Tag Archives: Manavadharmashastra

The Hindu Art of War

02 Sat Jan 2016

Posted by in Book Review

≈ Comments Off on The Hindu Art of War

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South AsiaRoy, Kaushik. Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 305 pp.

Hinduism, and South Asia more broadly, has been a glaring lacuna in the study of military history and ethics. Kaushik Roy’s Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present (henceforth HEWSA) is unfortunately a poor attempt to rectify that oversight. Although HEWSA passes as an introduction to the uninitiated, it leaves most of the important questions that vex military historians of South Asia unanswered. Although the author’s attempt to place warfare and ethics within their cultural moorings rather than posit them as universal axioms is appreciated, the wider ambitions of his work in presenting South Asia to a Western audience takes away from a focussed analysis of military matters. To be fair to Roy, however, the topic and timeframe presents a Herculean project that would require expertise not just in military affairs but also archaeology and several languages to accomplish thoroughly. This explains why a choice was made – wisely – to restrict the study only to ‘elite’ Sanskrit circles that had the greatest influence on policy. It should also be mentioned at the outset that for the purposes of this review – and most of HEWSA, South Asia is synonymous with India and the dharmic systems that abide within.

The question before any study of military ethics is what constitutes just war and how it should be waged. When it comes to South Asia, scholars would first have to dispel the notion that the region has never known the practice of strategic thinking; second, they would also have to break away from the overpowering Europeanising grand narrative of universal history that places the experiences of the western end of the Eurasian landmass as the normative centrestage. HEWSA begins by asking basic questions on the nature of war and politics instead of accepting readily available theories from the Western canon. Roy, however, sets up the strategists of India in a conversation with their Western (and Eastern) counterparts rather than in opposition; clearly, he does not wish to settle for the simplistic binary of East vs. West that still colours comparative studies across specialties. This is certainly a strength of the book though also a weakness as I will explain later.

Roy establishes his project as trying to answer four questions: 1. What is war?; 2. What constitutes proper justification for going to war?; 3. How should war be waged?; and 4. What are the consequences of waging war? Strategists long before Prussian military theorist h have wrestled with these questions, and the answers each civilisation has proposed to these questions are today obfuscated by a 20th century technological determinism and a Euro-American pragmatism. As historian Jeremy Black has pointed out, not all societies were driven by the motivation to come up with the most combat-effective machines because their worldviews were different; culture is the key to understanding military strategy. The import of this observation should not be diluted to posit a facile dichotomy of Western rationality versus Eastern spiritualism or wars of honour. In fact, as military scholar Michael Handel noted, the basic rationality of strategy as political behaviour is universal. Kamandaka, believed to be a 4th century strategist in the Gupta court, for example, speaks of the importance of the people’s support for a righteous war to ensure stability – a value dear to the heart of several Western strategists as well.

Yet it would be equally unhelpful to overemphasise the similarities between different approaches to war: Indian thinkers like Chanakya and Manu were, for example, as concerned with the potential for insurgency as they were with facing foreign enemies. Indian authors rarely put their names to their treatises either; furthermore, they usually contained the amalgam of strategic thought before their period though again not always with proper citation. As a result, it is a challenge to date Indian theories of state and warfare as it is difficult to put author to treatise. Concerned as they were with dharmayuddha and kutayuddha, Indian strategists were also a product of their times: Chanakya’s Arthashastra proposes a boldly expansionist state as he wrote during the waxing of Maurya power while Kamandaka’s Nitisara is more cautious as the Gupta Empire was on the defensive from nomadic invaders from Central Asia. Perhaps the greatest difference between Indian and Western thinking on the state and warfare, as Roy astutely observes, is that Eastern societies did not view the state as an abstract principle: there was a relation between tao and the people in China just as there was between rashtra and society in India. European thinkers, on the other hand, seem to view the state more contractually and legalistically, although this is more true with modern theorists than ancient Europeans.

