Bharat Dharma

Bharat Dharma................................................Shrikant Vasudeo


Let us understand the word Dharma. It is NOT exactly same thing as Religion as per its popular understanding. Even the word ‘Religion’ is in use only since 13th century. Its root is ‘ligare’ = to bind, connect. ‘re-ligare’ means to ‘again bind or connect’. This interpretation has been proposed by St Augustine and accepted by modern scholars like Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell. Interestingly, the Sanskrit word Dharma also has the meaning of ‘that which upholds or supports’. This comes from the root word ‘Dhr’ – to hold. In this sense, we are in harmony with the English understanding of the word Religion. However, things have not remained that simple. Though the original meaning of the English word religion is to bind or connect, its popular understanding is something like a ‘set of beliefs and practices that connect our human world with the spiritual world’. There are necessarily the elements of sacred books, dogmas, preachers, church, rites, sacrament, moral laws worship etc.

Coming back to the Hindu religion. To call our religion a ‘Hindu’ religion is only a ‘matter of convenience’. We just want to make the matter simple and therefore call ourselves Hindu – because there has to some name to our religion, and the word Hindu comes handy due to its widespread usage – initially by the foreigners and then by the natives of the land. However, when we go to the root of it, we can observe that ‘labeling’ our religion as a ‘Hindu’ religion is grossly inadequate and misleading. We need to look into some other directions. When I am disowning the word ‘Hindu’, am I saying that we do not have any religion ? NO. We do have religion in the popular sense as explained above. Then is it only the problem of just ‘naming’ our religion ? If this were so, it would not have been much of a problem. It is not just the issue of calling our religion ‘Hindu’ or ‘ABC’ or ‘XYZ’. It is only a superfluous objection. The problem is not that we do not have a religion, but that we have too many religions in the popular sense of the word religion ! If we decide to give a ‘Group Name’ to our religion as ‘Hindu’, then while explaining the Hindu religion, I have to systematically explain the religion Hindu 1, Hindu 2, Hindu 3 and so on and so forth for each of the set of beliefs, dogmas, rituals, worship, priest etc. We may run into religions running into not just hundreds or thousands but into hundreds of thousands !

If I were to attempt to define or explain Hindu Religion, I have to make liberal use of the words ‘mostly’, ‘most likely’, ‘by and large’, ‘generally speaking’, ‘believed to be’, ‘can also be understood as’ etc. If I use too many instances of these phrases, the central theme looses its firm base. It becomes too vague. Can I say with equal liberty that ‘Christians generally believe that Jesus was son of god’ or that ‘By and large, Muslims believe that Prophet Muhammad received the revelations from Allah’. It will be taken as sacrilegious – I may even be killed by some fanatics !. But in the case of Hindu Religion, I have no other alternative than to use these generalist phrases, and that too most liberally.

Hindu Religion does not have rigid dogmas demanding belief on pain of eternal damnation, no theological postulates, even no fixed theology, no credo distinguishing it from antagonistic or rival religions, there is not papal head, no governing ecclesiastic body, no church, chapel or congregational system, no binding religious form of any kind obligatory on all its adherents, no one administration and discipline. Hindu Religion admits all beliefs, allowing even a kind of high-reaching atheism and agnosticism and permits all possible spiritual experiences, all kinds of religious adventures. Even the social law varies with different castes, communities and regions.

Here is the real problem. Not for the Indian mind but for the foreigner. We are used to have a ‘nice little compact’ package of every product or philosophy. We have such ‘packages’ in other religions. There is none in Hindu religion. We are living in a ‘digital’ thinking environment. Hindu system is anything but digital. It is more a question of ‘subjective’ experience than the ‘objective’ definition. If you ask me to ‘fit’ my philosophy into your ‘digital format’, I will give your ‘few digits’ of our religion. It is like asking for DNA of MAN in order to understand him. Man is much more than a bundle of DNAs.

Having given vent to my anxiety and anguish over this matter, I will now attempt to explain the ‘general thread’ running through what is so popularly called a ‘Hindu’ religion. Before that, let me give my own name to our religion. I will love to call it ‘Bharat Dharma’. This name more aptly fits into our ‘system of religions’.

