Dharma Versus Adhdarma

I do my best. The eulogists of adharma will say the dharmic man who is thought to be adharmic will be scourged, racked, bound, then impaled.

Then he will understand that he should pretend to be dharmic but not be really dharmic*. Aeschylus’ words apply more to the adharmic than to the dharmic. The adharmic man really wants to be adharmic.

In the beginning, the adharmic man is dharmic and is thought just and so he rules the city.

He can also trade and deal where he likes to his own advantage.. At every contest, he gets the better of his antagonists and gains at their expense and becomes rich. Out of his gains, he can:

• benefit his friends and harm his enemies
• offer sacrifices
• honour the gods in a far better style than the truly dharmic.

Thus, Socrates, gods and men unite in making the life of the adharmic better than the life of the dharmic.

Glaucon’s argument also implies that praise and censure is equally needed to bring out the meaning of dharma and adharma.

Parents and tutors always tell their sons and students that they should be dharmic not for the sake of dharma, but for the sake of character and reputation. They hope to obtain some of those offices, marriages, etc. for those who are reputed to be dharmic.

However, the adharmic make more pretensions than the dharmic. They:

• throw in the good opinion of the gods,
• tell you of the benefits which the heavens rain on the pious

This matches with the testimony of Hesiod and Homer. Hesiod says that many blessings are provided for the dharmic. Homer has a very similar strain.

Some extend their rewards yet further and say that the posterity of the faithful and dharmic shall survive to the third and fourth generation.

But the wicked has another strain. While the wicked are living, they are brought to infamy. After death, they bury the wicked in a slough in Hades where they are scourged, racked, bound.

Again Socrates, please speak about dharma and adharma not like the poets, but like prose writers.

The universal voice of mankind always says that:

• dharma and virtue are honourable, but are grievous and toilsome
• the pleasures of vice and adharma are easy to attain, and are only censured by law and opinion
• honesty is mostly less profitable than dishonesty, and
• wicked men are happy

They honour wicked men when they are rich or influential. They despise and overlook the weak and poor, even if they are better than the others. But most extraordinary is they say that the gods give:

• calamity and misery to good men
• good and happiness to the wicked.

Mendicant prophets go to rich men and persuade them that they have a power from the gods of making an atonement for sins through:

• sacrifices or charms
• rejoicings and feasts

They promise to harm an enemy at a small cost with magic arts and incantations. They cite the poets such as Hesiod as the authorities to smooth the path of vice:

They produce books written by Musaeus and Orpheus. They perform their ritual according to those books. They persuade people:

• that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices, and
• that they are equally at the service of the living and the dead.

They call atonements as “mysteries” which redeem us from the pains of hell.

The young people hear:

• all this said about virtue and vice, and
• the way how gods and men regard them.

Some young are quick-witted like bees which go to every flower. From what they hear, they draw conclusions as to:

• what kind of persons they should be, and
• how they should walk to have the best life.

Probably the youth will say to himself in the words of Pindar:

People say that:

• if I am really dharmic then there is no profit and the pain and loss are unmistakeable,
• but if I am adharmic but acquire the reputation of being dharmic, then a heavenly life is promised to me.

This is because, as philosophers prove, appearance:

• tyrannizes over truth, and
• is lord of happiness

Therefore, I must devote myself to appearance. I will decorate the exterior of my house with virtue.

Archilochus, the greatest of sages, recommends us to be subtle and crafty foxes. But I hear the concealment of wickedness is often difficult.

I answer that nothing great is easy. We will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. Professors of rhetoric will then teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies partly by persuasion and partly by force. These will bring me unlawful gains without punishment.

But the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled.

But what if there are no gods? What if they did not care about human things? Why then should we mind about concealment?

We only know about the gods from the poets. These poets say that the gods may be influenced and turned by ‘sacrifices, soothing entreaties, and offerings.’

We must therefore have both concealment and offerings, or neither.

If the poets speak truthfully, why is it better for us to be adharmic and make offerings of the fruits of adharma?

If we are dharmic, we may escape the vengeance of heaven but lose the gains of adharma. But, if we are adharmic, we shall keep the gains. By our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will not punish us.

‘But there is a world below where we or our posterity will suffer for our unjust deeds.’

The mighty cities declare that there are mysteries and atoning deities which have great power. The children of the gods, who were their poets and prophets, bear a like testimony.

On what principle, then, shall we choose dharma rather than the worst adharma?

If we only unite the adharma with deceitful appearances, then we accept what the authorities tell us.

How can a man who has any superiority of mind, rank, or wealth, be willing to honour dharma?

Many people are very ready to forgive the unjust because they know that men are not just of their own free will. They blame it on cowardice, age, or some weakness.

But once they attain the power of being unjust, they immediately become as unjust as possible.

Glaucon and I were astonished that no one has ever blamed adharma or praised dharma except with a view to the glories, honours, and benefits which flow from them.

No one has ever adequately described in verse or prose the true essential nature of dharma or adharma in the soul.

No one has ever shown that in the soul of every man, dharma is the greatest good and adharma the greatest evil.

We would not need to watch for adharma if:

• this had been the universal strain, and
• everyone has been taught this from youth.

Every person would have been his own watchman because every person would be afraid of harbouring in himself the greatest of evils.

Thrasymachus would seriously reject this. They would use stronger words on dharma and adharma to pervert their true nature.

You said that dharma is one of that highest class of positives which are desired for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes.

You see dharma like sight, hearing, knowledge or health, or as any other real and natural, and not merely conventional virtue.

What is the essential good and evil which dharma and adharma work in the dharmic and adharmic man? You have spent your whole life in this question so I expect something better. Please prove to us that dharma is better than adharma.