B G ON WAR
The Bhagavad Gita (‘the Gita’) is one of the most recognised and
revered Hindu scriptures across the globe. Though often read and taught as
a stand-alone civilisational text embodying the essence of Hindu religious
teachings, it is, in fact, a brief tract of 700 verses extracted from
Bhishma Parva, one of the 18 books that make up the Mahabharata, a major
Sanskrit epic that narrates a power struggle and an eventual war between
two families. Despite its deep-rooted religious overtones, the Gita has
succeeded in appealing to a global sensibility that is secular in nature.
Apart from influencing modern Indian political leaders like Annie Besant,
Aurobindo Ghosh, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohandas Gandhi, the text’s
admirers also extend to the West and include figures like Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Blake, TS Eliot and the more
contemporary Philip Glass. The Gita, today, is a truly global text, and its
message is said to be of relevance not just to practitioners of Hinduism
but to larger humanity.
This essay aims to explore how the Gita contributes to discussions on the
ethics of war and argues that, in addition to common interpretations of the
Gita as a proclamation for just war, the text can also be read as a
commentary on how warriors should conduct themselves during warfare. As
such, the Gita can be seen as providing moral and ethical guidance on
topics that broadly correspond with the modern concepts of both jus ad
bellum and jus in bello – jus ad bellum being a set of criteria to be
considered before engaging in warfare and jus in bello being a body of
regulations moderating the conduct of parties engaged in armed conflict.
Therefore, this essay can also be seen as a humble contribution to
furthering our understanding of the interconnections between Hinduism and
International Humanitarian Law (IHL), a body of laws that seek, for
humanitarian reasons, to limit the effects of armed conflict.
The Gita as a Call for Just War
The war depicted in the Mahabharata, of which the Gita is part, is a battle
between two families, the Pandavas and Kauravas, sets of cousins who are
both seeking to inherit control over the kingdom of Hastinapur. After many
years of enmity, Krishna, ruler of a neighbouring kingdom, offers to
mediate a solution between the cousins. As negotiations fail and war
between the cousins becomes inevitable, Krishna offers further services to
both sides, stating that, to one side, he will give his army, and to the
other, he will act as a charioteer. The Kauravas choose the former and
Arjuna, the Pandava warrior prince, the latter – and, thus, Krishna agrees
to become Arjuna’s charioteer during the war. Against this backdrop, the
Gita takes the form of a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna, with
Arjuna confessing that his body ‘trembles’ at the thought of going to war
with his ‘own people’. Unbeknownst to Arjuna, Krishna is a manifestation of
God, and Krishna proceeds to offer advice to Arjuna to guide him in battle.
Krishna tells Arjuna that the first thing one must do is to understand his
dharma – duty or ethic. The next step is to wage a battle, if need be, ‘for
the sake of dharma’. Krishna wants Arjuna to know that, being a warrior,
Arjuna can never find a ‘greater’ purpose than to partake in dharmayuddha,
or a righteous war. Underlining the significance of such an endeavour,
Krishna announces to Arjuna:
‘If you are killed,
you shall reach heaven;
or if you triumph,
you shall enjoy the earth;
so stand up
Son of Kunti,
firm in your resolve,
To fight!’ nVerse 37, Chapter 2
The remaining chapters delve into the intricate intellectual arguments,
religious justifications and ethical considerations Krishna offers Arjuna
to convince him that, contrary to what he thinks, it is walking away from
the war that is true ‘harm’, for he would be abandoning his dharma by not
fighting the enemy when called upon to do so. The Gita is, thus, a text
about Arjuna’s transformation from indecision and inaction to a man of
responsible action. Krishna urges and convinces Arjuna that it is his
dharma to fight a righteous war, even if it comes with painful
consequences, which, Krishna claims, arise out of Arjuna’s limited
understanding of the nature of the world and reality. In the concluding
18th chapter, Arjuna declares that the doubts and despondency he expressed
initially were a ‘delusion’ and that this conversation with Krishna has
given way to ‘wise memory’, thus, announcing his readiness to go to battle,
which is his true dharma.