Bharat Dharma has four essential belief patterns.
1 Belief in a highest consciousness or state of existence which is universal and transcendent of the universe.
2 Need for self preparation to grow consciously into this truth of greater existence.
3 Well founded way of knowledge and spiritual discipline.
4 For common man on the elementary stage of evolution, it provided an organization of individual and collective life.

The belief in highest consciousness is such that from it all comes, in which all lives and moves without knowing it and of which all must one day grow aware returning towards that which is perfect, eternal and infinite. The self preparation is by development and experience. The well founded way of knowledge is also well explored, many-branching and always enlarging way of knowledge. For common person, it provided an organization of individual and collective life, a framework of personal and social discipline and conduct. It facilitated mental, moral and vital development. This was to enable Man to move each in his own limits and according to his own nature in such a way as to become eventually ready for the greater existence. Hinduism has encompassed every facet of LIFE. It has left out no part of life as a thing secular and foreign to the religious and spiritual life. The whole of life was DIVINISED.

Does our Bharat Dharma include other religions like Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism etc ? Well, the answer is Yes and No. To the extent these religions ‘align’ themselves with the basic tenets of Bharat Dharma, they are part of it. And they indeed do. Therefore, every Christian, Muslim, Parsi can proudly call themselves as belonging to the Bharat Dharma. There is no issue of having a ‘duel citizenship’ of two religions, simply because these two ‘labels’, as already explained above’, altogether relate to two different things – one to the RELIGION in the popular sense of the word (e.g. Christianity, Islam etc) and other to the ‘Philosophy of Life’. They seamlessly ‘blend’ into each other rather than run parallel to each other or run ‘cross roads’ to each other.

Following aspects of any religion are NOT part of Bharat Dharma
1 Belief in the ‘exclusivity’ of the ‘access to the Divine’. Belief that the person of other religion is ‘outside’ the ‘grace’ of the Divine.
2 Intolerance to the people of faiths other than one’s own religion.
3 Super Zeal to ‘save’ the people of other faiths by converting them to one’s own religion – either by force or by conceit in the garb of charity, fame, employment or other tangible and intangible benefits.
4 Using violence towards people of other religions in the name of one’s own religion.
5 Expressing disrespect to the religious practices of other faiths.
6 Most importantly, NOT treating our motherland – Bharat – in highest esteem.

It is a fact of history that India has taken under her shelter people of all faiths from the world over for thousands of years. Bharat Dharma has been ENRICHED rather than THREATENED by these people of religions which has originated outside the her soil.
The intrinsic part of the Bharat Dharma is the understanding of the ARYAN people. The Aryan is NOT the nomadic people who invaded India from north. This is an absolutely wrong and misleading understanding of the Aryan. In the words of Sri Aurobindo : ‘Whoever seeks to climb from level to level up the hill of the divine, fearing nothing, deterred by no retardation or defeat, shrinking from no vastness because it is too vast for his intelligence, no height because it is too high for his spirit, no greatness because it is too great for his force and courage, he is the Aryan, the divine fighter and victor, the noble man.’ This also sums up the basic tenet of Bharat Dharma.



The above is the broad outline of Bharat Dharma. In working out the details, there are difference between different sects, schools, communities, races and regions. Nonetheless, there is also a general unity of spirit, unity of core type and form and of spiritual temperament. This enables it to create in this vast fluidity an immense force of cohesion and a strong principle of oneness. There is an underlying belief in Bharat Dharma that the concept of Highest Consciousness is a living spiritual Truth, an Entity, a Power, a Presence. And most importantly, this Truth is ‘accessible’ to all according to their degree of capacity. It can be realised in actuality in a thousand ways. Moreover, this realization of Truth is made possible in this very life as well as beyond life. This Truth was to be lived and even to be made the governing idea of thought and life and action of our day to day living system.

This is Bharat Dharma.

