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PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
409
If you mean family or traditional conduct by religion then this definition is also very narrow and in that case irreligious acts would be deemed as religious. Father of Maheshwaradatta while dying said : "It is our traditional conduct to slaughter a he-buffalo at funeral obsequies to be performed after death and this is our family tradition". Then Maheshwaradatta slaughtered a hebuffalo. Now can you call it religon ? Such traditional conducts vary from place to place and race to race and such conducts are found to be contradictory. One is prohibited to perform that rite which the other persons enjoy to perform. To illustrate : There is a tradition that a woman is delivered after her first pregnancy at the place of her parents, while some other tradition lays down that in such delivery the woman is not to be sent to the parents' place at all.
The meaning of religion which conveys injunctions and prohibitions laid down in scriptures is also not proper, as the scriptures are numerous and consequently such injunctions and prohibitions are also numerous. To illustrate : One scripture prohibits nocturnal diets while the other scripture lays down to dine after moonrise under prescribed rites. Some scriptures lay down that a devotee should abandon all pamperings for the body, he should even drop his bath while the other scripture lays down that such a devotee should preserve his physique with all care and he should take regular baths. Thus it is very difficult to regard or disregard any of such scriptural injunctions as they are self-contradictory. Thus it is not proper to mean scriptural injunctions and prohibitions as religion.
Sometime back a social worker wrote to prominent social workers asking about the meaning of religion and he also received the replies resembling the definitions or explanations of religion refuted by us as above. From this you can judge that the prominent leaders also have not properly digested the true concept of religion.
MEANING OF DHARMA (RELIGION)
In fact, it is not so easy to define or to derive the meaning of a word. Such definition or derivation of a meaning necessitates full knowledge of grammar, glossary, tradition and various scriptures. Our authors of the scriptures are well versed in grammar