Given this context, apart from being a treatise on man’s purpose and
self-realisation that continues to impart wisdom and inspire its readers,
conventional interpreters of the Gita have also advocated a view that the
text is a meditation on just war. In this reading, the Gita offers its
reader moral and ethical reasons to go to war and is less concerned with
one’s conduct during war. Seen from this perspective, the dharma called for
in the Gita’s dharmayuddha is linked to the moral quality of reasoning that
inspires the war and has nothing to do with the moral quality of a
combatant’s conduct on the battlefield. This view stands on firm ground
when we place the Gita within the larger context of the Mahabharata, where
the Pandavas employ unfair means, at the behest of Krishna, to defeat the
Kauravas, leading to the popular takeaway that Krishna legitimises a
Machiavellian realism or the consequentialist proposition that ‘the end
justifies the means’.
Such a reading of both the Gita and the Mahabharata advocates for a
disconnection between the Pandavas and Krishna’s conduct, which, at times,
rely on unjust or dishonourable means, and their overall character, which
the epic portrays as ‘good’ and ‘just’. Dissociating the character of the
participants of war from their conduct on the battlefield and delinking the
cause of war from the acts of warfare ensures the possibility of unjust
warfare even during a just or righteous war, and vice versa, a thought that
is not specific to Mahabharata or the Gita, but also forms an important
aspect of just war theory. Dissociating acts during war from the cause of
war thus helps us use different criteria to judge them separately.
Contemporary just war theory owes its origins to the thoughts and writings
of various ancient and medieval thinkers as well as religious traditions
that had seriously considered questions pertaining to the morality and
legality of wars. Just war theorists are primarily concerned with
identifying, understanding and analysing various reasons or causes that can
make a war permissible, which are often referred to as jus ad bellum
conditions. Some of the widely agreed jus ad bellum conditions that a just
war must meet include the principles of proportionate response, a
reasonable chance of success, involvement of legitimate authorities, right
intention or cause, war as last resort and a public declaration of war
giving reasons or an ultimatum. However, as we have seen, jus ad bellum
conditions are independent from jus in bello conditions, the ambit of which
now coincides with that of IHL.
The Essence of IHL
An amalgam of international treaties and customary laws, IHL focuses on the
conduct of belligerents during armed conflict. A key moment in the
development of IHL came with the adoption of Geneva Conventions in 1949.
These four treaties, and their Additional Protocols, prescribe global
standards for conduct during war, which it interchangeably also defines as
‘armed conflict’. So, what are the rules and principles of contemporary
warfare that the international treaties and customary laws that comprise
IHL recommend?
IHL mandates that warring parties practise war according to three core
principles – distinction, proportionality and precaution. The practical
implementation of these principles on the battleground means that warring
parties must always distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, and
use force proportionate to the military objectives to be achieved, thereby
minimizing as far as possible the suffering of those involved. IHL keeps
alive the possibility of a just fight on the battlefield by enforcing
constraints on the means and methods of warfare that protect
non-combatants, including civilians, those hors de combat, or captured in
the course of war. The essence of IHL thus boils down to an attitude to
warfare that avoids superfluous harm, protecting and caring for civilians,
as well as injured or captured enemy combatants.
Modern IHL has its genesis in religiously inspired traditions of military
ethics that have developed over hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and
was also influenced by European Enlightenment ideas. French philosopher
Jean Jacques Rousseau, for example, reinforced the idea that our
participation in war is a mere contingency, the consequence of an
‘accident’. In the mid-1750s, Rousseau wrote two essays on the idea of war.
The first essay titled A Lasting Peace contemplated the formation of a
possible European Federation to minimise the chances of war while his
second essay The State of War was a straightforward attempt to formulate a
theory of just war. But his most humanitarian approach to war was outlined
in the now canonical book The Social Contract published in 1762. In The
Social Contract, Rousseau maintained a nuanced understanding of war not as
a ‘relationship between man and man’ but one ‘between states’ where men
become enemies ‘only by accident’. As a result, Rousseau argued that
fighting between men is only legitimate when both are in possession of arms
but ‘as soon as they lay them down and surrender, they cease to be enemies
or agents of the enemies’, something we must keep in mind so that the
consequences of war only extend to those who are fighting, and humanitarian
suffering is minimised, a sentiment that is also central to IHL’s larger
ambitions.