Shrikant V Soman

Originally prepared on 7 November 2007
Revised on 23rd April 2009

Asura in Veda

Asura in Veda Shrikant Vasudeo

I am giving below the ‘brighter’ side of the Asura as described in the early Veda. We are very much accustomed to the idea that Asura means Demonic Power. However, very few of us realise that this was NOT so in the early Rgvedic period. I am particularly drawn to this topic because of the vertical split between Zoroastrian and Hindu cosmological allocation of divine powers to Asura and to Devas. I am uncomfortable with what knowledge has percolated down to us through the millennia of human evolution giving diametric opposition of two ancient religions on this planet. I got my impetus for my research when I discovered that Zorastrians are as divine or as human as we Hindus. Then why their god is the enemy of our god ? During my diving deep into the Vedic Treasure, I stumbled upon following gems which I want to share with you.

In Rgveda, the Indra is given ‘asura’ power by the Heaven and Earth and the Gods so that he (Indra) can crush all obstacles. (III.49.I) The asuric power meant ‘creative power’ in the early stages of the Veda. Indra was ‘asura’ in earlier times. In Rgveda, asura is NOT considered to be a demon. This demonic nature was attributed to asura in later times.

‘Asu’ means BREATH or LIFE ENERGY. The ‘ra’ means to possess and to grant. Asura therefore means the possessor of the life breath as well as its bestower. When ‘Deva’ acquires a great creative faculty, he gets the honorific title of ‘Asura’. In Rgveda, Asura was highly spiritual entity with great creative and ruling capacities. They were having excellent ‘magic’ power. All our highest devas are asuras. Varuna, Savitr and Indra are described as ‘wise asura’. So also Dyaus, Agni and Brahmanspati are given the ‘title’ of Asura.

There were two class of Asuras. One on the side of the Light or the Adityas and the other on the dark side of the cosmos. Aditya represent the principle of evolution, freedom, light and expansion. On the other hand. the opposing forces are called ‘Danavas’. However, Danavas were NOT equated with Asuras in the early Rgvedic period. It was done at much later stage. Danu means bondage, restraint. She is mother of Vrtra, the constrictor. Curiously, in Rgveda I.30.3 and 5, Indra fights also with ‘all the furious gods’, alongwith the Danavas representing the forces of darkness and chaos.

Asuras are possessor of the power of ‘maya’. Thus the conflict is between the devas ‘as asuras’ and the daityas or the sons of Diti or Danu. In Satapatha Brahmana (1.2.4.ff.), these opposing forces are of the same father – ‘ Prajapati’ but of different mothers – Aditi and Danu. In Satapatha Brahmana and Taittiriya Samhita, which are much later than the Rgveda, the term ‘asura’ is associated with the forces of darkness.

It appears that we have lost the KEY as to what made our cosmic PROTAGENISTS change their mind. Is there any missing link ? I am sure there must be some reason for this 180 degrees turn of our attributes assigned to asuras. Not much attempt seems to have been made to investigate this matter further. Our discerning faculty has been clouded by the Puranic stories giving dramatic and vivid ex-pression to the conflict between Deva and Asura.

The first act of manifestation has at its root the drive towards ‘Self Assertion’. It is the differentiating and divisive intelligence from the original ‘ONE’. It was necessary to make a world out of the undifferentiated state of darkness of VOID. This was done by the action of the Asuras. All the great asuras are the examples of this self-ex-pression of high intelligence for breaking through the circle of darkness and demarcating the various realms of the manifested world.

It is likely that at a later stage some Asuras went ‘overboard’ with their great assertive thrust and crossed the ‘threshold’ of sustaining faculty. It became egoistic and selfish detrimental to the good order of the world. In Satapatha Brahmana, it is mentioned that asuras ‘even through arrogance went on offering into their own mouth’ whilst the gods ‘went on making offerings into one another’.

Atharvaveda (III.9.4) coins the word ‘Asuramaya’. It meant divine creative power, the power of transformation. It was possessed by both gods and demons. Only at later state this power was usurped by demons for deceptive purposes.

However, in the later stages of the Veda, the word Asura is identified with the demonic power and is portrayed in much negative manner. What I have described above probably represents only 5 % of our ancient view point. The balance 95 % is what we commonly understand today by the word Asura in the negative sense of the word.


Shrikant V Soman