Miles Adair

Religion 2300, Section 400

Dharma in Hindu and Buddhist Religions
What is dharma? Largely it depends on whom you ask. Dharma has
different meanings to different people depending fundamentally on their
faith. Although both Hindus and Buddhists live their lives adhering to
Dharma, the meaning to each religion is different.
The Hindu views of dharma originate from a place of spirituality. The
teachings of Hinduism originally come from a set of sacred texts called the
Vedas, which are believed to be the breath of the eternal delivered to the
rishis, or sages, by deities.1 Dharma to the Hindus essentially encompasses
duty, natural law, social welfare, ethics, health, and transcendental
realization.2 Therefore, literally everything is influenced by dharma. For
Hindus, at each age or stage of life there is an expected lifestyle and
deportment that both men and women should adhere to. For example, male
children are supposed to attend school and gain an education and remain
celibate, a young to middle-aged man is supposed to have a wife and a
family, and older men are supposed to move away from worldly things in
preparation for their next life.3 By living dharma, a person is living the life
that they are supposed to lead in the appropriate manner that is expected of
them. It is essentially adhering to the will of the deities, for each person is
1 Fisher,MaryPat.andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.
Print.P.75.
2 Fisher,MaryPat.andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.
Print.P.72.
3 Fisher,MaryPat.andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.
Print.P.99.

born into a specific role or caste (although the caste system has been refuted
in recent years) and is expected to perform and live according to that
specific role.
Hindus believe in an eternal soul, that oneself remains the same and through
death the soul leaves one body and through birth takes on a new form of life.
While living a human life, an individual has the opportunity to live a life of
perfect dharma and escape the eternal circle of birth and death to achieve
merging with the absolute reality. In order to live a life of perfect dharma,
one must embody the concept of karma. To the Hindus, karma is the idea
that our life is what we make it and that our future is created by the choices,
actions, and thoughts we have now. So a man becomes pure through pure
deeds and actions.

If a person is living a life of good karma, they will also be

living dharma, because these concepts are closely linked in that living
dharma, reaching your full potential in whatever specific role you are in,
means that you will also obtain good karma by doing good deeds, working
hard, and so forth.
Buddhism came about as a reformation of Hinduism, arguably as a revolt
against the caste system. Unlike Hindus, Buddhists do not believe in or
worship any type of god, but they do adhere to the teachings of the Buddha
as a way to pattern their lives and achieve their ultimate enlightenment and
rest. The main teachings of the Buddha are known as the dharma, which

4 Fisher,MaryPat.andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.
Print.P.79.

include the Four Noble Truths.5 Therefore, Buddhists also live their lives as
prescribed by the dharma, however instead of being teachings or guidelines
given by deities, they are simply beliefs that the Buddha believed would lead
to wisdom, enlightenment, and compassion among people. While Buddhism
retained dharma as a core principal of the faith in this new religion, it found a
similar but new meaning. Dharma is still a way of living ones life, but not as
some direction from the gods or a certain lifestyle you should have based on
your sex and age. The Buddha taught a pursuit of a life without suffering by
eliminating desires from ones life, and the dharma provides guidelines to do
such.
Unlike Hindus, Buddhists believe that there is no kind of eternal soul.6
However, they do believe in a cycle of birth and death. This cycle, instead of
evolving around the idea of an eternal soul, revolves around another shared
concept of the two faiths: karma. In the Buddhist faith, karma is similar to the
Hindu belief in that it is an idea that peoples actions shape their
experiences, and that each choice has an equal consequence. However, this
does not affect their beings as eternal souls and assign them to some kind of
higher or lower other reality based on their deeds, but instead when a person
dies their karma passes on as a new life as a reflection of his or her karma
and their choices and life based on following the dharma.7
5 Fisher,MaryPat.andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.
Print.P.141.
6 Fisher,MaryPat.andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.
Print.P.143.
7 Fisher,MaryPat.andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.
Print.P.143.

After looking at both faiths, it is clear that there are a host of similarities in
their views and practices of Dharma, perhaps because Buddhism is
considered a reformation of Hinduism. In spite of their many similarities, the
faiths have a few key fundamental differences that provide distinction
between them.

Bibliography
Fisher,MaryPat.,andLeeW.Bailey.LivingReligions.UpperSaddleRiver,N.J:PearsonPrenticeHall,2008.Print.