ˈdərmə noun
( -s )
Etymology: Sanskrit, literally, that which is established, from dhārayati he holds — more at firm
1. Hinduism
a.
(1) : social custom regarded as one's duty
some dharma such as not eating beef and respecting Brahmans is common to all Hindus — Talcott Parsons
(2) : caste custom ; especially : the religious custom of the castes having a sacrament of spiritual regeneration
b. : civil and criminal law
c. : the body of cosmic principles by which all things exist : nature:
(1) : essential function
it is the dharma … of a stone to be hard, of fire to burn, of a tiger to be fierce, just as it is the dharma of a king to punish and to protect, of a Brahman to study and pray — Seymour Vesey-Fitzgerald
(2) : natural law
(3) : moral law , justice
the ruler so inaugurated was regarded not as a temporal autocrat but as the instrument of dharma — D.M.Brown
d. : conduct appropriate to one's essential nature, establishing the morally sound life that is one of man's four ends : righteousness , religion — opposed to adharma
2. Buddhism
a. : ideal truth especially as taught by Buddha
b. Hinayana : an element of existence : one of the minute brief appearances of which any experienced object is made up
3. Jainism : the uncreated and eternal substance that is the necessary condition of movement for souls and matter : the ontological principle of movement
dharma is compared to water, through which any by which fish are able to move — Heinrich Zimmer
— compare adharma