Dhamma

[Vaska Tumir]

Andrew Dinn adds:
>Vaska Tumir writes:
>> Is it also not true that in "demotic" or everyday usage it primarily
>> refers to something like one's social fate [SNIP] Often used to bolster the
>> rigidities of the caste system, which Buddhism has hardly made a
>> dent on in the Indian subcontinent?
>
>I looked Dhamma up in Xmas Humphrey's Dictionary of Buddhism [SNIP]
>It also gave five principle meanings, one of
>which seemed pretty much akin to Karma or phenomena as seen from the
>perspective of unfolding cause and effect. And yes Karma was used to
>bolster the caste system in India, although it should be noted that
>Buddhism and the Dhamma rejected the notion of caste for most of the
>religion's history, both inside and outside of India, providing an
>escape route for many Indians from an oppressive system. 

Very true of Buddhism -- it's just that only a tiny fraction of India's
population has ever embraced it to the exclusion of Vedic religion(s)
[though Buddhism's rejection of the caste system combined with its
insistence on the  possibility of personal "salvation" from the Wheel of
Suffeering or the Wheel of Desire might have made it even more popular over
the centuries, were it not for other social forces at play].  But as
socially liberating as Buddhism has always been, at least potentially, it's
not made much of an impact there: if I understand both the literature on
this subject and my Indian friends [as well as the new Indian writers who do
use both concepts fairly often], outside Buddhism, your dharma (as your fate
and hence your caste identity, too) proceeds from the karma accumulated over
the previous lives, so what is, is right.  I've often wondered how Buddhism
had managed to disentagle the concepts it took from the Vedic tradition from
the concept of caste, and my best guess [I haven't really found much in the
way of explanation about this] is that it was done simply by fiat. 

Vaska