Ask a Muslim what the five pillars of his faith are, and the answer comes at once. Ask a Hindu what the five foundational pillars of Sanatan Dharma are — and often there is a long, thoughtful silence. In this reflection, BrahmBodhi uses that simple contrast to raise a deeper question: why has Sanatan Dharma, with all its vast and luminous scriptures, so rarely placed before the ordinary seeker a few clear, foundational pillars to live by — and how has Bhagavad Dharma set out to meet precisely that need?
A fundamental question: the foundational pillars of a religion
BrahmBodhi often begins with a simple experiment. Ask a Muslim what the five pillars of Islam are, upon which his religion rests. The answer, he observes, comes almost at once.
A simple question to a Muslim
Ask a Muslim — learned or unlettered — and he will immediately tell you: Kalima (Shahada): the declaration of faith in one Allah and in Muhammad as His Messenger. Namaz (Salat): the prescribed prayers offered five times a day. Roza: fasting through the month of Ramadan. Hajj: the pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken once in a lifetime by one who has the means to do so. Zakat: giving 2.5 percent of one's eligible wealth that exceeds the prescribed minimum threshold (Nisab), generally after holding it for one lunar year, to the poor and other designated recipients. For example, a person who has kept ₹10 lakh in Zakat-eligible wealth throughout a lunar year would give ₹25,000 as Zakat at the standard rate. Islam has many other principles and duties, BrahmBodhi notes, but these five are its acknowledged pillars — and they are clearly imprinted on the mind of nearly every follower, educated or not.
The same question to a Hindu
Now, BrahmBodhi continues, ask a Hindu what the five foundational pillars of Sanatan Dharma are, and what his five principal religious duties are. See what answer he gives. Here, very often, one meets a long and thoughtful silence. And this, he says, is not merely the difficulty of the ordinary person. Even a scholar of Hinduism may not be able to answer at once. After considerable thought, he may say that Sanatan Dharma is simply too vast — that he cannot explain all its principles, but he can speak of his own tradition, his own sampradaya. Very well, says BrahmBodhi — then ask him which sampradaya he belongs to, and what the five foundational pillars and five principal religious duties of that sampradaya are. See what happens now. Once again, more often than not, even a scholar of that very tradition must pause and think long before answering.
Why this difference? A point that deserves attention
Why should this be so? BrahmBodhi draws attention to one fact that deserves particular notice. The Qur'an itself does not state, 'these are the five pillars of Islam.' It sets out a great many religious principles and duties. It was the tradition — on the authority of Prophet Muhammad — that identified five of them as the foundational pillars of Islam. The very same thing, BrahmBodhi observes, could have been done in Sanatan Dharma. We possessed the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Puranas, and countless other sacred texts. Had our religious leadership drawn out five or six foundational principles and principal duties from these scriptures, placed them clearly before society, and declared, 'These are the foundational pillars of Sanatan Dharma upon which your religious life should rest,' the ordinary Hindu would have received a clear direction for his spiritual life.
This would have diminished nothing else
Such a step, BrahmBodhi is careful to add, would not have meant that the other religious principles and duties became unimportant. They would have retained their full significance. It would simply have meant that certain fundamentals were firmly imprinted on the mind of every Hindu: these are the foundations of my religion, and these are the principles according to which I must live my life. The same, he says, applies to the various sampradayas within Sanatan Dharma. The founders of these traditions taught a great many things. But had they also specified clearly, 'these are the five foundational pillars of our tradition, these are the five principal duties that every follower should observe as a priority,' their followers too would have gained a far clearer direction in their religious lives. This would not have meant rejecting other principles, duties, or virtues; it would simply have meant concentrating attention on a few fundamental essentials, so that followers could maintain clarity of understanding and vigour of mind in relation to their religion.
Bhagavad Dharma has done precisely this
It is exactly this need, BrahmBodhi says, that Bhagavad Dharma has set out to meet. Rather than leaving the seeker adrift in a boundless sea of texts, it places before him a few clear, foundational pillars and principal duties to live by. (Bhagavad Dharma is a religious tradition grounded in the Bhagavad Gita — a denomination, or sampradaya, within the larger body of Sanatan Dharma.) (Continued in Part 2.)