The Gita and IHL: Tracing Convergences and Divergences
The conventional reading of the Gita views the great war of the Mahabharata
as a just and essential war, necessary for preserving the moral order. And
readers of the text are correct in focusing on the passionate call for war
by Krishna to Arjuna asking the warrior to be ‘firm’ in his resolve to
‘fight’. But in this celebration of the warrior’s fighting spirit, readers
of the Gita often overlook another, equally important, precept Krishna
raises immediately after his call to war in verse 37 excerpted earlier. In
verse 38, Krishna tells Arjuna:
‘When you have made
pleasure and pain the same –
also gain and loss,
and victory and defeat,
then join yourself to battle;
and in this way you will not cause harm.’
Verse 38, Chapter 2
When verses 37 and 38 are read together, it is revealed that, though
Krishna instils the warrior ethic in Arjuna and announces the latter’s
‘resolve’ to fight in the war as his greatest purpose, Krishna immediately
adds that Arjuna must only ‘join the battle’ once he achieves a specific
state of mind – a balanced disposition to ‘pleasure and pain’, ‘gain and loss’,
‘victory and defeat’ that perceives these things as one and the same. What
this shows is that, though the text is absolutely a call to war, it follows
this call to war by prescribing a particular disposition and conduct that
the warrior must exhibit in war, without which his actions will only cause
‘harm’, as Krishna notes. This code of conduct that Arjuna is required to
follow needs further elaboration and it is in this that the teachings of
the Gita and the humanitarian values and principles embodied in IHL come
together.
Over the course of the second chapter, the Gita narrates, through various
verses, additional dispositions that are essential to Arjuna if he is to
enter the battlefield. In another, and perhaps the most celebrated section
of the text, Krishna tells Arjuna:
‘Your authority is in action alone,
and never
in its fruits;
motive should never be
in the fruits of action,
nor should you cling
to inaction.’Verse 47, Chapter 2
In the above verses, Krishna tells Arjuna that not fighting the war amounts
to inaction which cannot settle the dilemma of action Arjuna faces.
Instead, Krishna recommends that Arjuna fight the war by suspending his
want for a particular outcome from his act, suggesting that he avoid
‘clinging’ to the fruits of his actions. This ethic of selfless action is
often advocated as one of the core messages of the text and the Gita
expresses it in the Sanskrit verse ‘Karmanyevaadhikaaraste maa phaleshu
kadaachana’. All action is to be informed by this ‘insight’ that ‘casts off
both good and evil’ by adopting a disposition of detachment and
un-clinging. This, Krishna reveals, is so because:
‘Clinging is born
to someone
who dwells on
the spheres of the senses;
desire is born from clinging;
and anger is born from desire.’Verse 62, Chapter 2
Throughout the second half of the chapter, Krishna continues to offer
Arjuna recommendations on the attitude he must maintain when engaging in
war. The ideal warrior, Krishna suggests, is one in whom ‘rage, passion and
fear’ are ‘gone’ and one who ‘neither loves nor hates’. By not clinging to
the spheres of the senses and desire and anger, the warrior may ultimately
succeed in letting go of all ‘fruits’ of his fight so that he ‘let
fulfilment and frustration’ become one and ‘the same’, a prerequisite to
finding ‘equanimity’, an essential attribute of a warrior according to
Krishna. A true warrior embodying the spirit of the Gita is called on to
act with such ‘calmness’ and ‘self-control’.
