The term dharma, central to Hindu conceptions of morality, tradition, and national identity, is a notoriously difficult one to define. Standard definitions relate the word variously to the individual's duty to observe custom or law, to the individual's conformity to duty and nature, or to divine law itself. An examination of the word in context, however, quickly reveals that all of these simple definitions gloss over numerous complexities and contradictions. This is primarily due to the fact that dharma both embraces and tries to bridge a foundational ambiguity in Hindu thought.

Hindu cosmologies, histories, and normative traditions describe a wide gap that separates that which is essentially true and eternal from its historic and contingent manifestations. The broadest and most compelling way of putting the matter is in the distinction between Veda (transcendent knowledge) and itihāsa (history), or between śruti (revelation) and smṛti (tradition...