The greatest difference between Indian ethical texts and their Western equivalents, however, is that the former are more theoretical and describe the world as it should be, not as it is, while the converse is true for the latter. Although Roy observes this, he fails to realise how important a point he has stumbled on – Indian morality, even on the field of battle, are not as clearly defined as in the West. This is a strong reflection of dharmic thinking on matters of state and it is possible that Western thinking was similarly and equally influenced by Abrahamic certitude of the world. Yet to be fair, expounding on this would lead him away from the main topic of his study. Finally, an interesting observation by Torkel Brekke, historian of religion, about differences between Indian and European military thought is that the latter comprises of equal attention to jus ad bellum (just cause for war) and jus in bello (just conduct in war) while the former only concerns itself with the latter. The author mentions this in the introduction but disappointingly never returns to the matter explicitly later in the book. From the structure of other arguments, the reader is only left to assume that it has something to do with how Indian strategists viewed the nature of politics and conflict but some clarity would have helped.

The greatest weakness of HEWSA is the author’s willingness to indulge in simplifications about Hinduism that muddy the reader’s understanding of Indian society. Given the author’s belief that society and culture are inextricably linked to military strategy, this is an unacceptable lapse. For example, Roy repeatedly harps on the role of kshatriyas as the warrior class in South Asian society. While this may broadly be true, it does not explain how most of India’s major empires were not of kshatriya lineage. Nor does it explain how Indian emperors could sustain large standing armies based on conscription if only kshatriyas could wage war. After the fall of Rome, it was not until the 19th century in Europe that a professional class of soldiers emerged. In the interim, armies were usually composed of farmers who had to return to their fields during harvest season. As a result, war was limited to specific periods of the calendar or the economy would suffer if farmers could not return to their fields on time. If Indian polities did not follow this rule, it is an important social and economic difference that was worth highlighting. Admittedly, Roy merely repeats the formulation of Indian philosophers on the matter but as he has been quick to point out in other aspects, Indian thinkers addressed an idealised world and not the real one. Instead, a brief explanation of varna and jati would have left readers with a clearer understanding of what actually was and what was supposed to be.

The author’s implicit acceptance of the Indo-Aryan Migration Theory (IAMT) is another factor that mars this study. Basically, IAMT was proposed by British and German Orientalists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries after the discovery of the Indo-European language family and postulates that the Indian subcontinent was subject to large population migrations from the Caucasus and Central Asia in three waves, the first around 2,200 BCE, the second around 1,700 BCE, and the final one around 1,000 BCE. In the mid-1940s, British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler suggested that these waves had perhaps been invasions rather than migrations but this variation of the IAMT, referred to as the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT), did not hold for long though it has been the strawman subject of innumerable critiques of the IAMT. Regardless, given the controversies around the subject, any scholar touching upon the topic peripherally ought to warn the reader of the assumptions made.

Roy suggests that the rules governing the war towards the end of the Ramayana were more lax than in the great fratricidal war of the Mahabharata…or at least, there seemed to be more anguish and hand-wringing at the violation of rules in the latter epic than the former. This he supposes is due to the different rules governing warfare within and without groups. The assumption here, stemming from his thoughts on the IAMT, is that Rama was an Aryan king fighting a non-Aryan king, Ravana, while the Pandavas and Kauravas were both Aryan families. In the former situation, there were few rules of just war whereas the latter had strict codes. Of course, this fails to explain how Ravana, a non-Aryan chieftain, was a great devotee of Shiva and a brahmin – outsiders would never be accorded a varna (improperly translated into English as caste). More importantly, there is no textual evidence for this supposition in the primary sources – the author cites secondary sources to back his claim, a source whose racial categories are strongly influenced by the orientalism of British Indology.

With the rise of Buddhism and Jainism, Roy correctly points out that these systems are not as pacifist or as ascetic as are commonly believed: the founders of both were themselves kshatriyas and both had several royal friends throughout their lives; Buddha was not even a vegetarian! Buddhist and Jain ahimsa was closer to the Hindu concept as expounded in the Chandogya Upanishad, related to austerity, generosity, sacrifice, truthfulness, and integrity, and not the passive non-violence of Mohandas Gandhi. Roy’s exposition is a much-needed correction to the common narrative on Buddhism and Jainism. However, he insists on seeing both these belief systems as schisms from Hinduism – a view that is not shared by many scholars of the latter.

A whole chapter is dedicated to the most famous treatise on war and politics to come out of India, the Arthashastra. The treatise is briefly summarised before its author is compared to European political philosophers and military theorists from Plato to the authors of Fourth Generation Warfare. Roy relies heavily on secondary sources, preferring the words of his contemporary scholars than of the masters themselves. In the evaluation, the Arthashastra emerges as an amoral text that was quite comfortable with kutayuddha as well as dharmayuddha and considered internal as well as external threats to the kingdom. Chanakya advocates diplomacy, assassinations, poisoning, temporary alliances, espionage, biological warfare, and any other means that can deliver victory. The focus is on strategic knowledge of the enemy than on tactical advice and Chankaya does not stop with victory: the Indian strategist considers the best ways of controlling a defeated foe as part of his analytical package. Contrary to Western armies, Indian victors allowed the conquered to maintain their language, dress, customs, and gods; only the unrighteous rulers were removed. Unlike Western theorists, Roy observes, Chanakya’s theories make human agency instead of inter-state structure the primary variable in politics. Furthermore, there is no mention of seapower, nor is there any consideration of technology as a force multiplier in battle.

Instead of the long comparative section, the topic would have been better served if a closer analysis of the Arthashastra, its author, and their milieu were attempted. How did the political, social, and economic realities of the early Maurya Empire influence Chanakya’s thoughts? How much is he a product of his time? What were the challenges to Mauryan rule at the time? Why did the Mauryans dedicate their efforts to conquering India and not send their armies westwards? The answers to these questions would have situated the Arthashastra in its own context and revealed more about warfare and ethics in South Asia than do the quick comparisons to Western and Eastern strategists. After all, it is not the Western theorists who are understudied but the South Asian context.

Roy’s discussion of early medieval India leaves much to be desired. Again, led astray by his sources, Roy argues that brahmin intellectuals of the period saw the Bactrians and Parthians as mlechchas because of their patronage of Buddhism. This would not have solved the problem of local Indian chieftains who patronised Buddhism or those who followed it and it seems bizarre that the brahmins would follow this half-measure that achieved nothing. Roy also claims that the Sunga and Kanva dynasties were established by brahmins to fight off the sudra ascendancy seen in the rise of the Nandas and Mauryas! It is in this context, the author claims, that the Manavadharmashastra was written and as a result, the primary aim of its author was to preserve the status of brahmins. While Chanakya had concentrated on artha and kama, Manu focused on dharma.

Manu is the first Indian strategist that we know of to mention seapower. Kalidasa is another but in both cases, the authors limit themselves to riverine navies and not bluewater vessels. Manu is also the first Indian strategist to show a liking for cavalry, even suggesting that the king not wage war in the absence of good cavalry. Chanakya had advocated a balanced composition of forces between infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants while Kamandaka had emphasised the shock value of elephants. However, Manu is more cautious than the author of the Arthashastra and voices a preference for coalitions of likeminded rulers against a common threat than a quest for power by one emperor. Oddly, though, unlike most commanders, he preferred fortress warfare to open battle despite the hardships of disease, logistics, and discipline. The army would live off the enemy’s land, laying siege to the enemy’s fort while pillaging the countryside.

In general, Indian strategists preferred to solve things through diplomacy and wealth over arms; this is the same advice one gets from Chanakya, Manu, Kalidasa, Kamandaka, Somadeva, and others though they also strongly advised against shunning violence. Later thinkers, however, accepted the use of kutayuddha more readily, especially if it could prevent war altogether. According to Roy, Kalidasa advised that dharmayuddha be followed only against Indian monarchs and not against the Yavanas; similarly, it was permissible for a victorious king to annex the kingdoms of his defeated foes outside India but not within. The development of a geographic sense of India in this period is an interesting facet that Roy does not dwell on.

The author suggests that Somadeva warned against sending armies to the northwest – this would correspond to the region whence most invasions of India occurred and usually by a foe with superior technology. Unfortunately, Roy has little more to say about this either. Something else Roy mentions is Thiruvalluvar’s advice that an army look grand and imposing. Clearly, the Tamil thinker understood the psychological dimension of warfare well and tried to bring it into play in service of his patron. The lessons of these books on strategy did not remain restricted to the elite but trickled into the Hitopadesha, Panchatantra, Kathasaritsagara, and other stories in simplified form. What the reception was is a difficult question to answer. One wonders if the wisdom of Indian military thinking was noticed by foreigners when these works were translated, first into Persian and then later into Arabic and Latin.

The descriptions of Indian treatises on strategy raise many questions that Roy does not answer. For example, Indian monarchs seemed to always lack cavalry of sufficient quality and quantity. Yet no king ever tried to address this shortcoming by importing and breeding horses in India.  Kalhana, the author of Rajatarangini, mentions that the Palas and Senas of Bengal attempted to import cavalry from Afghanistan and South China, and the Hoysalas tried to crossbreed Arab mares with local breeds to no avail. When the Romans, Greeks, Persians, and Carthaginians could take elephants from India, why could Indian traders not acquire war horses? Although the problem of a weak cavalry was temporarily solved under some kings such as Vikramaditya of the Gupta dynasty or Harshavardhana of Thaneshwar and Kanauj, it remained an issue until the very end. In relation to the equine lacuna, India did not develop metal stirrups or horseshoes until much later either and this gave the Hunnic mounted archers a tremendous advantage in battle; the invaders’ composite bows also gave them greater range than their Indian opponents. Why did Indian rulers fail so spectacularly in developing or acquiring military technology despite their use of spies or their fame in trade? This would have been an important question in a military history of South Asia.

Indian reflections on warfare declined with the Islamic invasions of the subcontinent. Warriors for a jealous desert god, Muslims rulers removed Hindu advisors of the conquered Indian kings from imperial service and closed the avenue for contribution to political life. Most Hindus who continued in royal service were forced to convert if they wished to retain their positions. The Hindu kingdoms that resisted the invaders, however, did not fare better than their ancestors did in terms of learning newer and more effective military strategies and technologies. The Rajputs, for example, held to their code of personal glory on the battlefield and failed to see the evolution of mass tactics; similarly, the Nayakas in the south were disdainful of gunpowder and thought it to be weapons for the cowardly – a regressive attitude that only shattered their armies when they went up against more modern opponents. The Rajput and Nayaka views were prevalent among European knights too when they first came across the Ottoman janissaries. The social and economic structure of feudal Europe had created the European knight, a fearsome force in one-on-one combat but no match for hurtling pellets of lead. Where the Europeans adapted quickly, Indian polities failed to do so. Nowhere is this more clear than in the Shukranitisara, a work by an unknown author written around the late 17th century.

The Shukranitisara, like any work on military matters, emphasises the training of soldiers to fight with or without arms. However, it shuns the use of warfare with mechanical devices – gunpowder, siege engines, etc. – as asurayuddha, a particularly barbaric form of kutayuddha. The concept existed even in earlier treatises such as the Arthashastra but where Chanakya used the term ‘asurayuddha‘ to define heinous practices to be avoided by a victor, such as the massacre of the males of the royal household, the violation of their women, and the appropriation of their wealth, the author of Shukranitisara reserved the term for battlefield practices that had become routine. One might pontificate over the degeneration of chivalry but such matters concerned only romantic bards while the strategists were not beyond recommending kutayuddha in the pursuit of a quicker and cheaper victory. Not only were foreign invaders less delicate about such concerns, but Muslim armies frequently desecrated Hindu places of worship, forced conversions, massacred the citizenry, raped and sold the royal women into slavery, and killed their menfolk. It was in response to this barbarism that Rajput women took to jauhar.

Although Roy accepts the atrocities of the Muslim conquests, he nonetheless enters into the record Romila Thapar’s claim that there was no sense of Hinduism in this period. He also cites Richard Eaton on how limited the damage from the Islamic invasions were. This is deeply unconvincing given the tales of conversion and massacre contained in his own study.

Roy takes the reader through the Indian freedom struggle and ends his study with a few short comments on India’s nuclear posture. However, these periods hardly reflect any thought on the ethics of warfare understood in the conventional sense. Even accepting Chanakya’s paradigm of inter- and intra-state warfare, passive non-violence seems a tool that may have, at best, suited a particular situation rather than be an entire ethical theory of warfare in itself.

Perhaps the biggest question Roy does not attempt to answer is why Indian polities remained thoroughly inept at war. Barring a brief period in the Chola Empire, no Indian kingdom ever extended beyond the boundaries of Akhand Bharat; furthermore, there was a total failure to develop or even adopt superior technologies in a timely manner. Why were Indian monarchs not able to do what rulers in most other parts of the world did routinely? A second ‘big question’ Roy could have shed light on is to what extent these theories were discussed and debated. Was there even a limited and elite public sphere in which ideas of warfare were discussed and improved upon? How well did these ideas survive transmission as one dynasty replaced another? Roy indicates that Indian treatises dealt with the ideal world more than they dealt with reality. However, what effect did the results of real battles have on them?

It is possible that these questions can never be answered for lack of sources. Nonetheless, they deserve a vigorous discussion that HEWSA did not provide. The author’s excessive reliance on secondary sources and translations also deserves comment. Although South Asia is a difficult region that demands its scholars to have a command over several languages and kills, any analysis as important as Roy’s project ought not be done without expertise in at least some of the skills and languages; perhaps a collaborative work would have achieved the desired result better. It is said that reviewers often discuss the book they would have written rather than the book at hand – this may be the case here too but any study that claims to discuss the ethics of warfare in South Asia cannot afford these lapses, particularly in a field where much of the groundwork is yet to be laid.

Nuclear Dharma: A Hindu Ethics of Nuclear War

20 Sun Mar 2011

Posted by in India, Nuclear, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Nuclear Dharma: A Hindu Ethics of Nuclear War

Tags

, , , ,

— This was part of a paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention in Montreal, Canada, on March 17, 2011. —

India’s nuclear tests in 1974 and in 1998 raised consternation among the international community and anti-nuclear activists. Many saw the Indian nuclear arsenal as a repudiation of everything India stood for, a violation of the Gandhian virtue of ahimsa. Furthermore, critics were confounded that Hindu nationalists could defend the proposition that India should possess nuclear weapons. Largely represented to the West by Mohandas Gandhi and spiritual gurus such as Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghose, and Paramhansa Yogananda, Hinduism has been perceived as a peaceful and tolerant religion that has largely if not completely avoided pitfalls like anti-semitism, the Crusades, or political jihad. India’s Hindu kings have historically been welcoming to Zoroastrians, Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and this has caused a misunderstanding of Hindu principles. It is my contention that possession and use of nuclear weapons are perfectly within the realm of Hindu statecraft but is subject to many conditions. Instead of looking to Western icons of Hinduism such as Gandhi, I reference ancient Hindu codices such as the Manavadharmashastra and the Mahabharata to understand the rules governing a king at war. Using the more famous Arthashastra or the Nitisara is unhelpful because it is ultimately a political treatise more than a religious one.

Given the decentralised nature of Hinduism, it is essential to explain the choice of sources in the vast corpus of Hindu thought. Unlike the Abrahamic religions, Hinduism does not have a single core text. Although the four Vedas are accepted as the source of Hinduism, the Srimad Bhagavatam, Upanishads, Aranyakas, Bhagavad Gita and other derivative texts are accepted in their own respect. However, emphases on different elements have caused them to diverge significantly. As late as the 1300s, there were six schools of Hindu thought, and it was perfectly within the Hindu framework to be an atheist, monist, monotheist, henotheist, or polytheist. Louis Renou notes, “religious books can be described as books written for the use of a sect.”1 However, Hinduism “has often been described not as a religion but a conglomeration of sects.”2 Given such diversity, it is no wonder that the Supreme Court of India decided in a 1996 case that “Hinduism” is not necessarily to be understood and construed narrowly, but as depicting the way of life of the Indian people.3

Dharma, the Sanskrit word that comes closest to the Latin religio, does not quite translate to describe a rigid system that believes in an all-powerful interventional deity. Sacred Hindu texts indicate that dharma is perhaps better translated as virtue. Thus, it makes more sense that brahmins, the priestly class, and kshatriyas, the nobility, have different virtues and duties in accordance with their different roles in society. Furthermore, as one proceeds through the four ashramas, or stages in life, one’s duties also change to reflect the new position in society. This indicates that there is no absolute “good” in Hinduism but such a judgment is relative to one’s circumstances – a belief in absolutes could easily be subverted through clever manipulation of words to serve greed, passion, and a desire for domination. As A.K. Ramanujan has written, “One has to only read Manu after a bit of Kant to be struck by the former’s extraordinary lack of universality. He seems to have no clear notion of a universal human nature from which one can deduce ethical decrees…To be moral, for Manu, is to particularize.”4 Not only does Hinduism emphasise the relative nature of dharma, it also prioritises personal ethics over social ethics. Since society is composed of individuals, personal virtue would ultimately create a virtuous society. Ancient Indian philosophers understood the limitations of social duty – often performed under a sense of obligation and compulsion – but duty should be seen as the Latin officium, not the Greek ananke. This raises another difficulty in ascertaining precisely Hindu ruminations on the ethics of warfare, nuclear or conventional: the ancients wrote almost exclusively on matters of personal conduct and the duties and responsibilities of larger institutions like the state were ignored.

Yet another dilemma in the application of Hindu philosophy to mundane matters is that the texts were written by the priestly class for the priestly class – as education was highly stratified, regular engagement on esoteric topics such as ethics, theology, and cosmology remained the within the purview of brahmins and was inaccessible to most people. The Vedas, Upanishads, Aranyakas, and other Hindu texts and commentaries therefore remained soteriological, expounding on the supreme consciousness, transmigration, and meditation rather than on interest rates, laws, or warfare. Thus, Hindu texts including the Manavadharmashastras, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana may provide material for us to induce a Hindu ethics of warfare, but scant attention is paid to the topic in the texts. Furthermore, what little is available addresses issues of jus ad bellum rather than jus in bello. Although it is not certain why this is so, scholars have argued that this was perhaps because of the nature of ancient Indian society and the place warfare had in it.5 The world of the Mahabharata was an epic age, in which warriors met each other on the field of battle and engaged in duels among equals. This was no place for systematic warfare but for chivalry, one in which kshatriyas who died with valour attained the heavens. As Europe realised in the Middle Ages, the extension of these rules of chivalrous duels to mass warfare are of limited utility to the new situation. Furthermore, as Sanskrit words like vigraha, yuddha, and danda indicate, the Hindu concept of organised violence had many valences, not all of which corresponded cleanly to what Europeans defined as war.6 As a result, if a systematic code of conduct during war were to exist in Hinduism,it would be a step out of time with social evolution since its inception. For all these reasons, it is difficult to clearly define a Hindu ethics of statecraft in any absolute sense.

Despite its opacity on the matter of jus in bello, Hindu texts do provide some insight into what was considered just action in conflicts through examples in India’s two great epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Particularly in the Mahabharata, a story somewhat ambiguous about “good” and “evil,” we see in the preparations for war Hindu perceptions of just means in war. As diplomatic messages are exchanged between feuding cousins, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, after the emergence of the former from their exile, Krishna is sent to the Kaurava court at Hastinapura as the Pandava emissary. As a peacemaker, Krishna first tries peaceful conciliation with his hosts (saama). When that fails, he tries to sow dissent among the Kaurava ranks by approaching one of their chief warriors, Karna, in private (bheda). Finally, Krishna attempts to bribe the Kauravas by agreeing to part with most of the Pandava kingdom if peace is maintained (daana). Only upon failure of all these methods is war declared (danda).7 These four methods of conflict resolution – saama, bheda, daana, danda – are found in Kautilya’s Arthashastra as well, and indicate that war should be considered a means of last resort.8 That Hinduism implores people to try all methods before violence should not come as a surprise, but what does seem to rebel against more popular version of Hinduism that is Gandhianism is that war is not forbidden in Hinduism either. Ahimsa, though a virtue, has its limitations, and ancient Indians were practical enough to take the suvarna madhya, or golden mean, by denouncing violence yet accepting it as an ugly reality of human nature to be revealed only as a last resort. Although some scholars see this as a self-contradiction – advocating ahimsa yet making allowances for violence – it is the Hindu way of addressing human fallibility.9 Such “hypocrisy” is prevalent throughout the Mahabharata and the Manavadharmashastras – in the first text, the eldest Pandava answers his father, Yama, who had appeared in the form of a yaksha, that a brahmin is one whose behaviour is appropriate, in this case, one who has studied the Vedas, worships the Suprie Being, gives charity, teaches, conducts prayers for others, and accepts charity.10 However, despite accepting that caste is based on deeds, Yudhishitira refuses to acknowledge Karna as a kshatriya even though he has proven his valour. In the latter text, Manu appears to frequently contradict himself on multiple issues. For example, in one verse, he allows for the possibility for a woman to sleep with her husband’s brother while in the very next verse, he says it should not be done and is a despicable act.11 Such contradictions belong to the category of what is called aapad, or adversity/calamity. In extreme situations, humans will not regard any law or custom, but once the situation has passed, the transgressions can be remedied.

