Defining "Sanātana Dharma"

Exploring what the term Sanātana Dharma stands for, based on its own texts and teachings.

The term Sanātana Dharma has been in the news recently, sometimes spoken of with respect, sometimes with hostility, and often with an assumption about what it means without the understanding of it. For most practicing Hindus, Sanātana Dharma is simply another name for the Hindu way of life. But many of the public conversations around the term move quickly to claims about what it stands for, without any basis in its own teachings.

So what is Sanātana Dharma?

This is not a political question. It is a question seeking to understand the meaning of a phrase rooted in the texts of the tradition (guru paramparā) that gave this term. As with any such question, it deserves to be approached the way one would approach the meaning of any religious or philosophical term — by going to the sources that the tradition itself recognizes as authoritative.

Origin of the Words

The phrase has two parts.

Sanātana — सनातन — means eternal, without beginning, without end. It is the quality of that which is not bound to a particular time, place, founder, or historical event. The Amarakośa, the classical Sanskrit thesaurus, lists sanātana among the synonyms for that which is permanent:

ऋजावजिह्मप्रगुणौ व्यस्ते त्वप्रगुणाकुलौ ।

शाश्वतस्तु ध्रुवो नित्यसदातनसनातनाः ॥

ṛjāv ajihma-praguṇau vyaste tv apraguṇākulau |

śāśvatas tu dhruvo nitya-sadātana-sanātanāḥ ||

In this list, sanātana sits alongside śāśvata (everlasting), dhruva (firm, fixed), nitya (constant), and sadātana (always existing). Together these words point to that which is present across all times — past, present, and future — and is not bound by the changes that come and go within them. Sanātana is not merely “old”; it is that which has no beginning, has no end, and remains continuously present through every moment of time.

Dharma — धर्म — like many Sanskrit terms, cannot be translated by a single English word. In various contexts it has been translated as religion, duty, law, the inherent property of something (the dharma of sugar is sweetness), righteousness — and yet none of these translations fully capture the essence of the word. Dharma comes from the root dhṛ (धृ), which has a directional meaning — to bear, to support — dhāraṇa-poṣaṇayoḥ (धारणपोषणयोः).

The Mahābhārata offers an etymological definition:

धारणाद् धर्म इत्याहुः धर्मो धारयते प्रजाः ।

dhāraṇād dharma ity āhuḥ, dharmo dhārayate prajāḥ.

“It is called Dharma because it sustains; Dharma is that which upholds all beings.”

Dharma, in this understanding, is not a rule imposed from outside. It is the principle that holds the fabric of life together — at the level of the individual, the family, the society, and the cosmos. For a deeper understanding, I would refer to this thoughtful exploration of the term Dharma by Trupti Sheth.

When the two words come together — Sanātana Dharma — what emerges is “the eternal principle that sustains.” Not a creed founded at a particular moment by a particular person. Not a doctrine that began with a single book or a single prophet. But the timeless principle of how to live in alignment with what sustains life itself.

One particular verse from the Bhagavad Gītā is important to hold here. When Arjuna beholds Krishna’s cosmic form, he addresses him as the protector of eternal Dharma and as the sanātana puruṣa himself:

त्वमक्षरं परमं वेदितव्यं त्वमस्य विश्वस्य परं निधानम् ।

त्वमव्ययः शाश्वतधर्मगोप्ता सनातनस्त्वं पुरुषो मतो मे ॥ ११.१८॥

tvam akṣaraṃ paramaṃ veditavyaṃ tvam asya viśvasya paraṃ nidhānam |

tvam avyayaḥ śāśvata-dharma-goptā sanātanas tvaṃ puruṣo mato me ||

“You are the imperishable, the supreme to be known. You are the ultimate refuge of this universe. You are the imperishable guardian of the Sanātana Dharma. You are the sanātana puruṣa — this is my conviction.”

Dharma that is eternal and is protected by Bhagavān himself is called Sanātana Dharma.

Who Defines a Term?

Once we understand what the words mean, a different kind of question arises. How do we know we have the right meaning?

