Ahimsa

Ahimsa is from the Sanskrit a (non, not) and himsa (harm, injury, violence), built on the root han (to strike, to kill)[1]. Devanagari: अहिंसा. The literal sense is non-harm[1]. The term appears in late Vedic and Upanishadic literature and becomes central in Jain ethics, classical Hindu yoga literature (where it is listed as the first of the yamas in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali), and Buddhist moral teaching[2]. In the 20th century, the word entered global vocabulary through Mohandas K. Gandhi's use of it in the Indian independence movement[3].

different traditions interpret ahimsa differently, ranging from broad ethical restraint to highly detailed disciplines of nonviolence.

Jainism takes ahimsa to its strictest expression[4]. Lay Jains and especially Jain monks observe ahimsa across food, work, speech, and thought[4]. Jain monks sweep the ground before walking, strain water before drinking, and avoid agriculture because plowing kills insects[4]. The principle of non-harm shapes Jain dietary practice (strict vegetarianism, often avoiding root vegetables) and underlies the choice of certain professions over others[4].

Hindu yoga and meditative traditions list ahimsa as the first ethical discipline[5]. The Yoga Sutras open with the yamas, the five restraints, and ahimsa heads the list[5]. Buddhist ethics teaches the first precept as abstaining from killing and harming living beings[6]. Vegetarianism is widespread across Buddhist and Hindu communities, with significant variation between regions and schools[2].

In the modern political imagination, Gandhi's satyagraha (truth force) drew on ahimsa to develop a method of disciplined nonviolent resistance[3]. Martin Luther King Jr. drew explicitly on Gandhi in shaping the American civil rights movement's nonviolent strategy[7]. Ahimsa as political ethics has continued to inform peace movements, environmental activism, and animal welfare advocacy worldwide[2].

Scholarship on ahimsa traces the term through Indian religious history while attending to its modern global afterlife[2]. Studies by Christopher Chapple and others examine how the different traditions (Jain, Hindu, Buddhist) developed distinct theological grounds for the same broad ethical commitment[2]. Comparative ethics places ahimsa alongside Christian pacifism, Quaker testimony to nonviolence, and other religious traditions of peace, while keeping the South Asian framework distinct[2].

• Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditionsby Christopher Key Chapple
  book
• An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truthby Mohandas K. Gandhi
  primary source