Nonviolence (Ahiṃsā)

Hindu Texts and Traditions 

Etymology and Early Usage of the Word Ahiṃsā

The Sanskrit word ahiṃsā can be translated as “nonviolence.” Etymologically, the term derives from the verbal root han, meaning “hit, kill, slay, or hunt.” The simple utterance of the sound of this word evokes a harsh state. It appears in a desiderative form, hiṃs, indicated by the sibilant insert and the feminine gender indicated by the long ā ending. Hiṃsā indicates injury; its negation by the negative prefix a signals an absence of intent to injure or harm. 

The first mention of ahiṃsā can be traced to Ṛg Veda 1.141.5, an invocation asking the fire god Agni to keep one safe. Other passages include 5.64.3, a plea to the benevolent gods Mitra and Varuṇa to prevent harm, and 10.22.13, an appeal to the softer impulses of Indra, god of thunder and war. These verses can be dated from before 1000 BCE. The Chāndogya, one of the earliest Upaniṣads (c. 800 BCE), urges one to practice harmlessness (ahiṃsant) as a means to arrive at the world of Brahma after death, never to return (8.15).

Nonviolence in the Mahābhārata

The epic Mahābhārata (c. 600 BCE to 600 CE) tells the story of a horrific, years-long conflict between two sets of cousins. Thousands die in the culminating battle, and the text is full of gory, bloody details of dismemberment, slow death, and grief. Nonetheless, the “Book of Teachings” (Anuśāsana Parvan) includes a series of discourses on the practice of nonviolence. Following the victory of the five Pāṇḍava brothers over their cousins in a brutal and viciously fought war, the eldest brother, Yudhiṣṭhira, approaches their grand uncle Bhiṣma, near to death, impaled on a bed of arrows, and he asks the sage, “Which is best for a person, nonviolence, Vedic dharma, meditation, control of the sense, austerity, or service to the guru?” In Mahābhārata 13.14.3 –10, Bhiṣma replies without hesitation:

Listen! I will speak of the unsurpassed,

the most excellent thing for a human:

the refuge of nonviolence,

the dharma that truly causes success. 

The person who attains success

always reflects on the three faults 

to be found in all beings

and controls lust and anger.

Desiring the pleasure of the higher self,

this person holds back from killing helpless animals,

thereby attaining happiness.

The person who sees all beings as similar to one’s own self,

who casts aside the stick,

whose anger is conquered,

prospers happily in the life to come.

Even the gods are bewildered at the path

of the one who seeks the abode of no abode,

who sees all beings as not different from oneself.

Do not hold the other

to be opposite from oneself.

This is the essence of dharma.

Resist the desire to render the other as different from oneself.

Whether rejecting or giving,

experiencing pleasure or pain,

amidst things pleasant or unpleasant,

the one who sees all things as the self attains samādhi.

Stride with others as if they are the same as yourself.

Use this skill in the world of all living beings.

This skill teaches all dharma.

Bhiṣma tells a story in the ninth book of the Mahābhārata (Śalya Parva) about the encounter between the merchant Tulādhara and a brahman ascetic named Jājali who devoted years of his life to the most austere of penances, including complicated fasts, protracted periods of silence, and such utter disregard for his body that he no longer bathed and his hair became matted. During one particularly stringent phase of his penances in the forest, Jājali abstained from all food while sustaining himself on air alone, remaining in a standing position, like a post, with no movement whatsoever. A pair of Kuliṅga birds nested in his locks. Months passed, and the birds mated. Young birds emerged from the eggs on Jājali’s head. They eventually took wing and flew away; all the while Jājali stood stationary. After the young birds abandoned their safe haven on his head, Jājali allowed himself to rejoice, proclaiming he had won great merit by his noble deed and no one was his equal. The gods heard his boast, and a voice from the sky told him that his virtue and merit were surpassed by Tulādhara, a shopkeeper in the city of Banaras. Jājali sought this wise man and found him at his haberdashery. Tulādhara greeted Jājali knowingly and told him that he knew of his austerities and about the birds born on his head. He chided the Brahman for his pride and also asked how he might be of service to the ascetic.

Jājali asks Tulādhara to tell him about correct morality and proper ways of knowledge. Tulādhara’s response, in praise of nonviolence, covers a range of issues. He replies that “harmlessness towards all creatures” is the highest morality, and this is reflected in his own everyday practices. Tulādhara says that he never cheats anyone, never quarrels or holds grudges. Reminiscent of the Bhagavad Gītā, he proclaims, “My scales are perfectly even, O Jājali, with respect to all creatures . . . I cast equal eye upon all creatures . . . I see no difference between a clod of earth, a piece of stone, and a lump of gold.”[1] He claims that by following this vow, he has no fear of creatures, nor do creatures fear him. He claims that by speaking truth and practicing the dharma of nonviolence, one enjoys even greater fruit than that gained by sacrifices or penances. Tulādhara criticizes those who castrate bulls, pierce their noses, and force them to serve as beasts of burden. He claims that “in every creature that is endued with the five senses live all the deities . . . The goat is Agni. The sheep is Varuna. The horse is Surya. Earth is the deity, Virat. The cow and the calf are Soma. The man who sells these can never obtain success” (MBh 9.262.236). Tulādhara even condemns agriculture as harmful to creatures and Earth.

Jājali protests that Tulādhara’s teachings run counter to the natural order of things and seem heretical. Without food support, he states that the world will come to an end. In response, Tulādhara states that nature provides abundantly. Appealing to a Golden Age long ago, he describes crops sprouting forth from the earth without cultivation. He assails the greed overtaking people in current times and forcing the proliferation of needless and harmful rituals and sacrifices. He condemns covetous priests who assist at ceremonies for the “misguided” and make material gain their end goal rather than liberation. Tulādhara urges the use of rice balls to replace the animals offered during Vedic sacrifices. He also tells Jājali that the birds currently circling overhead are the very ones he reared on his head far from this place. Jājali calls to them, and, at the close of the tale, the birds affirm Tulādharas’s teaching of nonviolence as the true path of liberation. 

Bhiṣma condemns eating meat in chapter 116 of the Anuśāsana Parvan:

13. The one who refuses meat

is not overpowered by any beings and

is trusted by all that are born;

such a one should be eternally esteemed by Sadhus.

14. Nārada, the restrained one whose self is dharma,

has said that whoever wishes to increase his flesh 

with the flesh of another falls into ruin.

15. Bṛhaspati declared that the one 

who restrains from meat and honey is distinguished

through austerity, giving, sacrifice.

Bhiṣma employs dramatic imagery when pleading his case, suggesting vegetarians need not fear the dark and can anticipate a long life:

26. Meat is not born of grass, wood or rock.

Meat arises from killing a living being.

Thus, in the enjoyment of meat there is fault.

28. O King, in not eating meat

one goes without fear in moonlight

or in the dreadful, dangerous darkness

or in the twilight approach of night,

or in the crossroads, or in the assemblies of people.

29. If there were no meat eaters,

there would be no killers.

A meat-eating man is a killer indeed,

causing death for the purpose of food,

Violence is done to animals

for the sake of the meat eater only.

31. Because the life of violent ones

is shortened as well (due to their deeds),

the one who wishes long life for himself

should refuse meat, O splendid one.

32. Those fierce ones who do violence to life

are not able to go for protection (when they need it).

They are to be feared by beings as beasts of prey.

According to Bhisma, meat-eating promotes general anxiety, and abstaining from flesh foods advances the abstainer toward a heavenly realm: 

34. The one who desires to increase

his flesh with the flesh of another

lives in entrenched anxiety

and is born here and there.

35. Those great vow-keeping seers have said

that those who do not eat meat are great,

are progressing to heaven,

and are bringing good fortune, renown, and long life.[2]

This vow is to be undertaken not for the sake of renouncing the world but to enhance experience as well as quality and length of life. According to Bhisma, the story of a vegetarian is a happy story! Bhiṣma summarizes his teachings on ahiṃsā in Mahābhārata 13.117.37–38:

Ahiṃsā is the highest dharma, ahiṃsā is the highest self-control,
ahiṃsā is the greatest gift, ahiṃsā is the best practice,
ahiṃsā is the highest sacrifice, ahiṃsā is the finest strength,
ahiṃsā is the greatest friend, ahiṃsā is the greatest happiness,
ahiṃsā is the highest truth, and ahiṃsā is the greatest teaching.

