Preface
The Dravidian Stockists have an outlandish lexicon of their own in defining and describing terminologies, that will differ from the general understanding of normal people. They will adopt some ingenious interpretation and inference for common terminologies that will suit their own weird logic.
The first example is the word, ‘Dravidam’ itself. It refers to the vast geographical area below Vindhya hills, called Dravida Desam and the area above is termed as Gowda Desam. Again each half is divided into five areas. Thus, Dravida Desam comprises of entire Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka and Dravidam (comprising of the present Tamil Nadu and Kerala). But, our local hindu-baiting die-hard groups refer to ‘Dravidam’ as an exclusive ethnic faction in Tamil Nadu alone. Since, historically majority leaders of their parent unit viz., Justice Party consisted mainly of affluent landlords hailing from Andhra Pradesh, they could not explicitly christen it as “Tamilian” and they peculated the word, ‘Dravidam’ and accorded it an absurd connotation to camouflage and confuse the masses. The plain fact is that their political reach ends with Chennai in the north and Hosur in the west, beyond which even a dog will not cast a glance at them! And nobody dare to question this obvious travesty of truth!
The next terminology in their misappropriation is the term “Sanathana Dharma”.
What Is Sanatana Dharma?
‘Sanatana Dharma’ is touted as the twin brother of ‘Manu’ in the context of receiving condemnation from the crooked, closed-minded Dravidian Stockists! This phrase has been maliciously misinterpreted as something sectarian and belonging to an exclusive domain, so as to facilitate the missionaries and their local lackeys can spread canards among the masses about Hindu way of life in order that they easily become a victim of conversion. As is their wont, they spread an impression that Sanatana Dharma is an esoteric set of rules imposed with selfish interest by narrow minded Brahmins on the rest of the society.
But, it is not so. Sanatana Dharma, on the other hand, is all-inclusive, going beyond caste, creed, religion, nations, species and even beyond time scale. It is transcendental, eternal. ‘सनातन’ (Sanatan) means eternal/perpetual and ‘धर्म’ (Dharm) means law, rule, statute, ethics, scruples, morals, ethos, ideals. [In fact, ‘dharma’ cannot be defined in western languages with an exact equivalent, since the concept itself is absent in their value system] . It encompasses love, sympathy, kindness, compassion, warmth, selfless sacrifice, philanthropy, honesty, ahimsa, purity, goodwill, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, generosity, and asceticism and everything that we refer to as virtue.
To put it simply, Santana Dharma is an eternal way of life to uphold good virtues so that it leads to the spiritual evolvement of a human being.
The All Embracing Aspect Of Sanatana Dharma
Here is a Vedic command. ‘सत्यं वद, धर्मं चर।’ [Always speak the truth, Do only good.] Is it not ubiquitous, universal? Is there any limitations of time, place, person when we say it?
The clarion, crystal-clear declaration of Sanatana Dharma is ‘सर्वे जना: सुखिनो भवन्तु’ [Bliss be unto all.], which encompasses the entire humanity. All the prayers are panoptic, global in their reach and never restricted to any class, cult or creed. The following are just a few of the daily prayers of Sanatana Dharma:
ॐ सर्वेशां स्वस्तिर्भवतु ।
सर्वेशां शान्तिर्भवतु ।
सर्वेशां पुर्णंभवतु ।
सर्वेशां मङ्गलंभवतु ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
May there be Well-Being in All,
May there be Peace in All,
May there be Fulfilment in All,
May there be Auspiciousness in All,
Om Peace! Peace! Peace!
सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः सर्वे सन्तु निरामया।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु मा कश्चित् दुःखभाग् भवेत्।।
(Let everyone be happy, healthy, safe. Let no one face misery.)
In fact, it goes still further to include not only human beings but all living species as well.
ॐ। तच्छं योरावृणीमहे। गातुं यज्ञाय। गातुं यज्ञपतये। दैवी स्वस्तिरस्तु नः। स्वस्तिर्मानुषेभ्यः। ऊर्ध्वं जिगातु भेषजम्। शं नो अस्तु द्विपदे। शं चतुष्पदे। ॐ शान्तिश्शान्तिश्शान्तिः॥
—तैत्तिरीयारण्यके १.९.७
[“We especially pray to that Brahman/Om] for alleviating our current and future diseases. We pray for the successful conduct of this ‘yajna’. We pray for the success of this ‘yajamana’. May there be divine prosperity for us. May our progeny get prosperity. May our herbs (plants) grow upwards. May there be prosperity for our people. May there be prosperity for our animals. OM, may there be peace, may there be peace, may there be peace.”]
