Whisper of Dharma is the debut album by the Human Arts Ensemble, a musical collective that was an offshoot of the St. Louis-based Black Artists Group. Consisting of two 22-minute pieces, it was recorded on October 6, 1972, in St. Louis, and was initially released later that year by the small Universal Justice label. In 1977, it was reissued by Arista/Freedom with different cover art. The album features drummer and group leader Charles "Bobo" Shaw, saxophonists Oliver Lake, J. D. Parran, and James Marshall, trumpeter Floyd LeFlore, trombonist Joseph Bowie, multi-instrumentalist Baikida Carroll, and percussionist Gene Lake, who was six years old at the time of the recording session. On the recording, the musicians supplemented their primary instruments with miscellaneous "small instruments" plus a Tibetan trumpet introduced by Marshall, who had just returned from a trip through India and Nepal.