Nonviolence in the Bhagavad Gītā

Despite being a tale of tremendous violence and loss, the Mahābhārata extols nonviolence. Its most famous segment, the Bhagavad Gītā, narrates a discourse between the distraught warrior Arjuna and his cousin Krishna. Krishna tells Arjuna that he must fight, and, in the course of the battle, urges all five Pandava brothers to fight viciously, violating agreed-upon conventions. Paradoxically, Krishna, here, also advocates adherence to ahiṃsā. He includes ahiṃsā in a list of virtues along with equanimity, contentment, austerity, and charity (X:5). He cites it along with absence of pride, freedom from hypocrisy, patience, and rectitude (XIII:7), and he associates ahiṃsā with truthfulness, absence of anger, renunciation, and peace (XVI:3). Krishna describes ahiṃsā as an austerity of the body, along with purity and rectitude (XVII:14). For Gandhi, as we will see later, nonviolence and equipoise become central to his message, in turn inspiring generations of activists. 

Ahiṃsā in the Yoga Sūtra

In the early to middle centuries of the Common Era, a text known as the Yoga Sūtra, attributed to Patañjali, gained prominence. It advances an interpretation of the Sāṃkhya philosophy that discerns the difference between the realm of change within the modes (guṇas) of the ever-changing world (prakṛti) from the ever-present unchanging state of awareness (puruṣa, ātman, draṣṭṛ). This school requires control of the mind and body through adherence to the same five ethical precepts found in Jainism and Buddhism: nonviolence, truthfulness, not stealing, celibacy, and non-possession, the last of which, at least in the Buddhist tradition, entails renouncing all intoxicants. The following sequence emphasizes the central role of following the path of ahiṃsā in the Yoga Sūtra:

II.30. The precepts are non-violence (ahiṃsā), truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraints, and non-possession.

II.31. When not limited by birth, place, time, or circumstance in all occasions [these constitute] the great vow. 

II. 32. Purity contentment, austerity, self-study, and dedication to Īśvara are the observances.

II.33. When there is bondage due to deliberation, the cultivations of the opposite [is prescribed].

II.34. Deliberations about violence and so forth, whether done, caused, or approved, consisting in lust, anger, or delusion, and whether mild, medium, or intense, have as their endless fruits suffering and ignorance; thus cultivation of opposites [is prescribed].

III.35. When in the presence of one established in non-violence, there is the abandonment of hostility.

Ahiṃsā here, as in the Bhagavad Gītā, epitomizes and manifests the best qualities for overcoming ignorance. The Yoga Sūtra places the practice of nonviolence at the very start of the eightfold Yoga path. In order to counteract negative impulses, one must cultivate oppositional behaviors, starting with an intention to do no harm regardless of the circumstances. This practice for undoing obstructive karmas is held in common with Jainas and Buddhists.

Jaina Practices of Ahiṃsā

Jainism, whose adherents are referred to as Jains or Jainas, originated in India prior to the rise of Buddhism. According to the tradition, the twenty-fourth great teacher of Jainism, Mahavira Vardhamana, usually referred to as Mahavira or Mahavir, was a contemporary of the Buddha, continuing the work of the twenty-third Tirthankara, Parsvanatha, who predated Mahavira by about two hundred years. The teachings of these two men are summarized in the Ācārāṅga Sūtra and the Kalpa Sūtra, texts dating from approximately 300 BCE, which set forth basic metaphysics and stories that shape later Jaina traditions. Around this same time, the Jaina faith and community divided into two groups, the Digambara and the Svetambara, who differed and continue to differ on issues of gender and clothing. The Digambara, meaning “clad [only] in the directions,” require total nudity for advanced monks and believe that a woman must be reborn as a man to achieve final liberation; Svetambara, meaning “clad in white,” monks and nuns wear white garments and believe the Nineteenth Tirthankara, Mallinatha, was a woman. Despite these disputes, both sects hold to principles put forth in Umasvati’s Tattvārthasūtra (c. 450 CE) and agree on the basic premise of the faith: The centrality of non-violence (ahiṃsā) is the sole means to liberate the soul (jīva) from bondage.

In the earliest teachings of Jainism, the world is understood as a collection of souls, and life lurks everywhere, even in unexpected places. According to the Ācārāṅga Sūtra (AS, below, translated by Jacobi), Mahāvīra probed the nature of life and discovered it even in lichen as well as in the earth, water, fire, and air:

There are living beings living in the earth, living in grass, 

living on leaves, living in wood, living in cow dung, 

living in dust-heaps (AS I:1:4).

Mahāvīra states that all living beings must be protected:

All breathing, existing, living, sentient beings should not

be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, 

nor driven away. This is the pure, unchangeable, eternal law (AS I:4.1).

He was particularly critical of those who eat meat or use and abuse animals in any way:

Some slay animals for sacrificial purposes, some kill animals for the sake of their skin, some kill them for the sake of their flesh, some kill them for the sake of their blood thus also for the sake of their heart, their bile, the feathers of their tail, their tail, their big or small horns, their teeth, their tusks, their nails, their sinews, their bones; with a purpose and without a purpose. Some kill animals because they have been wounded by them, or are wounded, or will be wounded . . . The one who comprehends and renounces these sinful acts does not injure them. Knowing animals, a wise person should not act sinfully towards animals, nor cause others to act so, nor allow others to act so (AS I:1.6).

According to Mahavira, the greatest person protects animals, gives shelter to animals, and encourages others to renounce all acts of violence toward animals:

A great sage, neither injuring nor injured, becomes a shelter for all sorts of afflicted creatures, even as an island that is never covered with water (AS I:4.5).

The commitment to nonviolence goes beyond any other Jaina proclamation, secular or sacred: 

Knowing and renouncing severally and singly the actions against living beings, in the regions above, below and on the surface, everywhere and in all ways—a wise person neither gives pain to these bodies, nor orders others to do so, nor assents to their doing so. We abhor those who give pain to these bodies. Knowing this, a wise person should not cause any pain to any beings (AS I:7.1).

The avoidance of meat and fish becomes paramount to monastic life:

A monk or nun should not accept food which has been prepared by the householder [who has acted] sinfully towards all sorts of living beings; for such food, whether it be tasted or not, is impure and unacceptable (AS II:1.1).

A monk or a nun on a begging tour should not resolve to go to a festival . . . when they know that there will be served up chiefly meat or fish or roasted slices of meat or fish. (AS II:1, 4).

In several verses of the AS, monks and nuns are urged to exert great care not to cause injury, even to the microbes in the air, a practice assisted by wearing mouth coverings.

The earliest detailed instructions for the practice of ahiṃsā by Jaina monks and nuns are given in the Ācārāṅga Sūtra II.15. 

The first great vow is nonviolence (ahiṃsā): I give up all killing of living beings, whether subtle or gross, whether moveable or immovable. I shall not myself kill living beings or cause others to do it nor consent to it . . . in mind, speech, and body. Five instances provide specific instructions on comportment:

1. Walk with care. [Do not harm insects or plants.]

2. Do not cause fights.

3. Speak in peace.

4. Set down dishes gently.

5. Check all food and drink. [Make sure there are no bugs.]

The text continues with similar instructions on observing the four other main Jaina vows: truth-telling, not stealing, celibacy, and non-possession.

The basic teachings of nonviolence were conveyed to communities of monks, nuns, and laypersons by the founding Jaina teachers (tīrthaṅkaras), and throughout Jaina history, adherence to nonviolence has served as the litmus test for all community decision-making. Monks, nuns, and laypeople all seek advice from the religious preceptors (ācāryas) who have dedicated their lives to teaching and serve as important guides and teachers (gurus).