The tradition’s answer is clear and layered. The Yājñavalkya Smṛti articulates the sources of Dharma in a foundational verse:

श्रुतिः स्मृतिः सदाचारः स्वस्य च प्रियमात्मनः ।

सम्यक् सङ्कल्पजः कामो धर्ममूलमिदं स्मृतम् ॥

śrutiḥ smṛtiḥ sadācāraḥ svasya ca priyam ātmanaḥ |

samyak saṅkalpajaḥ kāmo dharma-mūlam idaṃ smṛtam ||

“Śruti, Smṛti, the conduct of the virtuous (sadācāra), what is dear to one’s own self, and desire born of right resolve — these are declared to be the roots of Dharma.”

This is a careful hierarchy. Śruti — that which was heard, received, not composed — refers to the Vedas and the Upaniṣads. Smṛti — that which was remembered — refers to the texts that came down from the seers, including the Dharmaśāstras, the Itihāsas (Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata), and the Purāṇas. Sadācāra — the conduct of the virtuous — refers to the lived example of those who have walked the path before us. When these three do not give us the answer, then we need to ask “what feels right?”, or use the inner compass for guidance. Even here, it must be aligned with the principles of living as taught by the ācāryas.

I would recommend reading these careful pieces on Śruti and Smṛti by Trupti Sheth for a deeper understanding of these foundational categories.

What emerges from the inquiry above is a simple but important point. A practitioner may engage with this vast corpus at different depths, may resonate with different aspects, may draw from different streams within it. But the meaning of the term itself is not subject to private redefinition. It is held by the texts, by the lineage of teachers (ācāryas) who have interpreted them, and by the conduct of those who have lived them.

This principle is not unique to the Hindu tradition. For any religion (for example, Islam or Christianity), we would consult the religious text first, and then the preachers or experts in the texts of the religion for the right interpretation of a term. Can any person publicly use a term from the Islamic or Christian texts and then say that they have a different definition for it? Why, then, would we accept external definitions of the term Sanātana Dharma?

The Marathon Analogy

Let me offer an analogy from a different part of my life. As a runner, the word marathon carries a particular meaning. There is a history behind why a marathon is exactly 42.195 kilometers, or 26.2 miles. The distance is not arbitrary. It is defined through the history of what led to the term coming into being.

Now, if a runner ran a 5-kilometer event and declared that they had run a marathon, they would get gently corrected — or worse, laughed at. While the effort may have felt like a marathon for that runner, they cannot use the term marathon to refer to it. One cannot take a precise term and apply it to a different distance simply because that is what they felt like. The term marathon has a specific definition and one cannot use it to refer to a distance of their choice, and expect the world to accept that naming.

The same principle holds for Sanātana Dharma. A practitioner may live a Hindu life through one particular aspect — perhaps through bhakti and devotion to a chosen deity, perhaps through jñāna and the study of Vedānta, perhaps through karma yoga and selfless action, perhaps through the daily rhythms and sva-dharma of taking care of one’s own family and more. That personal relationship with the tradition is part of how a living religion is lived, and it is important. But it does not become the definition of the whole.

If someone practices only basic mindfulness and calls it the entirety of Sanātana Dharma, they are running a 5K and calling it a marathon. And if someone outside the tradition tries to redefine it purely as a political caste system, they aren’t even running the race — they are just pointing at the track and giving it a new name. The whole remains as what the tradition itself defines it as — sanātana, eternal, and dhārmika, sustaining.

A Way of Life That Had to Defend Itself

There is one more aspect that is important to call out in this context. For most of its history, what we now call Sanātana Dharma was simply the way of life across the lands of Bhārata. It did not need a name to distinguish it from other systems because it was, for those who lived it, the natural ground of existence — woven into how one ate, worshiped, married, learned, governed, and grieved.

The naming of Sanātana Dharma as a “religion,” and the careful articulation of its boundaries, came later — through historical necessity. As Bhārata encountered the exclusionary frameworks of Abrahamic religions, the diffuse, lived tradition could no longer remain undefined. It had to articulate itself, codify itself, and defend itself in the very vocabulary of “religion” that was being used against it. The word Hindu itself emerged through this historical process. The careful boundary-drawing around what Sanātana Dharma means is, in this sense, a response to historical attack — not a natural feature of the tradition, but a discipline the tradition holds today.

