One Word, Four Religions

The atlas keeps a single entry because the traditions share the word, and notes that they do not share its meaning. In Hinduism dharma is cosmic-and-social order and duty, sometimes named sanatana dharma, the "eternal order," a phrase modern Hindus often use for the tradition itself. In Buddhism the same word carries two loads: capitalised, the Dharma is the Buddha's teaching and the truth it discloses, one of the Three Jewels in which a Buddhist takes refuge; in the plural and lower case, dharmas are the momentary factors or phenomena into which Buddhist analysis breaks down experience. In Jainism dharma includes, alongside righteous conduct, a strikingly technical sense: it is the name of a substance, the medium that makes motion possible, one of the basic constituents of the Jain cosmos. In Sikhism, dharam is righteous living and moral duty, the arena in which a human life is to be justified.

The result is that "dharma" cannot be treated as one concept wearing four costumes. It is a family of concepts held together by a root idea, that which sustains and is to be sustained, and pulled in different directions by each tradition's wider system.