Apad Dharma – Beginners Intro

The concept of “Dharma” is the foundation of Hinduism or Sanathana dharma. Bharat or India is the world’s oldest living civilization. We have already published articles earlier on samanya dharma and vishista dharma (also called vishesha dharma). In this article, our goal is to simplify and explain the concept of apad dharma.

What is Apad dharma in summary
The “Apad Dharma” means the lowering of standards of conduct that is acceptable in adversities, unusual circumstances and extraordinarily difficult situations. that affect the entire framework of society. Wars, natural calamities, civil war, floods and famine are examples of those abnormal situations and circumstances. There are times of personal calamities or extremely dangerous situations at which times apad dharma concession is acceptable.

Apad Dharma in bit more detail
In grave situations, there is a lot of disturbance and turmoil in society. In such testing times, it becomes extremely difficult for individuals to strictly abide by the normal standards of Dharma.

• It is in these turbulent and difficult situations that the “Apad Dharma” come into play. Here, people are free to deviate from their “normal Dharma” during the period of the emergency situation. This could be samanya dharma, vishesha dharma or varna dharma.
• The person affected by the calamity or extremely unfavorable situation is allowed to lower some standards to survive the dire circumstance.
• The gravity could also be a person confronting an extremely dangerous situation. In normal times, sanyasis and swamis sworn to always speaking politely and bound to ahimsa (complete non-violence). However, there are instances where they may be compelled to use harsh words or use some force to protect themselves from danger from criminals or wild animals.
• Rishi Agastya spend a lot of time spreading the knowledge of dharma to human settlements unaware of dharma and living in primitive manner – it is said he was expert in martial arts to protect himself from wild animals in the unexplored dense jungles and possibly some human settlements that were hostile.

Relaxations to samanya dharma during apada
There are many standards of behavior in samanya dharma like feeding uninvited guests, contributing to social causes, regularly visiting pilgrim sites, supporting relatives education, marriage costs or business commencement capital contribution. In a survival mode during times of apada or dangerous circumstances – you are allowed to protect yourself first. So they may stop such social charitable activities. As per samanya dharma, a Sanatani is not supposed to hurt any animal including a wild animal but if a wild animal attacks then they are allowed to protect themself from the danger or apada.

Relaxations to varna dharma during apada
Another example, would be a brahmana in a society in turmoil when it is extremely to get a proper meal for many days and take care of basic survival needs of family. In such situation of calamity, a brahmana can change their livelihood. A brahmana is expected to first opt for Ksatriya role to restore order in society. Going for Vysya role is less favored option and even then, there are restrictions on doing certain types of business. During times of apada or highly unfavorable social circumstances, it is acceptable for a person of any of the three dwijja classes to do less stressful, less challenging or ordinary work of the sudras to survive the difficult times.

A trader is supposed to not profiteer or sell at atrocious prices. However, when a consignment of supplies is lost in floods, looted by dacoits – then the trader is allowed to increase the price beyond normal to recoup the highly unfavorable circumstance. The businessman may also reduce or totally stop supporting the local temple or feeding the hungry during dire circumstances. Then, once the situation improves they are expected to restart the charitable activities.

Let us look at another example. Basic schooling, training and education in ancient Indian society was done in village temples. There are 64 subjects that were taught in higher learning ashramas. But even in village all the required knowledge applicable to the village for various professions was taught by the village brahmanas to the residents of the village. If in a certain village no teacher is available for certain subjects; this becomes apada to the village future if youngsters are not trained properly in childhood. In the interest of education of the youth in village, a non-brahmin can take up the teaching work and follow standards of brahmana till a full-time teacher (brahmana) makes the village their home.

Relaxations to Ashrama dharma during apada
A person who is a grandfather, who is in the sanyasa ashrama i.e. stopped earning money and withdrawn from material world to be in sync with their ashrama dharma. However, in the unfortunate situation of his son passing away and being entrusted with responsibility of supporting grandchildren and daughter-in-law – the person may come out of sanyasa ashrama and start earning a livelihood till the grandchildren grow-up and stand on their own feet. This is another example of apada dharma.

On return to normalcy person has to revert to their primary dharma
The Hindu scriptures stipulate that once adversity or apada is gone and normal circumstances are restored, persons have to go back to their normal dharma. They cannot continue to lower their standards of behavior or neglect their main dharma once the danger or difficult situation has passed.

Read our Dharma Related Articles including Samanya Dharma, Apad Dharma, Vishesha Dharma and Sanathan Dharma.