Is dharma absolute or does it need interpretation?
On Dharma : In any given situation we should do what we need to do. Let us take the example of Lord Rama. He is severely criticized for his abandonment of Sita. How do we explain this? After all “Ramo vigrahavan dharmaha’, he is the embodiment of dharma or righteousness. How could he justify doing that? Rama had many roles to play, such as those of a king and husband. On the one hand, his subjects were criticizing him for keeping Sita in his home. Whether the criticism was right or wrong, this is how it was. On the other hand he had his duty as husband to his wife. If he played the role of a husband knowing that his wife is chaste, and ignored what his subjects said, then he would not be pleasing them. “Ranjanath rajaha’, or the one who pleases his people, is called raja or king. Thus, if he wanted to make his wife happy, he had to make his subjects unhappy, and if he wanted to make them happy instead, he had to make his wife unhappy. S