Ahiṃsā in the Mahābhārata

Ahiṁsā or nonviolence might seem an unlikely topic for one of the world's greatest war epics. Any student of Indian philosophy or religion undoubtedly associates the Mahābhārata with Lord Krishna urging Arjuna to take up his weapons and fight and the bloodbath that follows. And despite the attempts of Gandhi and many others to make the struggle between the Pāṇḍava brothers and the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra metaphorical, no one can deny the reality of carnal savagery in the text, even on the part of the "good guys."

While on the one hand advocating strong action appropriate to one's station in life, the Mahābhārata also harbors myriad complementary views, acknowledging the significant contributions of numerous "minority" positions and practices. Bhīṣma, the paragon of knowledge and the grand-uncle of the text's protagonists, gives forth a wellspring of information about dharma on his deathbed of arrows. Within these discourses, several references are made to nonviolence or harmlessness (ahiṁsā) at underscore its emerging importance as the prevailing virtue to be observed by Brahmans and renouncers.

In the essay that follows, I will investigate three such instances within the Sānti Parvan and the Anuśāsana Parvan. The first takes the form of a story that I will summarize. It includes reference to the tension between showy asceticism and a more measured form of spirituality. It includes extensive descriptions of how animals are maltreated, and develops a rhetorical argument and appeal for observing nonviolent principles. The second example is a very gracefully crafted summation of monistic philosophy through which one is encourged, by dint of seeing other as self, to treat the other as if it were one's own self, and hence adopt nonviolent behavior. The third example advocates vegetarianism as the most obvious and appropriate modality for practicing nonviolence.