________________
10
The Bhāgavata-purāņa
[CH. tentment, meaning sex-restriction to one's own wife and also cessation from sense-attractions (visaya-tyāga), shame at the commission of evil deeds (hri), patience as capacity in bearing hardships (kşamā), evenness of mind (ārjava), philosophic knowledge of reality (jñāna), peace of mind (sama as citta-praśāntatā), desire to do good to others (dayā), meditation, meaning withdrawal of the mind from all sense objects (dhyāna as nirvisaya), as universal dharmas. Yājñavalkya says that the highest of all dharmas is selfknowledge through yoga.
These universal dharmas are to be distinguished from the special dharmas of the different castes, of the different stages of life (āśrama), or under different conditions. We have thus three stages in the development of the concept of dharma, i.e. dharma as the duty of following the Vedic injunctions, dharma as moral virtues of non-injury, truthfulness, self-control etc., dharma as selfknowledge through yoga.
But the Bhāgavata presents a new aspect of the notion of dharma. Dharma according to the Bhāgavata consists in the worship of God without any ulterior motive—a worship performed with a perfect sincerity of heart by men who are kindly disposed towards all, and who have freed themselves from all feelings of jealousy. This worship involves the knowledge of the absolute, as a natural consequence of the realization of the worshipfulness of the spirit, and naturally leads to supreme bliss?. The passage under discussion does not directly refer to the worship of God as a characteristic of the definition of dharma as interpreted by Sridhara?. The dharma consists of absolute sincerity-absolute cessation of the spirit from all motives, pretensions and extraneous associations of every description: and it is assumed that, when the spirit is freed from all such extraneous impurities, the natural condition of the spirit is its natural dharma. This dharma is therefore not a thing that is to be attained or achieved as an external acquirement, but it is man's own nature, which manifests itself as soon as the impurities are removed. The fundamental condition of dharma is not therefore something positive but negative, consisting of the dissociation (projjhita) of extraneous elements (kitava). For, as soon as the extraneous elements are wiped out, the spirit shows itself in its own
1 Bhāgavata-purāna, 1. 1. 2, interpreted according to Sridhara's exposition.
komalam Isvarārādhana-laksano dharmo nirūpyate. Sridhara's comment on the above passage.