A Jaina Ontology for Understanding and Avoiding Violence

To effectively practice the Jaina faith, generations of scholars created long, detailed lists itemizing the nature and duration of specific forms of life, all of which have souls. In order to prevent harm to life, one needs to know all the manifestations of life. Monks, nuns, and laypersons are equipped by this knowledge to move through life with the knowledge of the life that surrounds them. Jains consider it acceptable to inflict a little injury or small hurt to life; this is thought to be unavoidable. With every step we take and every morsel of food or sip of water we ingest, we cause sensations of pain to the life present in the earth beneath our feet and in the nutrition that sustains us. 

All forms of life fit into a complicated chain of souls with varying lifespans, trajectories, and senses. Shanti Suri, a Svetambara Jaina philosopher of the eleventh century CE, writes that hardened rock, which is in fact conscious and feels through its sense of touch, can endure as a single soul for twenty-two thousand years, water souls for seven thousand years, wind souls for three thousand years, trees for ten thousand years, and fire for three days and three nights.[3] Rock, water, fire, air, and plant souls all possess consciousness through the sense of touch. The next most complex forms of life add the sense of taste and include conches, worms, and leeches. As the insect realm becomes more complex—differentiating into centipedes, bedbugs, lice, ants, and other creepy crawlers—the third sense faculty, smell, appears. Sight, the fourth sense, is found in scorpions, bees, locusts, flies, gnats, mosquitoes, moths, spiders, and grasshoppers, who all exhibit a lifespan as long as six months. In the top category of forms of life reside five-sensed beings—animals and humans, as well as denizens of the seven hells and the nine heavens—who are further divided into those who can hear and those who can hear and think, with thinking sometimes counted as a sixth sense.[4] Each of the souls encased in any one of these forms is eventually reborn in another form. 

 Each time someone commits an act of violence, a particle of karma, which is considered to be sticky and colorful, attaches itself in subtle form to the actor’s soul, further occluding the soul’s energy, consciousness, and bliss and also further ensnaring the acting person in the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.[5] Unlike Buddhism and most schools of Hinduism, karma in Jainism manifests as a physical presence, not merely as an abstraction. The Jaina lifestyle requires scrupulous attention to avoiding all possible forms of violence. This commitment to nonviolence is supported by adherence to the following vows: truthfulness, abstention from stealing, celibacy for monks and nuns, fidelity in marriage for laypersons, and non-possession.

To advance on the path of purifying and releasing karma, Jainas adopt a lifestyle of great rigor. They adhere to vegetarianism and attempt to follow a code of kindness to others and avoid professions that lead to violence. Historically, Jainas have served as artisans, jewelers, publishers, and lawyers.[6] The most renowned Jaina occupation is that of a merchant, but it carries a major stipulation that Jainas may not buy or sell items that include animal products or promote harm to animals in any way. Additionally, Jainas fast regularly—generally, twice per month and for a longer stretch in the early fall festival of Paryusan; in their later years of life, they eschew even seed-bearing vegetables, take meticulous care not to leave leftover food that will generate bacteria doomed to a short life-span, and aspire to end their lives consciously while conducting a final fast.

Jaina texts are specific about which forms of violence to avoid. Neither animals nor humans are to be bound, beaten, mutilated, overburdened, or deprived of food or drink.[7] Violent animals, though, such as tigers or eagles, should not be killed to prevent them from killing others because “slaughter for the purpose of extirpating evil is as senseless as cutting down a tree with an axe to make it grow.”[8] The idea that it is better to kill one large animal to spare the lives of many smaller animals, advanced by other groups, is countered with the argument that large animals’ bodies harbor innumerable microbes and parasites, all of whose lives are destroyed when they are slaughtered. The Jainas are famous for their criticisms of and successful campaigns against animal sacrifice, as seen in the “conversion” of the Osian temple in Rajasthan.[9]

The Jaina worldview, with its analysis of forms of life and long lists of precepts and practices designed to prevent injury to all forms of life, is unparalleled. Monks and nuns take great care to minimize harm to life by keeping their possessions to a minimum, wearing face masks, and sweeping the path before them free of insects before walking. Jain laity take similar vows for a limited time and make lifestyle choices guided by their ethics of nonviolence.

Contemporary Jainas cite their vegetarianism as an appropriate response to the current problems of ecological and environmental degradation—and we now know that following a vegetarian diet is the single best way for an individual to reduce greenhouse gases due to the tremendous amount of water and petroleum needed for meat production and distribution. Worldwide, diaspora Jainas organize workshops on environment and ecology that emphasize the direct connection between nonviolence and the well-being of the earth. The Jaina Associations in North America (JAINA), a consortium of the more than sixty Jaina centers in the United States and Canada, maintain a permanent committee on this topic.[10]

Generally, Jainas do not resort to extraordinary means for averting death. Their conscience regarding dietary and end-of-life issues places them at the forefront of environmental and healthcare ethics. In the United States, an overwhelming percentage of health care expenditures is exhausted to keep people alive during their final six months. By simply accepting and embracing death, the anxiety for the dying and for their relatives can be avoided, along with preventing medically-induced violence, and huge sums of money are preserved. Physicians within the Jaina community, though they adhere to standard medical practice wherever they practice, sometimes advise and support “letting nature take its course” rather than recommending surgery and other means to extend life.[11] Jaina Religious authorities (ācāryas) refer to the undying nature of the soul, an essential part of their ontology, when they convey these teachings to their monastic and lay followers.

Jaina Many-sidedness, Perspectivalism, and Provisionality

Three Jaina teachings—many-sidedness, perspectivalism, and provisionality—provide a prism through which multiple accounts of reality might be maintained: All things are complex, can be described in different ways, and reside within a world where the truth, even if obtainable, remains inexpressible. In light of its radical difference from other worldviews in South Asia and worldwide, due to its unique cosmology, ontology, and rigorous ethical lifestyle, Jainism developed an accommodationist philosophical method that acknowledges the views of others yet provides a rationale for maintaining its own views and lifestyle in light of this profound difference. Known as the doctrine of “many-sidedness” (anekāntavāada), it acknowledges the “emergence, perishing, and duration” of all things.[12] There can never be only one way to observe a phenomenon or a situation. Jaina principles are affirmed while also acknowledging that not everyone can or must hold the Jaina view. Jainas adhere to these strategies, perhaps, to avoid the violence of holding an exclusivist claim to truth while still proclaiming their own view to be superior. Attempting to describe and capture this flow of continual change, Umasvati’s Tattvarthasūtra lists seven viewpoints (naya) that describe phenomena within reality in a manner that might be deemed “perspectivalism”: specific qualities, generic qualities, self-referring aspects, present state or condition, primary name, related names, and functional name.[13] This assemblage of Jaina philosophical viewpoints suggests that reality itself is subject to refinement and reinterpretation through seven possible relations (syādvāda), which may be referred to as “provisionality.” An object or condition might be true; it might be false; aspects of it might be simultaneously authentic and false; it is inexpressible; it is true and inexpressible; it is false and inexpressible; and it can be simultaneously authentic, false, and inexpressible.[14] This teaching advances the notion that the world only exists dependent on particular conditions that are subject to change. 

This seemingly open approach to truth never allows compromise when the discussion turns to the Jaina nonviolent worldview and ethics. The premises of many-sidedness, perspectivalism, and provisionality are used by Jaina scholars such as Haribhadra Yakini Putra (c. 750) to demonstrate the sole validity of the Jaina teachings on soul, karma, and the need for non-violence. He argues that Hindus are excessively committed to the existence of a singular monistic consciousness or Brahman; their view, in Haribhadra’s words, falls into the heresy of eternalism. In contrast, through the doctrines of momentariness (kṣana) and emptiness (śūnya), Buddhists fail to see the reality of suffering that prompts an individual to seek purification. The Buddhist view, in Haribhadra’s eyes, falls into the heresy of nihilism.[15] The seeming openness of Jaina philosophy can be interpreted to express a philosophy of “live and let live.” Jainas, however, use these perspectives to criticize the Buddhists, Hindus, and, in particular, those Tantrikas affiliated with both Hindu and Buddhist religions, charging these religions with a host of perceived philosophical and practical errors, most notably a penchant for violative rituals that involve the consumption of meat and alcohol and endorse sexual activity. 