According to Krishna, Arjuna should partake in war when his conduct in the
battlefield is devoid of ‘passion and hatred’ and instead exhibits a sense
of ‘restraint’ as it is only ‘the one who thus restrains the self, and who
governs the self, attains peace’. Seen from this perspective, The Gita’s
message on the combatant’s disposition during war is more fundamental to
the text than all the justifications it provides for waging a war. This is
because, as Krishna suggests, one who does not embody the spirit of peace,
restraint and calmness in the midst of war is unworthy of being called a
warrior and can only cause ‘harm’, and hence has no place in waging the
dharmayuddha.
The Gita, thus, proposes a nuanced approach to war and conduct therein.
While it accepts the reality and necessity of war, it does not valorise the
violence and carnage that accompanies war and instead advocates for
minimising the pain and suffering it brings about. It is precisely to limit
the harmful effects of war that Krishna recommends Arjuna that he engage in
war only after he builds up an internal constitution that nurtures calmness
and peace over the passions of anger, hate and vengeance as well as the
urge to win or express his strength and superiority, all of which, Krishna
says can only lead to careless use of unrestrained force that will
eventually lead to more harm.
The central message of the Gita is then one of maintaining an attitude of
restraint while engaging in war. It recommends that this spirit of
restraint seep into the being of the warrior so that he is not led astray
by his desires in the face of chaos, and advocates for a cautiousness and
watchfulness in the battleground to prevent unnecessary harm. Even a fight
to create a just order without a spirit of restraint is to partake in an
unjust battle, and that too in an un-warrior like spirit. The triumphalism
of minimum necessary violence can only take place amid the ethic of
unflinching restraint that every participant of war must ideally display on
the battlefield. The Gita seems to suggest that violence, detached from a
spirit of restraint, goes against the spirit of warrior ethics.
Discussions on IHL have often focused on devising and implementing rules
that will limit the negative consequences of armed conflict. It advocates a
spirit of restraint amongst the warring parties so that the suffering of
those not actively partaking in war, yet severely impacted by it, can be
minimised. In this ambition, the modern laws of war echo the ancient
sentiment of restraint that the Gita itself proclaims. But unlike IHL, the
Gita does not discuss in detail the means and methods of warfare that one
can employ and does not prescribe any limits to it. However, this is not to
be interpreted as the Gita’s lack of interest in devising or enforcing
rules of conduct during war. Rather, the reason for this is that the
subsequent sections of Bhishma Parva, the book in Mahabharata of which the
Gita is a small part, delve in detail into jus in bello conditions that are
of relevance to IHL. Thus, the Gita, which takes place before the war
begins, serves as a focused meditation on righteous war, and the warrior’s
attitude to war, while the later sections of the epic, narrated during the
middle of the war, elaborate further on appropriate conduct during warfare.
Further Themes for Exploration
The idea of restraint that is central to the warrior ethic in the Gita can
be manifested on the battleground by a combatant only when their wartime
actions are informed by an absolute commitment to shedding emotions of
passions and rage as a prerequisite to minimising harm, an ambition
essential to the ways of a true warrior, according to Krishna. This
oft-overlooked spirit of restraint that informs the Gita’s ethical outlook
can serve as an excellent entry point through which to begin an exploration
of the interconnections between forms of restraint outlined in the Indic
traditions, such as ahimsa, or non-violence, and the more contemporary laws
of armed conflict focused on reducing suffering during war. Originally
propagated by ancient dharmic religions, including Hinduism, as a key
virtue that one must embody if they are to live the ‘good life’, the idea
of ahimsa has over the years evolved into a secular political and
humanitarian ideal that advocates for peace in the face of the seemingly
violent ways of the world.
Among all the practitioners of ahimsa, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,
popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, has been instrumental in expanding this
idea in a way that could be central to facilitating this further
exploration. On the one hand, conventional interpretations of ahimsa
outlined in the Buddhist, Jain and Hindu teachings define non-violence as
the absence or negation of violence, meaning the concept may, at first
glance appear to be of little relevance to situations of war. In contrast,
the Gandhian framework suggests that it is in the most violent of contexts
that the real significance and utility of ahimsa arises. For Gandhi, one
cannot negate harm or violence, which he perceived to be the natural order
of the world. Indeed, according to Gandhi, one must not withdraw in the
face of inevitable violence, but proactively engage with it so that its
harmful consequences are minimised. Ultimately, Gandhi calls for courage to
situate ourselves amidst violence with an attitude of restraint, to ensure
that our conduct is not driven by passions and emotions, especially anger,
which, he says, can force us to rely on unnecessary violence and cause more
harm. This understanding of ahimsa could be a useful starting point through
which to further elaborate the interconnection between the approach to war
outlined in Hindu religious texts, such as the Gita and the Mahabharata,
and modern conceptions of restraint in IHL.
