In plain words
Dharma rests on Satya
‘Ramayate iti rāmaḥ.’ ‘Rā’ means the Ātma. ‘Ma’ means the mind. Merging the mind in the Ātma: that is the Rāma principle. Ikṣvāku, the son of Manu, was the founder of the Raghu dynasty. His son, the emperor Dilīpa, was a man of great valour. He held the whole world under his sway. Sagara, Raghu, Daśaratha and King Aja were all among the most eminent of the Solar dynasty. Bhagīratha was the son of Sagara. He was the hero who brought the holy Gaṅgā down to earth. In this Raghu dynasty, every one of them held up an ideal for all to see. There is no difference between the nature of the sage Bhṛgu and that of Bhagīratha. The kings of the Raghu dynasty were those who held, ‘We must never go back on our word; Satya is the very form of God; the whole universe is contained in Satya alone; if we realise Satya itself, we shall have achieved everything,’ and who proclaimed to the world the saying ‘Satyaṃ nāsti paro dharmaḥ.’ Hariścandra, the man who realised Satya and gave up everything for the sake of Satya, was born in this Raghu dynasty. They saw that ordinary people would have no way to follow this path of Satya in the right manner, so they taught people certain paths, the puruṣārthas, laid them down as commands, said that the goal could be realised through sādhana, and went on ordaining four paths: Dharma, artha, kāma and Mokṣa. As the ages changed, the meaning of these went on changing. Out of ignorance, people swelled their desires; when these turned to disappointment, they sank and wasted away, forgot their own strength and ability, and so went on losing their humanness. In what we call humanness, the distinctive thing is Dharma. And what does this Dharma rest on? It rests on Satya.