Jainism stands apart, though its practices require what to many seem extreme behaviors. Its vegetarianism can become an exclusionary form of behavior that makes it impossible for Jainas to fraternize with meat eaters. The Jaina refusal to participate in violent professions has, in the eyes of some, created an insular, wealthy community. Many find the Jaina practice of fasting to death troubling. By setting themselves apart—due to dietary, occupational, and ritual customs—Jainas risk always being the exotic other, easy to identify and ridicule. From the very beginning of the tradition, the Kalpa Sutra narrates various abuses heaped upon Mahavira as he sat naked in silent meditation. Though some contemporary writers praise Jaina religiosity,[16] they simultaneously put the radical aspects of Jainism on display. The self-denial of food in the name of non-violence may be construed by non-adherents as a form of violence against one’s own body. As narrated by the anthropologist Anne Valleley, the austerity (tapas) of fasting has been recommended to remediate a host of ills, from physical problems to psychological disorders, with mixed results.[17] Hindus, Christians, and modern secular Indians publicly criticize the cherished Jaina tradition of fasting to death (sallekhana or santhara) as an act of self-cruelty, but the Jaina perspective maintains that this practice constitutes the ultimate purification. 

Ironically, this faith best known for its commitment to non-violence seems to stoke heated debates. Treading the path of non-violence in the industrial age is fraught. Mahatma Gandhi, the twentieth-century Indian Independence leader, endured great criticism from the Jaina community when he authorized the euthanasia of a suffering cow. The many shelters operated by Jainas in India allow the visible suffering of ailing animals and provoke great lamentation from animal activists, including Michael Fox of the Humane Society, a staunch believer in interventionist veterinary medicine.[18] Within the Jaina community itself, many people are rethinking the consumption of milk and milk products as a primary food source, overturning hundreds of years of Jaina and Indian tradition and culinary habits. Many Jainas claim their tradition is the most ecologically friendly religion due to its protection of animals and its great care not to hurt any being possessing more than the sense of touch. However, Jaina involvement in marble mining and its transport, as well as in a variety of heavy industries, including the automotive industry, would require a broad impact analysis and extensive reforms to be fully in accord with best environmental practices.[19] Mining is allowed because it only takes the lives of one-sensed beings, such as plants and minerals. However, the damage done in mining can be extensive. Jainism expert John Cort points out that some reforestation projects at Jaina pilgrimage sites have restricted the livelihood of subsistence herders.[20]

The Implications of Jain Ahiṃsā         

The Jaina view sees an object or situation for what it is in this life, for what it has been in past lives, and for what it will become in future lives, which encourages broadening the contemporary definition of human rights. Over eons of existence, each individual has been born and reborn as different beings, whether elemental, microbial, flora, or fauna. Each soul carries this history and its innumerable connections to past lives. From a Jaina perspective, taking these possibilities into account, legal rights need to be extended to soil, waters, and animals, all of which are past or potential human beings. Dada Vaswani, a contemporary Hindu spiritual leader (1918-2018) deeply committed to the practice of nonviolence suggested that the eighteenth-century revolutions in the United States and France proclaimed the liberation of the human person—then defined as a landowning white man; the nineteenth century proclaimed the liberation of enslaved people; the twentieth-century the liberation of women; and now the twenty-first century must be dedicated to liberating animals and the Earth.[21]

Jainism sets forth a gentle path designed to identify and ameliorate violence. Through their extreme practices, they have formed cohesive communities of monks, nuns, and laypersons for more than 2,500 years, remaining a non-violent conscience for the world, though it is not the only religion to embrace non-violence. Many religious traditions of India developed tools to cultivate nonviolence, beginning with a foundational regard for animals, nurtured through instructional narratives of past lives, the development of a vegetarian diet, and performing movement and meditative practices that position a view of the world through the body and through the senses of an animal. This empathetic approach broadens and deepens a gentle, friendly way of manifesting nonviolence in daily life, which is in keeping with the four great virtues held in common across the religions of India: loving kindness (maitrī), compassion (karuṇā), sympathetic joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekṣā).

Nonviolence in Buddhism

Concern for animal and plant life is not only a Jain emphasis but has shaped Buddhist monastic life and spread throughout Buddhist doctrines and practices. The first precept taken by Buddhist monks and nuns is prāṇātipātāviratiḥ, a synonym for ahiṃsā, in which they abstain from harming or injuring living beings. In the Mahāvagga, a Pali-language Buddhist scripture, the Buddha proclaims, “A bikkhu [monk]who has received ordination ought not intentionally destroy the life of any living being down to a worm or an ant.”[22] The Buddha mandated that all monks and nuns take shelter during the monsoon season to avoid harm to the abundance of living beings brought forth by the rains. 

As in the Jaina faith and practice, Buddhists believe in karma and rebirth. As part of his teaching, the Buddha told hundreds of didactic tales about his prior births as a rabbit, a swan, a fish, a quail, an ape, a woodpecker, an elephant, a deer, and many more animal lives. In the NigrodhamigaJātaka, a prior incarnation of the Buddha in the form of a deer offers his own life to replace that of a pregnant doe headed for slaughter. The deer’s generosity appealed to a reigning king’s sense of compassion, and he granted “guarantees for the protection of all deer in the park, and ultimately for all animals, birds, and fish in the realm.”[23] This story perhaps inspired Emperor Aśoka (274–232 BCE) to issue edicts, inscribed on pillars throughout India and Nepal, mandating the protection of animals. Though vegetarianism is not universally observed in the Buddhist world, many Buddhists in China are vegetarian, inspired in part by the eighth chapter of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, an early Mahyāna source that makes an eloquent appeal for vegetarianism and respect for animals.[24] One Buddhist animal narrative, the story of the Ruby-Eyed, Silver-Clawed Blue Bear, takes place deep in the forest and is about a bear bearing great wisdom. Like many other Jātaka Tales, this animal story attributes moral agency to a non-human animal, superior to that found in selfish human beings, and recounts stories of prior births of the Buddha for moral edification. It shows mutual empathy between the non-human and the human world.

Though illustrated in the vaunted painted caves at Ajanta, the Blue Bear narrative is only found in written form in the Khotanese Jatakastava, a tenth-century text from Central Asia that was discovered in only one copy in the Tunhuang Caves.[25] In this story, the future Buddha lived in the Himalayas as a “bear with blue fur, silver claws, and ruby-red eyes.”[26] His pelt and claws would bring a small fortune, and his flesh would bestow long life. Legends circulated about this magnificent creature the color of lapis, the world’s most precious gem. No one could ever find where the bear lived. One day, a hunter lost and trapped in a blinding snowstorm, called out for help. The blue bear rescued him, carried the half-dead man back to his cave, and “revived him with the warmth of its own body and breath.” The bear protected the man for the duration of the storm, feeding him roots and dried berries, with the understanding that the man would never reveal the location of the bear’s cave. At the end of the storm, the hunter departed and safely reached an inn where he took shelter. All night long he tossed and turned, fantasizing about the fortune he would amass if he told others about the whereabouts of this legendary blue bear. Despite his promise, he went to the king and told him of the bear’s location, neglecting to mention the bear’s kindness and his own pledge not to betray his savior. The king’s huntsmen traveled into the mountains, found the bear’s den, and sounded their horns, jolting the bear from his slumber and driving him into their nets. 

