Dharma Rakshati Rakshitah means if you protect Dharma, then Dharma will protect you. Can someone understand me better
This is a part of a verse from the Manu Smriti.
Dharmo eva hato hanti dharmo rakshati rakshitaha |
TasmAd dharmo na hantavyo mA no dharmo hato vadhita ||
8.15. ’Justice, being violated, destroys; justice, being preserved, preserves: therefore justice must not be violated, lest violated justice destroy us.
Commentary on this verse by MedhAtithi is as follows:
Judgment should not be perverted, through fear; because justice, when violated, ‘blights’— our prosperity, as also the prosperity of the sinful party and his helpers.
Similarly, when ‘preserved,’ justice removes dangers from all sources; so that even though angered, the party (defeated) cannot do any harm.
‘Hence’—i.e., knowing this, that happiness and unhappiness are based upon morality, one should not violate morality (or justice). If we violate justice, justice shall, like an enraged serpent, strike back at us; so lest justice blight us—i.e., with a view to saving ourselves,—we should preserve justice.—(15)