1.2.4. How Do We Get There? Dharma, Caste Duty and the Yogic Paths
Dharma and sva-dharma
Dharma means duty and the right way of acting, and also the order that makes right action possible. Hindus use the word both for the tradition as a whole and for what one particular person owes.
Hindus often call the tradition sanatana dharma (the eternal teaching). There is no creed to sign, and belonging shows far more in what a person does than in what a person states.
This emphasis is sometimes called orthopraxy, correct practice, as against orthodoxy, correct opinion. Two Hindus can hold quite different views about God and still be doing the same dharma.
Duty is not identical for everyone. Sva-dharma (one's own duty) is the particular set of obligations that follow from a person's birth, stage of life, gender and circumstances.
The Bhagavad Gita puts the point sharply, teaching that it is better to do one's own duty imperfectly than to do another person's duty well.
Doing dharma is the first of the two broad routes Hindu teaching names toward liberation. The second is to follow a yogic path.
Definition
Dharma means duty and the right ordering of action.
It names both the whole tradition, sanatana dharma, and each person's own obligation.
Sva-dharma is the portion that belongs to one particular life.
Hindus treat faithful dharma as a route toward liberation.
Varna and jati
Classical Hindu texts divide society into four varnas: Brahmins as priests and teachers, kshatriyas as rulers and warriors, vaishyas as merchants and farmers, and shudras as servants.
Outside and below the four grew the group once called untouchable, whose members widely self-identify today as Dalits (the oppressed). Their exclusion was tied closely to ideas of ritual purity.
Lived caste is finer grained than the four varnas. Jati (birth group) names the thousands of local communities that people are actually born into, marry within and are known by.
Each jati carries its own customs and expected work, and it is these, more than the textbook four, that supply a person's everyday sva-dharma.
The Laws of Manu set out much of this ordering in detail. Hindus differ considerably over how much authority a text of that kind should carry now.
Caste discrimination is unlawful in India and is rejected by many Hindu reformers, yet it remains habitual in parts of society. Among Hindus in Britain and North America it sits uneasily with egalitarian norms.
Definition
Varna names the four principal divisions of classical Hindu society.
They are Brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas and shudras.
Varna is received by birth rather than chosen.
Local jati groups, more than varna alone, shape daily duty.
Common Mistake
Caste is often described as one fixed system that all Hindus endorse.
Varna names four classical categories, while jati names actual local birth groups.
Untouchability has been unlawful in India since the constitution of 1950.
Reform movements and Dalit leaders have contested the system from inside Hinduism.
Hindus disagree today about how far varna is religiously binding at all.
The four ashramas
Hindu teaching also divides a life into four ashramas (stages), each carrying duties of its own.
Brahmacharya is the student stage. It traditionally begins for boys of the upper varnas at the upanayana, the sacred thread ceremony, and is given to study and self-discipline.
Grihastha is the householder stage of marriage, work, children and hospitality. Most Hindus spend most of life here, and the texts treat it as the stage that supports all the others.
Vanaprastha is retirement, a loosening of household duty in favour of study and pilgrimage. Sannyasa is renunciation, in which a person gives up home, property and ritual obligation to seek liberation directly.
Varna and ashrama taken together make varnashramadharma, the duty proper to a person's social division and stage of life. Classical texts apply the full scheme mainly to the upper varnas.
Few Hindus today pass through all four stages in the classical way. The scheme still shapes expectations, and sannyasis in ochre robes remain a familiar and respected sight.
Definition
Varnashramadharma means the duty belonging to a person's varna and stage of life.
It joins the four social divisions to the four ashramas.
Classical texts apply it most fully to the upper varnas.
Following it faithfully is presented as a route toward moksha.
Example
At an upanayana ceremony a boy receives the sacred thread worn across the chest.
A priest teaches him the Gayatri mantra from the Rig Veda.
The rite marks his entry into the student stage.
Families in India and in the diaspora still hold it, often between the ages of eight and twelve.
Some contemporary families now perform it for daughters too.
The three yogas
The second broad route is yoga, meaning a disciplined path toward moksha. The Bhagavad Gita sets out three that Hindus still name together.
Jnana yoga is the path of knowledge: study of the Upanishads, teaching received from a guru, and sustained inquiry into what the atman actually is.
Bhakti yoga is the path of devotion: love directed to a chosen deity through puja (worship), the singing of bhajans, pilgrimage, and darshan (seeing and being seen by the deity in the image).
Karma yoga is the path of action: doing one's duty fully while giving up attachment to what the action gains, so that acting no longer produces binding karma.
The Gita does not present these as three separate religions. Krishna commends each in turn to Arjuna, and most Hindus in practice combine them.
The paths are visible in modern movements. Gandhi read the Gita as a manual of karma yoga centred on selfless service, while ISKCON devotees chanting the names of Krishna in public represent bhakti yoga.
Definition
Yoga names a disciplined path leading toward moksha.
The Bhagavad Gita sets out three: jnana, bhakti and karma yoga.
Each works through a different capacity: knowing, loving and acting.
Hindus commonly combine them rather than choosing only one.
Analogy
Ramakrishna, a nineteenth-century Bengali teacher, compared religious paths to routes up one hill.
Climbers set out from different sides and by different tracks.
The views along the way are not the same.
The summit reached is held to be one.
Many Hindus apply the image to the three yogas as well as to other religions.
Ranking the paths
Hindus agree that dharma and yoga both belong on the road toward moksha. They do not agree about which of them does the liberating.
Shankara and the Advaita tradition rank jnana yoga first. Knowledge of the identity of atman and Brahman is what removes ignorance, so duty and ritual can prepare a person but cannot themselves liberate.
On that view varnashramadharma purifies and steadies the mind, and sannyasa is prized because renouncing household duty frees a person to pursue knowledge full time.
Ramanuja and the devotional traditions rank bhakti first. Knowledge and duty still matter, but liberation is given by a personal God to those who take refuge in him.
The Gita's closing instruction, in which Krishna tells Arjuna to abandon all dharmas and take refuge in him alone, is central to that reading. Advaita and bhakti commentators interpret the same verse very differently.
The difference is visible in Hindu life. A student in a Vedanta ashram and a devotee singing before a Krishna image are both seeking moksha, by routes their own teachers rank in opposite orders.
Active recall
What is the difference between dharma and sva-dharma?
How do varna and jati differ, and which shapes everyday duty more?
Name the four ashramas in order and say what each is for.
What does each of the three yogas ask a person to develop?
How do Advaita and bhakti traditions rank the paths differently?