Delivered to the palace, the bear requested a meeting with the king and recounted his betrayal by the original huntsman whose life he had saved. With great wisdom, the bear addressed the King: “Good actions lead to happiness, selfish ones to disaster. Kindness is greater than cruelty. Do not strike back but develop the fortitude of patience. If you practice these virtues diligently, you will find happiness without limit.”[27] The original huntsman who betrayed the bear was summoned to the court. The king castigated him for his bad behavior and banished him from the palace. The bear, garlanded by the king, was escorted safely back to the mountains. He took up residence in a new cave, never again to be discovered. The hunter descended into a life of subsistence, hunting wild game and eating roots and berries. His hair became unruly, his eyes reddened from campfire smoke, and one day he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a slow-moving stream. He exclaimed that he had taken on the appearance of a bear. From this jolt, he saw his own kinship with the bear he had betrayed. From that time forward, he stopped hunting and eating meat and became a beacon of safety, “lending a helping hand to man or beast.”[28]   

Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist Nonviolence

From its beginnings as a simple term describing benevolence, ahiṃsā came to signify a way of life dedicated to the protection of life. Core Hindu texts such as the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad Gītā, and the Yoga Sūtra praise the observance of ahiṃsā. Jaina cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics ground themselves in a vision of life that mandates minimizing harm. For Buddhists, numerous stories inculcate the need to act with loving-kindness toward all beings. Yoga, Jainism, and Buddhism anchor their ethical mandate with nonviolence as the first and primary vow or precept. The next section explores and builds upon the work of Mahatma Gandhi, who was raised as a Hindu adherent to a vegetarian diet and studied and corresponded with Rajcandra, a prominent lay Jain teacher. Gandhi reinterpreted the message of the Bhagavad Gītā in a new way. Rather than agreeing with Krishna’s message that fighting must be undertaken, Gandhi chose to emphasize a teaching within the text that counsels remaining calm in the midst of a storm. He used this way of nonviolence to bring about radical change to the world’s economic system, reversing centuries of European colonialism. His movement inspired civil rights workers in the United States, including Howard Thurman, James Lawson, and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as current environmental activists in India such as Vandana Shiva and M.C. Mehta, who give hope for a new post-industrial global future. 

Mahatma Gandhi and Later Activists

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) advocated Indian self-governance, achieved through nonviolent techniques to resist the British colonial authorities. He called for the overthrow of colonial rule by mass civil disobedience, which required training thousands of people to stand their ground without striking back against British forces. During this struggle, thousands of Indian fighters for self-rule, including Gandhi and his wife, were incarcerated for sedition. In order to stay peaceful under physical threat and harm, Gandhi taught people to dwell in a state of steady wisdom (sthiti prajñā), recalling his favorite passage in the Bhagavad Gītā, verses 2.54–72, that gives practical instructions to remain unruffled in the midst of difficulty. By finding sovereignty within oneself, worlds can change. Gandhi trained these Indian freedom fighters in this yogic technique, but these methods had a long life beyond the struggle for self-rule in India. 

Gandhi inspired the American activist Howard Thurman, who lived in India in 1934 and 1935 and, after meeting Gandhi, brought word of this technique to the African American community. Two decades later, while teaching at a school in Nagpur, veteran and activist James Lawson learned from Gandhians. Throughout his life, Lawson, who taught Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, trained people in social and economic analysis and thoughtful direct actions to effect change. Freedom comprises the core of Gandhi’s message, a message carried forward by contemporary Gandhians such as Vandana Shiva and M.C. Mehta. Gandhi’s prevailing message, which sounded for more than a century, proclaims that society must become free of all forms of tyranny: interpersonal, corporate, and self-imposed.

Gandhi’s Self-Governance, Svarāj, Sovereignty

Mahatma Gandhi was a person in turmoil. Through his process of self-discovery, he combined his commitment to nonviolence with the goal of becoming a person of steady wisdom as described in the Bhagavad Gītā; this steadiness was essential for nonviolent activism. While in India, Gandhi struggled within his father’s home, feeling selfish and lustful as a teenage newlywed, seeking his own pleasures even when his father was mortally ill. In England, he struggled to adapt to a foreign culture. In South Africa, Gandhi suffered the indignity of personal insults due to his race. Back in India, he felt the suffering of a nation under the thumb of British Colonial domination that inflicted famine and misery on millions. While he lived in England, Gandhi discovered the Bhagavad Gītā, which became the touchstone and the narrative through which his own story could take on greater meaning. The last eighteen verses of the second chapter spoke deeply to him. According to his secretary, Narayana Desai, Gandhi recited these eighteen verses every day, finding inspiration in their simple meaning: Be the best person you can possibly be at all times and in all circumstances.[29] 

In his youth in India, in England, in South Africa, and back in India, Gandhi sought agency for himself by cultivating steady wisdom (sthiti prajña), and then for India as a nation aspiring to svarāj. The prefix sva indicates “self”; the term rāj refers to “kingdom,” “governance,” or “sovereignty”; combined, svarāj can be translated as “self-governance” or “self-sovereignty.” Echoing Socrates, Gandhi insisted that without personal transformation, which is an entry into and adherence to a philosophical view, there can be no social change. For Gandhi, that philosophy of personal transformation was nonviolence (ahiṃsā). In the Bhagavad Gītā, Gandhi found a template for the hero, a person capable of self-rule who can also serve as an example for others. 

The Steady Sage of the Bhagavad Gītā

The Bhagavad Gītā, one of the most translated and revered texts in world literature, provides a roadmap for moving away from dualistic “us vs. them” reactivity. Krishna gives the following instructions:

II:48. Fixed in Yoga, having renounced attachments, do action.

Be the same in success or failure.

This “sameness” is called Yoga.

Mahatma Gandhi gravitated toward the iconic “person of steady wisdom,” an immovable soul able to endure great suffering and bring lasting change through nonviolence. He trained himself to become such a yogi, and he trained millions of Indians to endure merciless beatings meted out by the British army. This method changed the course of world history. Colonial rule collapsed throughout the globe. People regained self-rule and sovereignty. By adhering to the principles of nonviolence even in the face of physical harm, Gandhi’s followers sparked the conscience of their oppressors. Bhagavad Gītā 2.54–72 became Gandhi’s anthem. These eighteen verses are translated below in their entirety to give a full sense of Gandhi’s emphasis on steady wisdom as the key to the transformation of self and society. This poem-within-a-poem can be parsed into four basic messages: acknowledgment of one’s ignorance, the changeability of the world, the consequences of entering a downward spiral, and the option of freedom.

At the opening of the Bhagavad Gītā, Arjuna is utterly paralyzed by his situation, and he asks a question to his dear friend Krishna. He feels miserable, defeated, confused, and impotent. His world has been shaken by the treachery committed by his own cousin-brothers, and he cannot move forward. In An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929), Gandhi is also in crisis, for he grapples with his own lust, feelings of “less-than,” rage at his own mistreatment and the mistreatment of others, and the enormity and intransigence of British Colonial imperialism. Gandhi seeks a hero, a template, an exemplar. He seeks a pathway to govern his passions. The words spoken by Krishna to Arjuna speak also to Gandhi’s condition. We must look for a way of being in the world that will provide peace and tranquility. Krishna’s first message lies in the Gītā’s opening questions.

Arjuna asks Krishna:

II:54. How can the person of steady wisdom be described,

that one accomplished in deep meditation?

How does the person of steady vision speak?

How does such a one sit and even move?

Krishna’s asks for a reconsideration of the fixity of the external world. The external world “arrives” because we say it is as it is because of agreed-upon conventions about right and wrong, tasty and disgusting, worthy and unworthy. Krishna provides a measured critique and analysis of the habitual ways we engage with the world. He calls into question the relationship between senses and the objects of the senses. Krishna urges his listener to, as we say colloquially, “dial it back”  and recognize that a sense object does not exist before the sense organ (indriya) lands upon it, seizes it, and makes it real. Careful direction of the senses can shape and change one’s emotional relationship with the world. By learning to step back into a place of consideration before—in Nietzsche’s words, “going under” the thrall of the senses—a person can gain a measure of mastery leading to self-understanding and self-control.

The Blessed One [Krishna] responds:

II:55. When a person leaves behind all desires that arise in the mind, Arjuna,

and is contented in the Self with the Self, that one is said to be steady in wisdom.

56. The person who is not agitated by suffering (duḥkha),

whose yearnings for pleasures have evaporated, 

whose passion, fear, and anger have evaporated,

that sage, it is said, has become steady in vision.       

