Ahiṃsā

Ahiṃsā, “non-harming” or “non-violence”, is the principle of not injuring living beings in thought, word or deed. It is shared by the religions of India, but nowhere is it as central or as demanding as in Jainism, where it is the first of the five great vows taken by monks and nuns, and the root of the others: truthfulness, not stealing, chastity and non-possession.

For the Jains, the universe is full of souls (jīva), not only in humans and animals but in plants, and in tiny beings in earth, water, fire and air. Every act of harm binds karmic matter to the soul of the one who harms. Jain ascetics therefore walk with care, sweep the ground before them, strain their water and eat only what has not been prepared for them, and Jain lay people follow a gentler form of the same vows, keeping a strictly vegetarian diet.

Ahiṃsā shaped the Buddhist precept against killing and the Hindu ideal of non-violence in the Yoga Sūtras and the Dharma literature. In the twentieth century Mohandas Gandhi, influenced among others by the Jain teacher Raychandbhai, made it the basis of a politics of non-violent resistance.