svadharma
{{Short description|Sanskrit term}}
Svadharma ({{Langx|sa|स्वधर्म}}) is a term (from sva: proper, and dharma: law, duty){{Cite web |title=Sanskritdictionary.com: Definition of svadharma |url=https://sanskritdictionary.com/svadharma/276801/1 |access-date=28 October 2023 |website=sanskritdictionary.com}} which, in Hinduism, designates the duties of an individual, according to his modes of material nature or natural disposition, which he must follow.Jean Filliozat, «Dharma», Encyclopædia Universalis, French: https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/dharma/
Bhagavad-Gita
The term is used in the Bhagavad Gita:{{Cite web |last=Universalis |first=Encyclopædia |title=BRAHMANISME |url=https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/brahmanisme/ |access-date=2023-10-28 |website=Encyclopædia Universalis |language=fr-FR}} 3:35 "Better is one's own law of works, swadharma, though in itself faulty than an alien law well-wrought out; death in one's own law of being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law."The Bhagavad Gita as translated by Sri Aurobindo, Chapter III Karmayoga, 35 and 18:47 "Better is one's own law of works, though in itself faulty, than an alien law well-wrought out. One does not incur sin when one acts in agreement with the law of one's own nature [svabhāva]."The Bhagavad Gita as translated by Sri Aurobindo Chapter XVIII Renunciation and Moksha, 47
According to Sri Aurobindo, "in Nature each of us has a principle and will of our own becoming; each soul is a force of self-consciousness that formulates an idea of the Divine in it and guides by that its action and evolution, its progressive self-finding, its constant varying self-expression, its apparently uncertain but secretly inevitable growth to fullness. That is our Swabhava, our own real nature; that is our truth of being which is finding now only a constant partial expression in our various becoming in the world. The law of action determined by this Swabhava is our right law of self-shaping, function, working, our Swadharma."Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Second Series, Part II, Chapter 20, Swabhava and Swadharma, pg. 502,