Ethics Series 5: Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah

Literal meaning of the phrase is “one who protects Dharma in turn gets protected by Dharma”. But is this happening practically in the contemporary world? This is the question raised by quite a few. We see dharmic individuals exploited by crooked in many ways for the selfish benefit.

Before discussing the above question, lets first try to understand how to protect Dharma and what is Dharma? Dharma is the set of rules defined in Vedas and put forward in concrete/easily accessible manner by Smriti kartas. Dharma varies from person to person depending on the Varna and Ashrama, from place to place basis Desha(country), from time to time, and also on the role one performs. A person who is performing the role of son will have a certain rules/dharma defined where as same person performing the role of husband will have completely different set of rules. A person who is a king/leader will have different set of dharma in his position. It is a dharma for Brahmin to lead a pious life and perform duties like vedic chanting and sandhya vandanas where as a person of some other varna is allowed to lead a luxurious life. Brahmins were allowed to consume meat in satya yuga time where as such an act is disallowed in Kali yuga time.

The next question to answer is how do we protect Dharma? Vishnu sahasranama states “Aachara Prabhavo Dharma” meaning practice of Dharma in spirit is what makes it prosper and continue. Over the period of time our ancestors protected dharma by establishing customs/rituals, imbibing them in educational system and enforcing them in the family and society. Elderly people have taken responsibility of protecting the dharma by being stern when required for enforcement of dharma. It worked perfectly well until the young were exhibiting respectful behavior towards elders. Later things started fading away. In the current context, if one cannot follow dharma person can be excused, provided he/she does not corrupt another dharmic individual either in form of ridicule/putting trouble.

Coming back to original question of why we see people who follow dharma being exploited by crooked and corrupt people for the selfish benefit. But this is surely a scenario in the short term and if we progress a bit in long term in progression of time, we surely see the benefit for dharmic individual. A person who does injustice to a good individual is bound to face the consequence of the sinful deed but one will not know in what manner. In similar lines a dharmic individual might face some tests in life but would with stand test of time and get the reward eventually. There are example of dharmic individuals in history like Prahlada, Ambareesha in bhagavatam who have faced acid test and eventually to get protected by Dharma. Similarly there are examples of Adharmic people like Vali, Ravana, Duryadhana who hurted Dharmic individuals only to get punished for their sin. So it is enough to prove Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah.