truth in the condition
actually causes the second part to come
true. One example of the act of truth
being used to compel the gods to grant a
wish occurs in the story of the lovers
Nala and Damayanti. Damayanti
intends to choose Nala as her husband
but finds that four of the gods have
taken Nala’s form, in an effort to foil her.
Damayanti’s act of truth affirms that she
had chosen Nala as her husband and
has never wavered in this choice, and it
then directs the gods to take their true
forms again. The gods take their true
forms, and Nala and Damayanti are
married.
As Sanskritist and Indologist W.
Norman Brown observes, in cases
where the act of truth is successful, the
people making the act of truth have
perfectly fulfilled their social roles,
and this perfection allows them to
make the conditional affirmation so
central to the act of truth. Successful
men have been either great kings,
ascetics, or householders; successful
womenhave usually been absolutely
faithful to their husbands (fulfilling
one idealized women’s role). One story
tells of a prostitute who affirmed that she
had serviced all of her clients without par-
tiality, thus perfectly fulfilling her particu-
lar social role. In any of these cases,
perfection of one’s role is believed to bring
spiritual merit as well as the ability to
unleash it by performing the act of truth.
For further information see W. Norman
Brown, “The Metaphysics of the Truth
Act,” in Mélanges D'Indianisme à la
Mémoire de Louis Renou, 1968.
Adharma
In the dharma literature, this term
designates the absolute opposite of
dharma, the fundamental values that
serve to uphold society. Although adhar-
ma can denote a particular unrighteous
action, it more widely implies a state of
affairs in which society has been com-
pletely corrupted; the values that
uphold society have been subverted,
overturned, or ignored and hence such
particular unrighteous actions become
possible, even likely.Adhikamasa
See Intercalary Month.Adhikara
(“qualification”) In any sort of Hindu
worship, but particularly in tantra,
adhikara indicates that one has the reli-
gious qualifications to perform certain
ritual actions. This refers partly to know-
ing how to perform the ritual, and thus
being “qualified” in that sense of the
word. More importantly, it refers to hav-
ing gained the ritual status that entitles
one to perform the ritual. This status is
usually conferred by some sort of formal
initiationor initiations given by one’s
teacher, who decides what type of and
how much adhikara to transmit based
on an assessment of the student’s abili-
ties, temperament, and desire to learn.Adhiratha
The foster father of Karnain the great
Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. Karna is
born when his mother, Kunti, uses a
special mantragiven to her by the sage
Durvasas, which gives a woman the
power to conceive and bear children by
the gods. Kunti impulsively uses the
mantra to invoke the Sun, by whom she
conceives and bears Karna. In her panic
at unexpectedly becoming a mother—
she is still unmarried, and concerned
about what people might think—she
puts the child in a box and abandons him
in the Ganges. When Adhiratha goes to
the Ganges to bathe (snana), he finds the
child, and since he and his wife are child-
less, they raise the boy as their own.
There are a number of interesting
aspects to the story of Adhiratha.
Although he is not of high status, he
becomes the king of the country. He
comes from a social group whose tra-
ditional occupation is driving chariots.Adharma