Dharamshala (type of building)

A dharamshala, also written as dharmashala (Hindi: धर्मशाला dharmaśālā) is a Hindu religious resthouse. In Shanskrit, Dharma means religion, and shala means "sanctuary" hence dharamshala is a 'religious sanctuary' or rest-house for pilgrims, that is primarily created for religious pilgrims or as a religious endowment.

Creating dharmashala a tradition common in Hinduism, Jainism and also Tibetan Buddhism. Just as sarai are for travellers and caravans, dharamshalas are specifically meant for religious travellers and built at pilgrimage sites.

Sometimes a dharmaśālā is built at religious pilgrimages for a specific community, caste, ethnic group, profession or persons from a specific region. The specified pilgrims are generally charged minimal or allowed free stay for a limited duration at a dharamshala specifically built for them but other pilgrims may be charged higher amounts.

Dharamshala (Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashaalaa; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a word (derived from Sanskrit) that is a compound of dharma (धर्म) and shālā (शाला). A loose translation into English would be 'spiritual dwelling' or, more loosely, 'sanctuary'. Rendering a precise literal translation into English is problematic due to the vast and conceptually rich semantic field of the word dharma, and the cultural aspect of India.

In common Hindu usage, the word dharamshala refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. Traditionally, such dharamshalas (pilgrims' rest houses) were commonly constructed near pilgrimage destinations (which were often located in remote areas) to give visitors a place to sleep for the night.

Due to a lack of uniform observance of transliteration and transcription conventions for Hindi (and the Devanagari script in which Hindi is written), the name of the town has been transcribed into English (and other languages using Romanic scripts) variously as Dharamshala, Dharamsala and, less frequently, Dharmshala and Dharmsala. These four permutations result from two variables: the transcription of the word धर्म (dharma)—particularly the second syllable (र्म)—and that of the third syllable (शा).

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