Dharma

The word is formed from the root dhṛ, to hold or support; that is a point of Sanskrit grammar, not something the text states. The Gita never defines it in a single line. Its very first word is dharmakṣetre, "on the field of dharma", which Telang renders "holy field of Kurukshetra". From there the word moves through several senses, and the shifts follow the argument.

Arjuna's own first use of dharma is for what a family inherits. In 1.40 he fears that when a clan is destroyed its kuladharmāḥ sanātanāḥ, "the eternal rites of families", perish, and adharma overtakes the whole family. By 2.7 he calls himself dharmasammūḍhacetāḥ, "with a mind confounded about my duty", and asks Krishna to teach him.

Krishna answers with svadharma, one's own dharma. In 2.31 Arjuna's is the duty of a kṣatriya, for whom nothing is better than a dharmya battle, "a righteous battle". In 3.35 the rule is stated for everyone: "One's own duty, though defective, is better than another's duty well performed." 18.47 repeats that line and ties it to svabhāvaniyataṃ karma, action fixed by one's own nature.

In 4.7-4.8 the scale widens to the world. Dharma there can suffer glāni, decline, while adharma rises, and Krishna says he takes birth age after age for dharmasaṃsthāpana, setting dharma firmly in place again. Telang renders the word "piety" in these verses. Elsewhere dharma names the teaching itself, as in 2.40: "even a little of this (form of) piety protects one from great danger". And in 18.31-18.32 a person's understanding is graded by whether it tells dharma from adharma.

The last use of the noun dharma is the hardest. In 18.66 Krishna says sarvadharmān parityajya, "Forsaking all duties", and tells Arjuna to come to him as sole refuge, promising release from all sins. The verse does not say which dharmas it means, and it comes later in the same chapter, after 18.48 says that sahajaṃ karma, inborn action, should not be given up even if faulty (Telang: "one should not abandon a natural duty though tainted with evil"). The word there is karma, not dharma. The text sets the two side by side without reconciling them in words.