This is why precision about the term matters today. The tradition that did not need to defend itself for thousands of years learned through painful experience over the last several centuries why definitions must be held carefully. To be casual about the meaning of Sanātana Dharma — whether from inside or outside the tradition — is to ignore why this precision became necessary in the first place. Strictness is not arrogance. It is what the tradition has had to learn in order to protect itself.

Āstika, Nāstika, and the Breadth of the Tradition

A question often arises in modern discussions: if Sanātana Dharma is rooted in the Vedas, what about traditions that did not accept the Vedas as authoritative? What about Buddhism, Jainism, the Cārvākas? What about Hindus today who say they do not believe in the Vedas?

The classical tradition itself made a careful distinction here. The six āstika darśanas — Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Pūrva Mīmāṁsā, and Uttara Mīmāṁsā (Vedānta) — are the schools of philosophy that accept the authority of the Vedas as pramāṇa (a valid means of knowledge). The nāstika darśanas — Bauddha (Buddhism), Jaina (Jainism), and Cārvāka — are the schools that do not.

In the strict textual sense, Sanātana Dharma refers to the āstika tradition rooted in śruti. This is the precise classical usage, anchored in the acceptance of the Vedas as a valid means of knowledge.

But there is also a broader civilizational usage of the term. Sanātana Dharma, in this wider sense, has been used as an umbrella for all the dharmic traditions of Indic origin — including Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. These traditions emerged from the same Indic civilizational soil, share much of the same ethical vocabulary, the same contemplative practices, and the same instinct toward dharma as a sustaining principle. The Indian Constitution itself, in Article 25(2)(b) Explanation II, treats Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists as included under the term “Hindu” for the purposes of civil law and access to religious institutions. In popular usage, many Hindus today understand Sanātana Dharma in this wider, civilizational sense.

These two usages are not in conflict. They are simply two levels of granularity. In the strict textual sense, the āstika boundary holds. In the broader civilizational sense, the dharmic family of traditions is understood as part of a shared sanātana heritage. The relationship between these two levels has been a matter of careful discussion within the tradition for centuries.

So when someone says, “I do not believe in the Vedas, but I am still a Hindu,” what they are describing — by the tradition’s own categories — is closer to the nāstika schools or to a position within the broader civilizational umbrella. That is a legitimate position. But it cannot be used as a license to redefine Sanātana Dharma.

This is not exclusion. It is simply definitional clarity. A person is free to call themselves whatever they wish in their personal life. But a term like Sanātana Dharma, which carries a specific meaning in its tradition, cannot be applied to a position that explicitly rejects what defines it — nor can it be redefined publicly to mean something the tradition does not recognize.

Precise Definition

After all this, we may be longing for a precise definition of the term Sanātana Dharma. While due to the very eternal nature of it, any definition of it is a limitation, we can look at one while acknowledging that it may not be complete. For this we do not need to go far — the Mahābhārata itself offers it. It is not without reason that the tradition says of the Mahābhārata:

यदिहास्ति तदन्यत्र यन्नेहास्ति न तत्क्वचित् ।

yad ihāsti tad anyatra yan nehāsti na tat kvacit |

“What is here may be found elsewhere; what is not here cannot be found anywhere.”

The following śloka from the Mahābhārata offers one of the clearest articulations of Sanātana Dharma:

अहिंसा परमो धर्मः सर्वप्राणभृतां वरः । तस्मात् प्राणभृतः सर्वान् न हिंस्यान्मानुषः क्वचित् ॥ एष धर्मः सनातनः ॥

ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ sarva-prāṇa-bhṛtāṃ varaḥ | tasmāt prāṇa-bhṛtaḥ sarvān na hiṃsyān mānuṣaḥ kvacit || eṣa dharmaḥ sanātanaḥ ||

“Non-harm is the supreme Dharma, the highest among all beings who bear life. Therefore, a human being should never harm any living being. This is the eternal Dharma.“

This is what the tradition itself calls eternal. Not a slogan. Not a political position. Not a partial practice. But the steady, sustaining principle of non-harm, of truth, of restraint, of compassion — held continuously across millennia by the texts and teachers of Sanātana Dharma.