57. One whose passions have been quelled on all sides

whether encountering anything, whether pleasant or unpleasant,

who neither rejoices or recoils, such a person is established in wisdom.

58. And when this person can draw away from the objects of sense

by recognizing the senses themselves 

like a tortoise who draws in all five of its limbs,

such a person is established in wisdom.

64. By giving up desire and hatred even in the midst of the sense objects

through the control of the self by oneself, a person attains peace.

65. This peace generates for that person the end of all sufferings (duḥkha). 

The one with a peaceful mind indeed attains steady intelligence.

Krishna articulates a cascade of unfortunate consequences that can result if one does not gain self-control: Attachment leads to desire. Thwarted desire leads to anger, and anger confuses the mind. A confused mind knows no tranquility. The emotional fallout from uncontrolled desire can ruin one’s day, but it can also take down entire families, villages, and nations. 

II.66. There is no intelligence if one is not disciplined.

Without discipline there is no meditation.

Without meditation there can be no tranquility. 

Without tranquility, how can there be happiness?

Krishna emphatically declares the possibility of freedom. If one can reverse the outflows of the senses through managing emotions, then one can become like a still ocean, wakeful in the midst of ignorance. Echoing descriptions of freedom found in both Buddhism and Sāṃkhya, one can move away from ego fixity and obsession into a state of no ego, no possessions, and no lust for what causes bondage. In short, the prajña sthiti, the person established in wisdom, becomes godlike when established in Brahma (brahmi sthiti) and can thereby enter the divine abode of Brahma Nirvana that describes ascent to a heavenly realm, a realm characterized as a place where the winds of desire no longer blow.

II.71. The person who abandons all desires moves about free from lust,

free from possessiveness, free from ego. That person attains tranquility.

72. This is the godly state, Arjuna.

Having attained this, one is not deluded.

Staying in this even up until the time of death,

one reaches Brahma Nirvana.

Verse II.72 has often been heralded as acknowledging the wisdom of the Buddhist tradition, showing the commonality of freedom across India’s many faiths. Below, this entry explores the influence of Gandhi’s interpretation of the Bhagavad Gītā on Howard Thurman's philosophy of nonviolent resistance and the American civil rights movement.

Howard Thurman

The work of Howard Thurman (1899–1981) inspired Martin Luther King, Jr., who read nightly from Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), a book that was on King’s nightstand in his Memphis hotel room at the time of his death. Thurman’s book, a rhetorical masterpiece, opens by emphasizing that Jesus lived on the margins. Fully human, his struggles mirrored the struggles of all enslaved people facing the “three hounds of hell,” described by Thurman as fear, deception, and hate. At the midpoint of the book, as he seeks a way out of the tenacity of deception, Thurman turns to Gandhi.  Rather than acquiesce, rather than compromise, Thurman calls for a third solution in “complete and devastating sincerity.”[30] From a philosophical point of view, he calls for an uncompromising speaking of truth. Thurman, who met with Gandhi in India in 1936, quotes Gandhi’s letter to Muriel Lester: “Speak the truth, without fear and without exception . . . You are in God’s work, so you need not fear man’s scorn. If they listen to your requests and grant them, you will be satisfied. If they reject them, then you must make their rejection your strength.”[31]

Gandhi’s philosophy calls for drawing strength from the opposition and scorn of others. At the salt marches and other protests, the Gandhian refusal to strike back when hit by the British police signaled steadfast resolve, a state of being established in equanimity, and these nonviolent actions and responses caught the attention of the world. Ultimately, equipoise won out over aggression. Well aware of Gandhi’s ongoing work, Thurman writes, “[B]e simply, directly truthful, whatever may be the cost in life, limb or security . . . In the presence of an overwhelming sincerity on the part of the disinherited, the dominant themselves are caught with no defense, with the edge taken away from the sense of prerogative and from the status upon which the impregnability of their position rests. They are thrown back upon themselves . . .” [32]

Thurman critiques the very basis of power itself. “The experience of power has no meaning aside from the other-than-self reference which sustains it. If the position of ascendancy is not acknowledged tacitly and actively by those over whom the ascendancy is exercised, then it falls flat . . .That advantage due to the accident of birth or position is reduced to zero. Instead of a relation between the weak and the strong there is merely a relationship between human beings . . . The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity.”[33] This passage outlines the nonviolent strategy that eventually prevailed in the civil rights movement. Make the world aware of the plight of the oppressed. Reveal the techniques used by the oppressor, whether low wages, exclusion from real estate wealth, voter suppression, overt targeting by the police, failing schools, and more. But rather than develop hate, one should exercise love and thereby disarm the enemy. In recognizing the resistors’ humanity, they must reciprocate. That said, Thurman recognizes the difficulty of this undertaking. “Love of the enemy means that a fundamental attack must first be made on the enemy status . . . an ‘unscrambling’ process is required.”[34] Thurman points to the ultimate goal being a dignity that is “universal, knowing no age, no race, no culture, no condition.”[35]

Thurman met Gandhi in 1936, and he tracked Gandhi’s long struggle, realizing that the struggle for civil rights in the United States would also be a long one. Independence for India occurred in 1947, more than a decade after Gandhi and Thurman’s first meeting. Gandhi’s long struggle, from the start of the Satyagraha campaign in 1918 to the salt marches that began in 1930 to the final push in 1942, took nearly thirty years, but it provided a roadmap for others to overthrow colonial rule and to seek civil rights for all people.

James Lawson

Rev. James Lawson (1928–2024) avidly supported the nonviolent campaign of Mahatma Gandhi. Upon his release from prison for refusal to serve in the Korean War, Lawson moved to India where he taught school for three years near Gandhi’s Sevagram Ashram in Nagpur. One of the most joyous moments of Lawson’s life took place while he was in India and saw a front-page headline declaring “Blacks in Mississippi Stage Bus Boycott.”[36] He conferred with Gandhians to learn the techniques of nonviolent resistance, and he also consulted with Prime Minister and Independence activist Jawaharlal Nehru. When he returned to the United States to undertake graduate studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, Martin Luther King, Jr. implored him to move south, and Lawson moved to Nashville. In the late 1950s, Lawson conducted workshops in Gandhian nonviolence, training young activists including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and hundreds of others, and teaching them how to withstand abuse without flinching. At Tuesday night workshops, “the group discussed nonviolence from the perspective of . . . Henry David Thoreau, Reinhold Niebuhr, A. J. Muste . . . Mo Ti and Lao Tzu. The participants debated ‘every aspect of Gandhi’s principles.’ In particular, they studied Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha, which John Lewis considered to be ‘a grounding foundation of nonviolent civil disobedience, of active pacifism.’”[37] 

Satyagraha requires speaking truth, holding truth, and, in the words of Thurman, dwelling in “overwhelming sincerity.” Hundreds flocked to the South to support the freedom rides and the lunch-counter sit-ins, and hundreds of thousands attended the mass demonstrations in Washington, D.C. Eventually, the nonviolent movement prevailed. Groundbreaking legislation, including the Voting Rights Act in 1965, was passed; and programs like Head Start and the distribution of food stamps were implemented to redress vast educational and wealth inequalities. 

James Lawson trained activists in Los Angeles until his death in 2024 at the age of 95. His words convey the essence of applying this strategy to stay tranquil while effecting social change:

One of the things I lifted up, and still do in teachings and trainings . . . is that religion at its best tries to get human beings . . . to accept their fundamental humanity and take responsibility for the management and control of their anger, for their fear, for their animosities. Do not pretend it comes from somebody else. Develop a spiritual life. You can be in a very hostile situation, but you can still try to shape your own life. Life is a gift. And you can mold it. Meet hate with love and strategic action.[38]

Lawson eloquently calls for self-governance and sovereignty within oneself as an essential ingredient for making social change. Lawson continued his decades-long offering of monthly workshops accessible to all, and, late in his life, even conducted them on Zoom. On July 24, 2021, Rev. James Lawson offered the following insights: “Love the enemy” and “Be generous.” These simple precepts echo the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gītā, encouraging us to treat all individuals as if they are the same. The first statement above counters racism, and the second statement affirms the need for supportive government policies that seek to undo the ravages of inequality.

