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[edit] Highly Innacurate Sentence in Buddhist Dharma Section

In discussing the Buddhist use of the term "dharma" to mean "phenomenon" (such as sabbe "dhamma" anatta or the seventy-five "dharmas"), the article includes this sentence:

"Rejecting the substantial existence of permanent entities which are qualified by possibly changing qualities, Buddhist Abhidharma philosophy, which enumerated seventy-five dharmas, came to propound that these 'constituent factors' are the only type of entity that truly exists"

The problem, of course, is that over history dozens of different Buddhist "abhidharma philosophies" have differed as to the true existence or non-existence of any number of dhammas. The acceptance of the seventy-five dharmas as the only "truly existent" reality is not a universal Buddhist notion. Within Buddhism, we find schools rejecting the inherent existence of any dharms, schools positing the reality of all dharmas, schools recognizing two distinct "levels" of reality for dharmas (relative and ultimate), and everything in-between. This sentence needs to be fixed. Calaf 18:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dharma and Governance

Dharma is often mistaken to be religion. Oxford dictionary describes it as the universal law of nature. It is often said to be wider than religion. It has two components. One, rituals and practises as in all religions, but here too with a difference. While many tribal faiths and even Greek beliefs were polytheistic, and faiths such as Christainty and Islam are monotheistic in that they believe in one god and one prophet, Dharma is henotheistic in that it believes in various manifestations of the only superconscious. As result it respects other faiths, sarva dharma sambhaav, and does not proseltize. This is sometimes mischieviously misinterpreted to mean that a person can be Hindu only by birth when it truly means that one has simply to say that he is Hindu to be one!

The other component of Dharma is rights and duties of various functionaries of society such as the state, business, teacher, husband, wife, father, mother and the youth. The first two define the ideology. According to ancient Hindu scriptures the Dharma or duty of the state is to allow every local entity, village and city cordinated by the janpad (district,county)to govern itself, and demand not more than one-sixth of its revenues for higher level functions and coordination. Controlling five-sixth revenues, the local governments prosper, the one-sixth of the state shoots up and it too becomes prosperous! Omnipotent (Chaktravarti) monarchs such as Ram monitored such democracy in neighbouring kingdoms thus making Bharat (India) akhand, that is one nation at a time when Europe was divided.

Gandhi advocated such true democracy. Desire of the then leadership to centralise power led to the partition of India, the traumas of Kashmir and the all round social, environemntal and political degradation witnessed today. For restoring India's ancient tradition of true democracy, People First, a trust dedicated to instituting good governance, has conceptualised that apart from parliament and an independent judiciary, contemporary democracy needs another institution, an independent Sovereign Rights Commission with authority to direct referendums, except on issues fundamental to democracy or the integrity of the nation. There can, for example be no referendum on making the state theocratic or a region seceding. Superior to the Royal Priest of bygone days, more like Gandhi, the Commission will on the bases of the wishes ascertained for the people prepare a proposed Constition and refer the present versus the proposed Constitution to the people through referendum. The people will overwhelmingly vote in favour of the latter. The Commission will then authenticate it this time truly in the name of the people as the supreme law of the nation. India will be on the path of rejvenation and lead the emergence of a just world order based on social justice and equity.

For more information, visit website www.peoplefirstindia.org. or email peoplefirst@devalt.org.

SK Sharma, Manging Trustee, People First


Mr. Sharma, what you have said above has no place on the talk page of a wikipedia article. This page is used to discuss the article of Dharma, and ways to improve it.

Your post above is a sort of solicitation for something else altogether and so shouldn't be here in the first place. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:54, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why is this page part of Hinduism

Hello, I just clicked Dharma in Buddhism and was directed here. Then I typed Buddahdharma and was again directed here. This page should be representation of all darma related religions. I will off "WikiProject Hinduism". FWBOarticle

[edit] Hinduism portal shifted

There must be dozen of different indian origin religion which use dharma. There is no point and no space to put all of it in intro. Each portal should be placed where each secton of respective religion are. Plus, previous placement was bit biased toward Hinduism. FWBOarticle

[edit] Sorry, still bais towards hindus

This page is still bais towards hindu concepts of Dharma


[edit] Introduction change

I changed the introduction so that it starts from the what, when, where, and by whom parts. The previous version directly started off with the meaning, which can come a little later. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) 03:43, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

IAF's edit has been reverted because: 1) To restrict Dharma to a religious/spiritual term is incorrect. Dharma has a wider meaning. 2) The cleanup template is unnecessary; this is a B-Class article that has been developed over a long period. 3) The other information added is already present within the introduction so is unnecessary. Thankyou. Langdell (talk) 15:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Langdell's edits have been reverted because, Dharma is indeed a spiritual term that arose from a religious appeal and still centers around religious spheres (except of course in the discourses of Osho, Rajneesh and the like). The earlier introduction lacked encyclopaedic language, failed to mention some facts and was far too subjective. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 16:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Rev to the earlier edit of mine because

  1. Dharma's place of origin is mentioned (India).
  2. That it is a spiritual and religious connotative term. Also, its meaning in the most common sense of the term in most Indian languages.
  3. It's emphasis in all the Indian religions, in fact one of the geneses of Indian faith system(s) is Dharma.

Thanks. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:11, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I have once again reverted the edits by Langdel, who has still not tried to explain his version of edits in the talk page, as of yet. However, I will continue to give an explanation of my latest edits :-

Langdel's version fails to mention in the opening line that Dharma is an Indian spiritual and a religious term. There was over emphasis on explaining the philosophy behind Dharma in the opening para itself, while ignoring facts. All and all, Langdel's version seemed less like an encyclopaedic article, and more as though straight out of an ISKCON manual. That is why his version is not kept. Thanks. 06:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


Reverted Langdell's version again for the following reasons :-

  1. The article seems less encyclopaedic, and more of an Osho discourse. The language used was awfully meaningless. Sample these "gems" from Mr. Langdell :-

In common discourse, Dharma may be employed to explain .. .. the binding metaphysical system, laws of reciprocity and comportment in, and of, an ethical and energetic complex.

The idea of dharma as appropriate action or righteousness becomes possible when the concept of a universal order is reached within early vedic culture.

The next two take the prize ;-)

An early demonstration of the continuity of thought from rta to dharma is a brief but "pregnant definition" ((3) of dharma given in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,

The longest incomprehensible gibberish in the world :-

This latter signification has nothing to do with the personality of the spiritual teacher Siddhartha Gautama but rather signifies the importance of the attitude of bodymind that enables an adept or practitioner to re-harmonise their personal nature with the underlying principle (Dharma) behind natural phenomena leading towards the undoing of all egoistic falsehood constituted by the aggregates and ultimately release in nirvana - generically referred to in Indian religions as liberation (moksha).

I cleaned up all the above scrap and have attempted to make the article free of adjectives, and have helped to ebb the ooze of ISCON-ishness. This article was written with a massive overdoze of hallucinants. "Pregnant Definition".........yeah, truly amazing. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 06:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)