—Taittiriya Aranyaka 1.9.7
Unlike other parochial, partisan Abrahamic religions, it does not say, ‘Ours is the only true religion. If you do not follow our path, you are a sinner. You will go to hell’; nor does it incite their followers to pounce upon and kill those who do not yield for conversion to their religion. Sanatana Dharma perceives the entire universe as the manifestation of a single source of divinity and consequently everything we perceive is sacred and a part of that omnipotent being.
‘सर्वं विष्णुमयं जगत्।’
[Everything in the universe is only ‘Vishnu’]
Only the Hindu devotee says with universal outlook, proclaiming that just as all the rain drops from heaven finally reaches the single ocean, let all the prayers addressed by anyone to any deity of one’s choice reach the only one Almighty. In essence, he accepts, without discrimination, any form of idol or symbol or holy book as a true representation of God. For him, Allah, Holy Spirit or Sacred Book or any image is God and only God.
आकाशात् पतितं तोयं यथा गच्छति सागरम् ।
सर्व देव नमस्कार: केशवं प्रति गच्छति ॥
Sanatana Dharma defines succinctly the eternal postulate as under:
श्लोकार्धेन प्रवक्ष्यामि यदुक्तं ग्रन्थकोटिभिः ।
परोपकारः पुण्याय पापाय परपीडनम् ॥
[Virtue and vice described in millions of texts can be defined just in half a stanza: Serving humanity is virtue and harming is vice.]
Sanatana Dharma postulates that one should live a life of lofty principles, not just an unethical existence. One should prefer death to dishonorable survival. We believe that the Almighty is all pervading and, through various universal elements, is witnessing all our actions and even thoughts. Our acceptance in the inescapable law of karma is inborn.
एको देवः सर्वभूतेषु गूढः सर्वव्यापी सर्वभूतान्तरात्मा |
कर्माध्यक्षः सर्वभूताधिवासः साक्षी चेता केवलो निर्गुणश्च ||
“The Lord is hidden in the hearts of all.
The eternal witness, pure consciousness,
He watches our work from within, beyond
The reach of the gunas (attributes of mind).”
(Shvetashvatara Upanishad Sl. VI.11]
Srimad Bhagavatam lists those who are all those witnesses:
सूर्योऽग्नि: खं मरुद्देव: सोम: सन्ध्याहनी दिश: ।
कं कु: स्वयं धर्म इति ह्येते दैह्यस्य साक्षिण: ॥
Srimad Bhagavatam 6-1-42.
[The sun, fire, sky, air, deities, moon, evening, day, night, directions, water, land and the Atman [soul] all are witnesses to the activities of the living entity.]
While Vedas and Upanishads prescribe the set of rules for righteous living, Sanatana Dharma also teaches those values through simple stories which everyone can easily learn and practise.
A Few Illustrations
Our ithihasas and puranas are rich in such events where sterling qualities are displayed by many characters. If we study Ramayana, with humility and a sincere aim to learn values of life, instead of looking at it with a caviling and carping bent of mind, each character will be a role model for a particular virtue. Similarly, characters from puranas like Harischandra, Ranthi Deva, Bhishma, Dhruva, Prahlad just to name a few, will teach us worthy lessons of life.
In the history of Tamil kings, Manu Neethi Cholan was ready to sacrifice his own son to render justice to a cow. Pandian Nedunchezhiyan, on realising that he had, in haste, caused the death of Kovalan, sacrificed his life immediately to uphold justice.
By tradition, these episodes are imparted to children during their vital formative years by their parents, teachers and elders, thus building an exemplary foundation for their virtuous future life as a fruit of which the entire society blossoms into an ideal place of harmony and happiness, contentment and consonance, peace and prosperity. The glory and grandeur of a nation is assessed not by the material affluence or modern amenities but by the character and calibre of its people.
