Ahiṃsā, non-harming

The word

अहिंसा (ahiṃsā) is the negation of hiṃsā, injury, harm. Monier-Williams notes that hiṃsā is "said to be of three kinds": mental, as bearing malice; verbal, as abusive language; physical, as acts of violence. Ahiṃsā covers all three. The English "non-violence" is close, but the Sanskrit is wider: it is the absence of the wish to harm.

The word is old. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad already lists it among the qualities of a life understood as a sacrifice: atha yat tapo dānam ārjavam ahiṃsā satyavacanam iti tā asya dakṣiṇāḥ, "austerity, giving, uprightness, non-harming, truthful speech: these are its offerings to the priests" (3.17.4, our translation). The Mahābhārata gives the famous formula:

ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ sarvaprāṇabhṛtāṃ smṛtaḥ

Not harming any living being is held to be the highest duty.

The first yama of the Yoga Sutras

Patañjali places it at the head of the five restraints (2.30), and Vyāsa explains why:

tatrāhiṃsā sarvathā sarvadā sarvabhūtānām anabhidrohaḥ

Of these, non-harming is not injuring any being, in any way, at any time.

He adds that the yamas and niyamas that follow "have it as their root" and are taught to make it complete. Truthfulness, for example, is defined by ahiṃsā: speech that is accurate but meant to wound is not truth. The yamas and niyamas page sets out all ten.

Two further sutras give ahiṃsā its depth. In 2.31 the yamas become a "great vow" when they are not limited by kind, place, time or circumstance; Vyāsa's example is the fisherman whose non-harming stops at fish. In 2.34 harm is counted whether it is done, caused to be done or approved, and whether it comes from greed, anger or delusion. Vyāsa's example of harm from greed is killing "for meat or skin".

What Patañjali promises (2.35)

अहिंसाप्रतिष्ठायां तत्संनिधौ वैरत्यागः ॥

ahiṃsā-pratiṣṭhāyāṃ tat-saṃnidhau vaira-tyāgaḥ ||

When non-harming is firmly established, hostility is given up in that person's presence.

Vyāsa's gloss is three words: sarvaprāṇināṃ bhavati, "it happens for all living beings". One may read it literally or as a description of something observable on a small scale: a person with no wish to harm tends to disarm the aggression around them.

In the Bhagavad Gita

The Gita names ahiṃsā three times in its lists of qualities: among the dispositions that come from the divine (10.5), among the marks of true knowledge (13.7) and in the list of the "divine endowment" (16.1-3), where it opens the second verse:

अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्यागः शान्तिरपैशुनम् । दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम् ॥

ahiṃsā satyam akrodhas tyāgaḥ śāntir apaiśunam | dayā bhūteṣv aloluptvaṃ mārdavaṃ hrīr acāpalam ||

Non-harming, truth, freedom from anger, renunciation, peace, no slander, compassion for beings, no greed, gentleness, modesty, steadiness.

In 17.14 it is part of the "austerity of the body", with purity, uprightness and continence. The Gita is also a dialogue on a battlefield, and how its call to act fits with ahiṃsā is a question its readers have never stopped asking.

In Jainism

For the Jains, non-harming is the first of the five great vows (mahāvrata, the same word as Patañjali's 2.31), and it reaches the smallest living beings. The Ācārāṅga Sūtra, one of the oldest Jain scriptures, states it in Hermann Jacobi's translation (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 22, 1884):

The first great vow of Mahāvīra's monks, in the same book (II, 15), renounces "all killing of living beings, whether subtile or gross, whether movable or immovable", whether one kills oneself, causes others to kill or consents to it: the threefold division Patañjali uses in 2.34.

Monier-Williams calls ahiṃsā "one of the cardinal virtues of most Hindū sects, but particularly of the Buddhists and Jains".

Gandhi: ahiṃsā as a method

In 1930, imprisoned in Yeravda jail, Gandhi wrote weekly letters to his Satyagraha Ashram on its observances; they were published in English in 1932 as From Yeravda Mandir. His chapter on ahiṃsā widens it far beyond not killing:

Near its end, the same chapter gives this formula: "Ahimsa is the means; Truth is the end." The United Nations marks his birthday, 2 October, as the International Day of Non-Violence (resolution 61/271 of 2007).

Ahiṃsā and food

Patañjali says nothing about diet. The traditions around him do: Jain ethics extend non-harming to every creature, and two of the ashrams whose rules we quote on the ashram life page, Parmarth Niketan and the Bihar School of Yoga, state that they serve vegetarian food only. The Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā also lists fish and meat among unsuitable foods (1.61 in the GRETIL text), though its reason is wholesomeness for practice rather than ahiṃsā. If you choose to eat differently, the principle still asks a question at every meal: what harm does this cause, and is it necessary? The sattvic diet page looks at yogic food in the texts.

A practice of ahiṃsā

1. On the mat. Stop one breath before strain. Pain that is sharp, burning or in a joint is a signal to come out, not to push. Ahiṃsā begins with your own body.
2. In speech. Before a hard sentence, Vyāsa's test: is it true, and is it for someone's good? If not, wait.
3. In thought. When you catch yourself wishing ill to someone, note it without judging, then hold one sentence of goodwill for them. This is Patañjali's pratipakṣa-bhāvana (2.33), cultivating the opposite.
4. In consumption. Choose one habit a week to look at for the harm it does: food, clothes, travel, words online.
5. In the evening. One line in a notebook: where did I harm today, even slightly, and where did I refrain?

Ahiṃsā belongs with sevā, selfless service: refraining from harm and actively doing good are the two hands of the same ethic.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. Patañjali, Yogasūtra with Vyāsa's Yogabhāṣya, Sanskrit text (GRETIL, University of Göttingen) checked October 18, 2026
2. Chāndogya Upaniṣad with Śaṅkara's commentary, Sanskrit text (GRETIL) checked October 18, 2026
3. Mahābhārata, Ādiparvan, critical edition (BORI), Sanskrit text (GRETIL) checked October 18, 2026
4. Bhagavadgītā, critical edition (BORI), Sanskrit text (GRETIL) checked October 18, 2026
5. Svātmārāma, Haṭhayogapradīpikā, Sanskrit text (GRETIL), verse 1.61 checked October 18, 2026
6. Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), entries ahiṃsā and hiṃsā, Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries checked October 18, 2026
7. Jaina Sūtras, Part I (Ācārāṅga Sūtra), translated by Hermann Jacobi, Sacred Books of the East 22 (Oxford, 1884), reprint, Internet Archive checked October 18, 2026
8. M. K. Gandhi, From Yeravda Mandir, chapter 'Ahimsa or Love' (letters of 1930, English edition 1932), mkgandhi.org checked October 18, 2026
9. International Day of Non-Violence, 2 October — United Nations checked October 18, 2026

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