Lawson generally advised against fighting fire with fire in the following advice he regularly offered throughout his career. When meeting an opponent, he counseled, “Don’t imitate their language. Don’t adopt their theologies and idols.” Lawson was always circumspect about the dangers of allowing one’s perspective to harden. One must answer hate with love. He advocates being strategic and patient. “Explore the pathway of a humanity being fully alive. Identify yourself with the human family, the potential for life.” All humanity, particularly the outcasts, hold promise for the future. Rather than dismissing and rejecting the homeless, the ill, the poor, Lawson urges us to see the other within ourselves. “Nonviolent philosophy proposes that how we do our journey is as critical as our destination.” He explains that “The ‘how’ is as powerful as the ‘what,’” and “Methodology, strategy, behavior determine consequences.”[39]

Lawson criticized anarchy and destruction. During the Black Lives Matter demonstrations of 2020, Lawson pointed out that the mainstream marchers remained nonviolent—only the police exerted force. Lawson distinguished between looters and demonstrators, noting the clear difference between a destructive riot and a peaceful demonstration. Following the Gandhian precept to “speak the truth, without fear and without exception,” Lawson names the difficulties that plague society: “Racism and sexism denigrate human life.” He stood against “plantation capitalism,” the exploitation of labor for the sake of enriching the few: “I see violence as the misuse of power. It is not just done by a fist or a gun or hitting someone over a chair, it is done by economic structures . . . systematic power, structural power.” At a celebration of his work in October 2021, Lawson commented on the travesty of low wages. The federal minimum, followed by many states, is currently $7.25, but a fair wage, allowing people to buy food and pay rent at current costs, would be $30 per hour.  Lawson calls for the uplift of all persons: “An eye-for-an-eye leaves everyone blind, toothless,” and “You cannot overcome evil with evil.” Lawson warns that advocates for social justice and equality must always comport themselves with dignity: “Do not use bad language, bad philosophy, bad tactics.” Following the precepts of Jesus, Lawson urged that love must prevail and paraphrases the letters of St. Paul: “Feed the enemy. Nurture, serve, and treat the enemy as a human being.” Rather than ascribing to a worldview that divides, Lawson teaches we must see the universal sameness of human needs.[40]

Veena Howard, a contemporary scholar of Lawson’s work, writes that “Lawson’s method of training points to his unique grasp on the challenges of nonviolent struggle, requiring deep philosophical understanding of the method, building strategic alliances, and planning precise strategies.”[41] She continues, “Through his deep study of theology, Gandhi’s life and philosophy, and the history of nonviolence, Lawson concluded that nonviolent action requires three main components: discipline, self-sacrifice, and strategic techniques of confrontation.”[42] 

Even though Gandhi and Lawson rejected holding political office, their examples inspired many people of good will to enter the public sphere and effect change on the streets and through legislation designed to uplift all people. As we encounter the challenges of the twenty-first century—including ecological degradation, ongoing awareness of social inequalities, and a seeming overall diminishment of human well-being due to mistruths—we need to heed the wisdom of Socrates, Krishna, Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurman, and Lawson: Be reflective, speak truth, and uphold the dignity not only of the human person but of the earth herself. Self-control holds the key to being effective in the process of making change. To thwart desire, anger, and delusion through the steady practice of understanding oneself provides the great gift of allowing a goal and mission to become primary, stymying selfish ego and greed. This power moves mountains.

Environmental Nonviolence

Gandhi-inspired activist Vandana Shiva (b. 1952) has become one of the world’s most outspoken critics of globalization and provides a trenchant critique of “patenting” traditional ways of knowledge, preventing their exploitation for economic gain by corporations. She works tirelessly against the agro-industrial complex that seeks to commoditize food production. She works against the corporate attempts to manipulate nature and educates farmers about how to return to organic, sustainable methods. Shiva’s advocacy for sustainable farms and farming requires a shift from a corporate model that relies on fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and genetically modified seeds to the promotion of locally viable, hardy, nutritious crops such as millet. 

I launched a national program to save seed diversity in farmers’ fields.  We call it Navdanya, which literally means nine seeds . . . The farmers [had] become mere consumers of corporate seed.  This excludes the farmer from the critical role of conserver of genetic diversity and development of seed.  It robs farmers of their rights to their biological and intellectual heritage . . . Navdanya wanted to build a program in which farmers and scientists relate horizontally rather than vertically, in which biodiversity and production of food to hand in hand, and which farmers’ knowledge is strengthened, not robbed.[43]

The corporatization of agriculture—including patenting seeds and mass marketing of herbicides, pesticides, and petroleum-based fertilizers—creates a horrific situation that drives farmers away from organic practices and leaves them as debtors dependent on corporate entities. Shiva, citing government statistics, notes that “According to India’s National Crime Bureau, sixteen thousand farmers in India committed suicide during 2004. During one six-month span in 2004, there were 1,860 suicides by farmers in the State of Andhra Pradesh alone.” (120).[44]  During the first decade of the twenty-first century, 250,000 farmers committed suicide in India.[45] This great tragedy has received scant attention from the international press. Shiva advocates for individual farmers and their families and has urged legislation to help India’s rural poor. 

Environmental Activists

Gandhi charted a nonviolent approach that seeks to educate people about ills that must be corrected. British economic policies impoverished the South Asian subcontinent, inflicting famines not unlike the famines inflicted upon Ireland a few decades prior. He united the people with an effective call to nonviolent resistance, and, in turn, he directly influenced freedom movements in the United States, charting a course that eventually reversed segregationist policies. In recent decades, faulty agricultural practices and pollution of the soil, water, and air have prompted the rise of an environmentalism similarly inspired by the Gandhian approach: learn about and document a difficulty, bring attention to the issue, refuse cooperation through boycotts, and lobby for legislative change and enforcement. The activists below exemplify a Gandhian approach to current environmental crises.

M.C. Mehta

In 1996, Indian Supreme Court lawyer M.C. Mehta (b. 1946) won the Goldman Environmental Prize for his advocacy to protect the Taj Mahal. For years, the industrial grime generated by the city of Agra degraded the once-gleaming marble of the famous building. Through Mehta’s efforts, several industries relocated, and a stringent program to reduce air pollution was enacted that included a ban on non-electric vehicles within several hundred yards of the Mughal masterpiece. On April 1, 2001, Mehta achieved a landmark victory when all public transport vehicles in the Delhi capital region converted from gasoline, diesel, and kerosene fuels to compressed natural gas. The air quality improved overnight. The new buses, taxis, and autorickshaws are brightly painted in yellow and green, celebrating the light of the Sun and the bounty of the earth.    

Mehta’s approach fundamentally aligns with a Gandhian vision, and he explains his connection to Gandhi in the following passage.

Gandhi was a true environmentalist. He said ‘we should not live in debt, we should help others to grow.’ I like Gandhi for his spiritual values, and for his cultural values, and for his vision about India. He said ‘don’t put up all the big industries, there is no need, we should try to give a job to each hand.’ In India we are lucky that way, we have more than two billion hands. It was Mahatma Gandhi’s vision to give jobs to the people. India is unique because of its magnetic power and vibrations that go deep into our mind and soul. Each country, each continent has its own uniqueness, so in my view we should respect that.

He expanded his Gandhian environmental commitment to a range of environmental concerns, including the care for and revitalization of rivers and sustainable agriculture.

Mehta, with support from the Ford Foundation, developed a training camp to equip lawyers throughout South Asia to face the challenges presented by environmental conditions. While visiting his camp, Eco Ashram, near Rishikesh in 2006, I witnessed a dozen young lawyers from Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan being taught by Mehta during a six-week residential course. Everyone lived in straw huts, shared simple food, and attempted to keep warm in the cold season, even when pelted by Himalayan hail. The lectures on industrial pollution during this course included heartbreaking tales of miscarriages, birth defects, and early death. One of Mehta’s first environmental cases included the protection of children working in “electroplating, chemical industries, mining, so many different industries.” His work continues, and if he succeeds in his legal efforts, forty million children will be removed from these dangerous workplaces and able to begin their education.

