Blackwell Reference Online

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[xiv] The concept of morality stands in a problematic relation to religious thought. The term rita, for example, plays a significant role in the Vedas; it designates the fixed order of the cosmos, the order of the rituals which image and sustain it and, at a personal and social level, the network of duties and responsibilities, breach of which invites punishment by Varuna, the divine defender of oaths and vows. In later Hindu writings the term Dharma is the focal term expressing the social order as it is divinely ordained, the balance of Castes and life-stages that marks the perfect society (e.g. in the description of the City of Ayodhya in the Valmiki Ramayana) and the caste-, gender- and life-stage-based system of duties and responsibilities that shapes the life of each individual. The law-books, the Dharma Shastras, express the social reality of dharma in terms of a code of laws with appropriate sanctions against transgressors. Neither rita nor dharma corresponds precisely to the concept of morality. Rita is the fixed order of things, violation of which invites the god who guards that order to use his magical powers to bind the transgressor: the concept is both wider and narrower than morality. Dharma, as expounded in the lawbooks, differs from the modern concept of morality in that it defines duties and responsibilities in terms of caste status and life-stage, not in terms of ... log in or subscribe to read full text