The unique feature of Sanatana Dharma is the concept of Karma Theory and the cycle of births and deaths according to one’s deeds. This is not taught in any specific school but it forms part of one’s individual personality since birth. This also acts as a safety valve in society when one comes across occasional inequities in daily life.
Let us look at a few instances of interesting characters who lived upto the tenets of Sanathana Dharma:
The first one is a butcher, by name Dharma Vyadha, who teaches Dharma to a Brahmin sannyasin! The episode occurs in the Vana Parva section of Mahabharata and is told to Yudhisthira, by Sage Markandeya.
The Vyadha teaches the brahmin sannyasin that ‘no duty is ever ugly, no duty is ever impure’, and it is only the way & the spirit in which the work is done, determines its worth. The utterly amazed sannyasin asks the Vyadha as to how he could became so highly illumined even while doing such a filthy, ugly menial work. The Vyadha says that his past Karma (deeds of previous life) had placed him in these circumstances. He asserts that no duty is ever ugly, no duty is ever impure, and that it is only the attitude in which the work is done that determines its worth. He advises that all work must be done with full involvement of heart, soul, mind and intellect by dedicating the work and its results to the Almighty. Through sincere and detached performance of the allotted duty in one’s earthly life itself one can become spiritually illumined and liberated from the cycle of births and deaths. He further says that a decision on what is Dharma under difficult circumstances should be made by sticking to that course of action which leads to the highest good of beings.
The story describes the importance of performance of Swadharma. (prescribed duty or one’s duty in life or one’s own duty).
Incidentally, Lord Krishna Himself mentions about this Butcher in Shrimad Bhagavatam as an enlightened soul.
Another one is Kumarila Bhatta: He went in disguise and learnt Buddhist philosophy with the ulterior motive of defeating it through his own Mimamsa philosophy. Later he atones for the sin and burnt his body slowly, placing himself inside a mound of husk lighted on all four sides. He tells Adi Sankara justifying the gruesome punishment he inflicted upon himself,
‘If someone teaches you even a word he is a guru. Then what can you say about some one who has thought you the whole shastra? By negating what has been thought by the omnipotent guru I have betrayed him. Having learnt the buddhist philosophy from Sugata I used it against him. I am punishing myself for my sins’. he had said thus.
We cannot but look with awe and disbelief at his sense of upholding Dharma at the cost of his life.
Let us look at a more contemporary incident which goes to prove that Sanatana Dharma is ingrained in the DNA of our people, whatever be their position in society even today:
A nationalised bank launched upon a unique scheme during 70’s and 80’s, to cater exclusively to the poorest of the sections of the society, living in pavements, are self-employed and who could not have access to regular bank loans, with amounts starting from as low as ₹500/-. The bank employed cash collectors who would go and receive loan instalments on a daily basis. Thus a cobbler, working at a street corner was given a loan of ₹500/- and he was repaying the instalments regularly. After a few months, he could not be seen and enquiries in the neighbourhood about his whereabouts proved futile. Since the balance due was small, the bank wrote off the loan. Several years passed. When everything was forgotten, a youth came to the bank and said, ‘My father was a cobbler. I learnt that he had borrowed some money from your bank. I want to repay it with interest.’. The bank initially denied his statement and when he insisted, searched their old records and discovered the existence of the old loan. The bank said, ‘Look, the amount is quite small. We have already written it off. You need not pay anything now.’ But, this was what he said, ‘My father is dead. It is my bounden duty, as his son, to ensure that he is no longer a debtor. So, kindly tell me the total amount with interest. I want to pay in full.’. And he paid. That is Sanatana Dharma.
Conclusion
Today, if we look at the personal lives of those who criticize Sanatana Dharma, many of them will be seen leading a furtive and foxy, fraudulent and foul, lavish and lustful, corrupt and criminal, dishonest and debauchery lives with countless skeletons in their cupboards. Naturally, the tenets of Sanatana Dharma are anathema to them. Since they do not relish the common man discovering bitter truths about them, they deflect their attention towards some meaningless pursuits among which, their loathsome attempt to misinterpret ‘Sanatana Dharma’ is one. But, people have discovered their deceitful design. This may be their last wicket and soon it will be all out and everyone will be back in the pavilion!
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