Title
Hinduism and nonviolence
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Title
Nonviolence in the World’s Religions: A Concise Introduction
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Abstract
The difficulty of identifying Hindu Dharma as a whole with one position or another, not only on the question of violence and nonviolence, but on just about any issue of consequence, is perhaps greater than with most religious traditions, because the word Hinduism is itself an umbrella term of relatively recent coinage that tries to encompass what was, at one time, a very wide array of traditions, loosely affiliated to one another by their shared adherence to the authority of the Vedas-a set of texts whose boundaries are, themselves, contested and difficult to delineate. Traditional Hindu society, in ancient times, sought to balance the ideal of nonviolence with the reality of violence by severely circumscribing the boundaries of legitimate violence. Historian Romila Thapar has spoken of “a fundamental sanity in Indian civilization” which understood that unrestrained violence, such as that found in the practice of total warfare in the modern era, would lead to the end of human society.
First Page
12
Last Page
23
DOI
10.4324/9781003006763-2
ISBN
9781000449808
Recommended Citation
Long, Jeffery D., "Hinduism and nonviolence" (2021). Faculty Publications. 820.
https://jayscholar.etown.edu/facpubharvest/820
