Dharma Meaning In English – Why Its Not Easy To Translate?

The word “dharma” is among the most important terms in Hindu philosophy.  However, the dictionary meanings that come up on the search engine results give a very inadequate translation of such an important word.  Someone who is not having first hand exposure to Hindu scriptures and way of life is likely to get a wrong understanding from such imperfect translations.

What is meaning of dharma in English?
Dharma can be described as a fundamental concept of Sanatana Hindu Dharma. Dharma is the very core of Hindu philosophy. The Hindus represent the oldest living tradition adhered by over a billion people. It cannot be explained in few words. Making sense of dharma may require getting into lot of details.

Dharma is a shortened form of ‘Sanathana Dharma‘, which means ‘eternal truth‘. Dharma at its core is cosmic truth or rules that are always at play though they may take time to make an impact.

Dharma is comprehensive and covers everything in the universe – they apply to humans, animals, nature as well as non-living things. Though typically, most people mistakenly tend to look at it from a human point of view or moral code.

Dharma is also something that upholds or supports the cosmic laws. Sometimes, the expression, “It’s a way of Life” is used to describe Dharma.

Understanding dharma in its entirety requires knowledge of numerous concepts and philosophies. For humans, Dharma meaning encompasses aspects like individual duties, guidelines for ethical behavior, religious rites, and justice, to cite a few. Therefore, it is simply not possible to bring out a simple definition of dharma in a few words in the English language. What is dharma and especially dharma meaning in English needs some effort to know it correctly.

There is another important reason that prevents a proper translation of the Sanskrit word “dharma”. Hindu philosophy and its structure is different from the Abrahamic religions. For one its scope is much more vast. At this juncture, it won’t be inappropriate to succinctly focus on a few salient points on what is Dharma.

• Dharma is not religion: Many English writers have conveniently translated “dharma” into “religion”, ignoring the key aspect that is a wrong translation. Dharma at its essence is based on nature’s law or rhythm. Religion is quite a narrow viewpoint compared to the Sanathana concept of dharma. So the attempts of such writers to call “dharma” a religion only give a wrong view.

• Dharma is very comprehensive to explain in few words: Dharma meaning is not something that can be done as sentence or two. As per Hindu philosophy, “dharma” is further divided into many categories like samanya dharma, vishesha dharma, apad dharma, and svadharma, among many others. Thus, it is simply unimaginable that a short description in English shall be able to aptly convey everything that falls under “dharma”.

• Dharma cannot be understood from non-Hindu framework: As it’s relatively easy to translate the content present in scriptures of Abrahamic religions, it does not mean that the same can be applied to Hindu Dharma. Sanatana Hindu Dharma is not only a huge collection of several scriptures, and writings of many seers and sages spread over thousands of years. But also its metaphysical concepts are very profound, unique and insightful.
• Hindu framework is unique, need to understand it for getting right meaning of dharma: In the Shruthi scriptures, the Paramatma i.e supreme being manifests as the mukkoti devidevathas or 33 principal dieties who co-exist with each other to make the world better. A Hindu diety has no issues with worship to any of the other Hindu dieties. Sanathana Hindu Dharma respects an individual’s limitations and choices and gives a wide variety of choices for divine worship.
• Likewise, the Sanatana Hindu Dharma emphasizes the law of karma and its relation to rebirth. But, faiths such as Judaism, Islam, and, Christianity hold that there is only one earthly life.

• Abrahamic religions, all of which came into existence in the Middle East, have a rigid concept of God. They proclaim that God belongs to the male gender and he severely punishes any human who does not acknowledge him.
• Whereas in the Hindu framework, there are goddesses who are equally important and have a very prominent position. Further, the actions that support cosmic laws are as important if not more important than mere worship of Gods and such actions are called Dharma.
• Unique concepts like aatmikta make dharma complex to understand: Atmik is another term that though translated as spirituality is again a weak translation.

• This once again throws light on two things. One is the unique and comprehensive framework of the Hindu divinity. Secondly, the translation of ‘dharma’ into a few words of English gives a sub-optimal meaning of its true sense.
• Short translations of dharma without context of Hindu philosophy can distort understanding: There are many other areas where Hindu phiolosophy of divine differs from these other religions in a big way. Hence, it’s obvious that translation into English is a thing that is not right for numerous precepts and terms of Hindu philosophy of the divine.
• They will only distort the actual meaning and projects a wrong picture of Sanathana Hindu Dharma – a living tradition that predates Abrahamic religions’ by multiple thousands of years(millennia).

Dharma meaning In English or What is dharma is not easy to explain
While we have directionally indicated what Dharma is in this article, A full translation of dharma meaning in English is not easy. There are now quite a few writers in the English language who maintain that the non-translatable terms of Hindu divine philosophy must be retained as they are. They argue that these terms should directly be added to the English vocabulary, as has been the case with several Latin, Greek, and French terms. It’s only then that the sanctity of this ancient, all-encompassing religion of the world can be protected. So using the word dharma as is in English is a wise choice!

You may also Like to Read:

Samanya Dharma – A Beginners Introduction
Apad Dharma – Beginners Intro
Vishishta Dharma Or Vishesha Dharma – Beginners Intro