It is important here to understand what ahiṃsā really means. Ahiṃsā does not mean passively allowing harm to continue. It also means non-harm to one’s own self, and the willingness to stand up and act against adharma when needed — so that further hiṃsā does not unfold. To stand by and let adharma grow unchecked is itself a form of hiṃsā. To act against it — even forcefully when necessary — is, in this deeper sense, an expression of ahiṃsā.

Ahiṃsā in the Hindu framework is not passive non-resistance; it is context-dependent. The highest non-harm involves maintaining cosmic order (Ṛta), which sometimes requires firmly removing that which causes great harm. Krishna himself articulates this principle in the Bhagavad Gītā:

यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत । अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् ॥ ४.७॥

परित्राणाय साधूनां विनाशाय च दुष्कृताम् । धर्मसंस्थापनार्थाय सम्भवामि युगे युगे ॥ ४.८॥

yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata | abhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānaṃ sṛjāmy aham ||

paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṃ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām | dharma-saṃsthāpanārthāya sambhavāmi yuge yuge ||

“Whenever Dharma declines and adharma rises, O Bhārata, I bring myself forth. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked, and for the firm establishment of Dharma, I take birth age after age.”

Read together, the two verses give us a complete understanding. Ahiṃsā is the supreme Dharma — and the protection of Dharma itself, including the destruction of forces that work against it, is part of how ahiṃsā is upheld in the world. The eternal Dharma is not passive. It sustains itself, and those who walk its path, by standing firmly against what would destroy it.

The Present Day Question

In recent times, the term Sanātana Dharma has been invoked in public discourse by those who would speak against it. Some have said they wish to “destroy Sanātana Dharma.” It is worth asking what is actually being claimed in such statements.

If what one wants to destroy is a social practice that is discriminatory, that is a different conversation. The Sanātana Dharma tradition itself has had a continuous history of inquiry and internal reform — from Rāmānujācārya in the 11th century, to the Bhakti saints across Bhārata, to modern reformers like Swami Vivekānanda. But Sanātana Dharma, by its own definition in its own texts, is not reducible to any single practice or any historical period. It stands for the eternal principle that sustains. To speak of destroying it can only be interpreted as a desire to destroy the tradition that has defined Sanātana Dharma.

Hence, my honest reading here is that the intention was likely to destroy the Hindu religion itself. If so, this intention is not new. Bhārata has seen it many times before, in waves of historical destruction carried out by those who came with their own exclusionary claims about religion. What is new is only the vocabulary. The underlying impulse has a long history and textual basis in the Abrahamic faiths.

A person is free to disagree with any aspect of the tradition. A person is free to find meaning in only some of its practices, or in none of them. A person is free to live by an entirely different framework. What a person cannot do — what no one can do for any religious tradition — is publicly use the term and then redeclare the meaning of it to suit their own argument. The meaning of a religious term belongs to the tradition that holds it.

The Manusmṛti itself responds to those who would attempt such destruction:

धर्म एव हतो हन्ति धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः ।

तस्माद्धर्मो न हन्तव्यो मा नो धर्मो हतोऽवधीत् ॥

dharma eva hato hanti dharmo rakṣati rakṣitaḥ |

tasmād dharmo na hantavyo mā no dharmo hato’vadhīt ||

“Dharma, when destroyed, destroys (the destroyer). Dharma, when protected, protects (the protector). Therefore, Dharma should never be destroyed, lest the destroyed Dharma destroy us in turn.”

The symmetry of this verse is something to be noted. Hato hanti, rakṣati rakṣitaḥ — the destroyed destroys, the protected protects. Dharma is not a passive set of rules. It is an active, sustaining principle, and one’s relationship with it is reciprocal. To attempt to destroy it is to set in motion the very forces that act on the destroyer.

This is the tradition speaking to the moment in its own voice — ancient, measured, and unambiguous.

Closing

This essay was to help us understand what Sanātana Dharma means and what it has always meant. The texts define it. The Ācāryas carry it. The conduct of the virtuous embodies it. And the eternal principle it names — the principle of non-harm, truth, restraint, and compassion that sustains all life — does not bend to the public claims of any moment.

No matter how loud the voice. No matter how political the moment. Sanātana Dharma, by its very name, was here before us and will remain after us.

Eṣa dharmaḥ sanātanaḥ.