Dharma vs Religion - Shankar Sharan -

In this very important Indic Talk, Dr. Shankar Sharan discusses a very important topic, and juxtaposes Dharma vs. religion. He starts out by saying that the commonest misconception in modern India is that ‘all religions are same’. Equating Dharma to Religion gives one the impression that Hinduism is just like Islam and Christianity.

Shankar Sharan says that Semitic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam cannot be called Dharma. The category designated for them, religion, thus, cannot be translated as Dharma; that ‘religion’ is a mistranslation of ‘dharma’. Dharma is not religion. In many respects Dharma is the opposite of religion. All religions, hence, are NOT same. He goes on to explain why this is so.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Shintoism and hundreds of pagan, polytheistic sects all over the world belong to the Dharmic tradition. Judaism, Christianity and Islam belong to the category of Religion.

Prophetic Monotheistic/ Semitic religions believe that all other sects are false and followers of Satan. They believe in One True God, One True Book, and believe that the world is divided between believers and non-believers. While laws apply to believers, the non-believers have no rights. They also divide space between the Kingdom of God and the Realm of Unbelievers and Time also in Age of Knowledge and Age of Ignorance.

Dr. Shankar Sharan charts out many such differences between religion on one hand and dharma on another.

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