[[The Bhagavad Gita (trans. Laurie Patton and intro. Simon Brodbeck).
Penguin UK, 2014.]] K Rajaram IRS 13326
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 at 06:55, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *Mar*
>
> The Enlightening Death
>
> There are octillions of bacteria in you. The longevity of a bacterium is
> twenty minutes. Every bacterium has its DNA.They all enable the trillions
> of cells in you function coordinatedly and symbiotically. All this activity
> synchronizes with your DNA.
>
> Creating the continuous coordinated activity is your consciousness and
> your thoughts that become the hormonal communication in your bloodstream,
> carrying specific instruction for action by your cells, each cell
> performing a minute nano function, as per the hormonal communication. Your
> consciousness is the symbiotic awareness of the feelings and emotions of
> diverse organisms of the Biosphere. Your awareness and interactions with
> the other organisms in the grand symbiotic activity trigger the hormones.
> The symbiosis connects your hormones with the hormones of the other
> organisms creating the ultimate grand symbiosis in the Biosphere. The
> Biosphere in turn is governed by the mores of the Ecosphere, which function
> as the grand macro DNA governing the symbiosis of all organisms.
>
> If you go into the free and healthy nature, untampered by any human
> economic activity, you automatically join the grand macro symbiosis, the
> feelings becoming discoveries and enlightenments, life in activity. You
> become the macro being.
>
> Your own life becomes your contribution to the grand flow of consciousness
> of nature. You get connected to the Biosphere, living as one organism,
> interacting with the lithosphere, troposphere and hydrosphere in the grand
> rhythm. And you become a limb of nature.
>
> If you can see everything, atoms, particles etc, if you are limited to the
> visible spectrum, then you get over the limitation of the 3D phenomenon and
> actually reach the real reality, the formless time, the fourth dimension as
> the only dimension.
>
> In the time dimension, you find diverse organisms traversing births and
> deaths, the formation of new configurations. You realize that your
> identification with your body is false, and that you are consciousness as
> part of the grand consciousness. You realize that Physics is not Mechanics,
> but only meditation as part of Physis, the essential reality, the original
> Greek Concept, the root word of Physics, where Physics meant only as
> meditation and not mechanics.
>
> There is simply no education without relating and interacting with nature.
> Real education needs the free and untampered nature.Today, we are living in
> the ultimate anomaly.The Universities have monopolized or hijacked all
> education. And they are under the frenzy of mechanization. And they have
> only the economic objectives, the objectives that are anti-ecology.
> Economics simply means the continuous destruction of nature, poisoning the
> land, water and air and bludgeoning on all the, concept of war among the
> organisms, or the repudiation of the very existence of the ecological
> symbiosis of the Biosphere. Every year the Universities create new batches
> of graduates for some economic activity or for some anti ecological
> destructive activity against nature.
>
> As it is wars are happening in many parts of the world. There is no
> accounting for the tragedies, miseries and deaths inflicted on the various
> organisms of the Biosphere and the terrible damage to nature’s ecological
> symbiosis. Thanks to cartesianism I expect to confront the assertion that
> my views have no scientific or Cartesian proof. But we are simply not
> machines, the feelings-less, consciousness-less phenomena. When you use a
> machine to do the work of your limb, the limb gets frozen. Today our
> consciousness as awareness of nature in action is frozen by mechanization.
> Today every university is freezing real education by being governed by
> economics and promoting mechanization and completely ignoring the essential
> role of free nature in real education.
>
> YM Sarma
>
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