Meenakshi Temple gopuram, Madurai · Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0
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Hinduism

Tradition·Founding date unrecorded·est. ~1.2 billion worldwide

Vedic Religion → Hinduism → 8 branches

Branch
Overview Belief 43How to Live 4Practice 15Stories & Scripture 30Community 2 You × Hinduism Discussion
Precept of Hinduism

Ahimsa — do no harm.

Non-injury as the first discipline: in thought, word, and act. Gandhi took it from here to the world, and the world's protest movements took it from him.

Add to My Beliefs →
What it asksInjure no living thing — in act, word, or intention
Who it bindsAll, in principle; monastics absolutely, householders proportionately
Where it bitesWarfare and self-defense: the Gita's whole occasion is a warrior asking whether he may fight, and being told to
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Ahimsa is shared with Jainism and Buddhism, but Hinduism holds it alongside a warrior ethic, and the tension is not hidden — it is the entire premise of the Bhagavad Gita, where a man who does not want to fight is told that refusing his duty is its own violence. The resolution the tradition offers is intention: harm done without hatred, in the discharge of a genuine obligation, is different in kind from harm done for gain. Gandhi took ahimsa in the other direction entirely, and made it a method of political force.

From the sources — the passages this rests on; concise renderings, cited

Non-injury is the highest dharma.

Mahabharata (Anushasana Parva, rendered)

The maxim quoted across the Indian traditions, Jain and Buddhist included.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
Compassion extends to all sentient beings. Buddhism · core tenet Go deeper →
The panjrapole. Jainism · community Go deeper →
The suffering of living things. Judaism Go deeper →
The ox and the bell. Confucianism · story Read it in full →
Take it easy, and do not preach about it. Dudeism (The Church of the Latter-Day Dude) Go deeper →
Love of God and neighbor is the whole law. Christianity · core tenet Go deeper →

The conversation

argument stays attached to the claim it is about All discussion →

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Where next

← The dharma of one's station.the previous passage in Hinduism Pursue the four aims. →the next passage in Hinduism Hinduism's How to Live roomback up one layer Propose a change to this passageone button — it routes to the review pool

Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

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