The rivers of India are sources of inspiration and consternation in South Asia. Abundant literature extols the beauties of rivers. Panditaraja Jagannatha’s Ganga Lahari praises the Ganges River:

Your water is bliss incarnate.

Your water is forever pure.

The glory of your waves, Mother,

is unequalled anywhere in the world.[46]

Similarly, Rupa Gosvamin’s Yamunashatakam praises the Yamuna River:

She beautifies the spacious forests with her flow of alluring water;

She dances with the birds and bees flying around her lotus fields;

She completely destroys all disease, sickness, and sin

For those who desire to bathe in her;

May the Daughter of the Sun always purify me.[47]

Sadly, both rivers now carry dangerously high levels of pollution. Mehta became involved with the rehabilitation of the Ganges River in 1986. 

I fought this case when I came to know that Gaṅgā caught fire. I came over and investigated and fought that case first against two industries. Now more than 150,000 industries in 300 towns are all affected by this case; 600 tanneries were closed down in Calcutta. And now, similarly the court has directed other industries to use air pollution control and water pollution control. The monitoring process is going on.

Mehta explains his concerns about the rivers of India suffering from pollution but also suffering the effects of canalization and siphoning for irrigation. 

I am fighting for the rights of the rivers. The rights of the rivers mean that the river has a right to live, to exist. One should not touch the riverbed because there are too many species that live in the river or near the riverbed, like birds, that live along the riverbed. Now you only see the river when there is a monsoon. The river is channeled through the canals so it goes everywhere.

Like Vandana Shiva, Mehta cares deeply about the state of agriculture in India as well as the need for reforestation: “India needs organically made foods. Exporting organic food can improve the economy. The states of India should start more forestation programs. Growing medicinal plants here in the Himalayas will grow the economy. We must do constructive work.” Global warming profoundly worries Mehta, who came upon the collapse of a glacier while hiking in the Himalayas. “The glaciers are melting on the Himalayas, yet nobody is bothered. I saw myself when I went 14,000 feet high there. The way back was blocked. I asked what happened, and the people said that a huge area had just collapsed.” Mehta, having helped improve the quality of India’s air and water, hopes to slow global warming. He laments that “Greed has overtaken us, leaving us under its cloak. People must come out from under this cloak and see real life.” For Mehta, awareness sparks the activism and legislation that can restore sanity and balance.

The philosophy of ahiṃsā calls upon humanity to recognize a continuity between human well-being and the well-being of nature. Harmful actions such as domestic violence, warfare, colonialism, sexism, and economic exploitation produce suffering. The cultivation of opposite positive actions results in harmony. Ahiṃsā calls human beings to look for the myriad root causes of suffering that are so many variations of greed and delusion. By employing Gandhian wisdom, a path and life grounded in nonviolence may help reverse the ills of the world and allow movement forward toward healing.   

[1] Kisari Mohan Ganguli, trans., The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, vol. 9 (Bharata Press, 1893), sec. CCLXII, 234.
[2] Translations by the author, based on Vishnu S. Sukthankar et al., eds., The Mahābhārata, Fascicule 34 (Pune: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1963).
[3] Santi Suri, Jiva Vicara Prakaranam along with Pathaka Ratnakara's Commentary, ed. Muni Ratna Prabha Vijaya, trans. Jayant P. Thaker (Jain Mission Society, 1950), 20–35.
[4] Christopher Key Chapple, ed., Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life (Harvard University Press, 2002), 128.
[5] Helmuth von Glasenapp, The Doctrine of Karman in Jain Philosophy, trans. G. Barry Gifford (P. V. Research Institute, 1942), 47–67.
[6] Padmanabh S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification (University of California Press, 1979), 171–72.
[7] R. Williams, Jaina Yoga: A Survey of the Mediaeval Śrāvakācāras (Oxford University Press, 1963), 67–71.
[8] Ibid., 65.
[9] Michael W. Meister, "Sweetmeats or Corpses? Community, Conversion, and Sacred Places," in Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History, ed. John Cort (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 11–138.
[10] Anne Vallely, "From Liberation to Ecology: Ethical Discourses among Orthodox and Diaspora Jains," in Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple (Harvard University Press, 2002), 206–13.
[11] Christopher Key Chapple, "Eternal Life, Death, and Dying in Jainism," in Religion, Death, and Dying, ed. Lucy Bregman (Praeger Perspectives, 2010), 206.
[12] Jeffrey Long, Jainism: An Introduction (I. B. Tauris, 2009), 142.
[13] Nathmal Tatia, trans., That Which Is: Tattvārtha Sūtra: A Classic Jain Manual for Understanding the True Nature of Reality (HarperCollins, 1994), 23–24; Long, Jainism: An Introduction, 124.
[14] Christopher Key Chapple, Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions (State University of New York Press, 1993), 85–98.
[15] Christopher Key Chapple, Reconciling Yogas: Haribhadra's Collection of Views on Yoga with a New Translation of Haribhadra's Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya (State University of New York Press, 2003), 60–63.
[16] Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).
[17] Anne Vallely, Guardians of the Transcendent: An Ethnography of a Jain Ascetic Community (University of Toronto Press, 2002).
[18] Personal communication during a conference on the use of animals in science, London, 1984.
[19] Chapple, ed., Jainism and Ecology.
[20] John Cort, "Green Jainism? Notes and Queries toward a Possible Jain Environmental Ethic," in Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple (Harvard University Press, 2002), 63–94.
[21] Dada Vaswani, "Five Pillars of Spiritual Life," in Making a World of Difference: Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth, program book, Parliament of the World's Religions (December 7, 2009), 261.
[22] Mahāvagga I.78.4, in Vinaya Texts, trans. T. W. Rhys-Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, Sacred Books of the East (Oxford University Press, 1882).
[23] Padmanabh S. Jaini, "Indian Perspectives on the Spirituality of Animals," in Buddhist Philosophy and Culture: Essays in Honour of N. A. Jayawickrema, ed. David J. Kalupahana and W. G. Weeraratne (N. A. Jayawickrema Felicitation Volume Committee, 1987), 169–78.
[24] Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, trans., The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1932).
[25] Mark D. Dresden, "The Jātakastava or Praise of the Buddha's Former Births: Indo-Scythian (Khotanese) Text, English Translation, Grammatical Notes, and Glossaries," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 45, no. 5 (1955).
[26] Rafe Martin, Endless Path: Awakening within the Buddhist Imagination: Jataka Tales, Zen Practice, and Daily Life (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2010), 57.
[27] Ibid., 60.
[28] Ibid., 62.
[29] Narayana Desai, lecture, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, April 2008.
[30] Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (1949; repr., Beacon Press, 1996), 59.
[31] Ibid., 60.
[32] Ibid., 73.
[33] Ibid., 62–63.
[34] Ibid., 87.
[35] Ibid., 99.
[36] James Lawson, keynote address, Doshi Bridgebuilder Award ceremony, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, October 2, 2021.
[37] John Lewis and Michael D'Orso, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 76, as quoted in Veena Howard, "Nonviolence as Love in Action," Practical Matters Journal (November 18, 2020).
[38] James Lawson, workshop, Holman United Methodist Church, Los Angeles, April 2013.
[39] The quotations in this paragraph are drawn from James Lawson's lectures, workshops, interviews, and training materials developed through the James Lawson Institute.
[40] Remarks at Doshi Bridgebuilder Award ceremony, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, October 2, 2021.
[41] Veena Howard, "Nonviolence as Love in Action," Practical Matters Journal (November 18, 2020).
[42] Howard, "Nonviolence as Love in Action."
[43] Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Crisis (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2008), 92.
[44] Ibid., 120.
[45] Vandana Shiva, lecture, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, November 1, 2011.
[46] Panditaraja Jagannatha, Gaṅgā Laharī, quoted in John Cort, Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 42.
[47] Rupa Gosvamin, Yamunāṣṭakam, quoted in David L. Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 197–98.

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