During the Great War in the Mahabharata, we see instances in which the rules of engagement are violated. However, the violations are not to be seen as an informal license for war to be waged with wanton disregard for other combatants and non-combatants. In each instance of a violation, the author provides an explication of both, the doer’s motives and the perspective of the injured party. Thus, when Yudhishtira lies to his guru, Drona, that his son has been killed in the war, not only is there outrage in the Kaurava camp but discontent among the Pandavas too.12 In the ensuing discussion (in the midst of battle!), Krishna argues that there can be no sin attached to lying if the purpose were to save lives. However, those less pleased with the proceedings, including Arjuna, argued that the lie was meant to deceive and cause Drona psychological torment. Disturbed and distracted by his son’s death, Drona would become an easier target for the Pandavas and the lie served the purpose of banal material gain, victory in war. At other times, like on the 15th day of the war when Drona goes berserk and attacks infantry with astras, the saptarishis, his father Bharadwaj, and several other heavenly rishis approach him and command him to lay down his weapons for he is fighting unrighteously. A little later, when Drishtadyumna beheads a meditating Drona, he justifies his unfair action by arguing that it was necessary to save the lives of innocent soldiers from Drona’s astras. Thus, as we shall see further, the rules of engagement in Hindu societies were broadly defined but were not at all rigid.

The Manusmriti is quite clear in demarcating legitimate targets and weapons from those that are not. The laws state,

Fighting in a battle, he should not kill his enemies with weapons that are concealed, barbed, smeared with poison, or whose points blaze with fire. He should not kill anyone who has climbed on a mound, or an impotent man, or a man who folds his hands in supplication, or whose hair is unbound, or anyone who is seated, or anyone who says, ‘I am yours’; nor anyone asleep, without armour, naked, without a weapon, not fighting, looking on, or engaged with someone else; not anyone whose weapons have been broken, or who is in pain, badly wounded, terrified, or fleeing.13

In the epics, a few more rules and customs are stated: before the outbreak of hostilities, the two sides meet and establish a standard list of rules of engagement. These rules indicate that the fight must be among equals – an infantryman vs. an infantryman, a charioteer vs. another charioteer, etc. If one combatant uses deceit, the other combatant is allowed to do so as well. Furthermore, certain categories were explicitly excluded from combat: women, children, and the aged, brahmins and ascetics, those from whom one has received food, drivers, transporters, drummers, conch players, foragers, camp-followers, doormen, menials or servants in charge of menials, artisans and miners, and those who are involved in a religious activity. It is also clear from the epics that each weapon had its own rules of combat – for example, in a duel with maces, it was dishonourable to hit below the waist.14 Nonetheless, these rules were frequently broken not only by the Kauravas, the antagonists, but also the Pandavas, who generally represent virtue. So what should modern strategists take away from a religious text that extolls certain virtues which are subsequently violated by the protagonists themselves? How do these ideas relate to the nuclear age (if they do at all)?

Given the corpus of Hindu thought on jus in bello, it seems fair to extrapolate that nuclear weapons are not entirely prohibited. As in the epics, extreme circumstances might sanction the use of extreme measures. Thus, a modern interpretation of ancient Indian thinking would prohibit the use of nuclear weapons but sanction them in extreme cases and perhaps limit the targets on which they can be used. It is evident from the scriptures that it is the duty of the ruler to protect his kingdom and subjects from all threats, internal and external. To this end, the ruler should use saama, bheda, and daana and only upon the failure of these three is the fourth, danda, sanctioned. Once the use of force has been sanctioned, Hinduism has tried to restrain its use to acceptable parameters that do not violate basic human values, though the discussion of what such values entail is beyond the scope of this paper. According to the laws of Manu and the traditions and customs mentioned in the Mahabharata, the belligerents should meet before battle and discuss what constitute the rules of engagement. In modern times, these would be considered the Hague Conventions (means and methods), the Geneva Conventions (humanitarian), and customary law. Under the principle of jus cogens, some laws – such as those on genocide and crimes against humanity – would be considered binding even without their explicit acceptance by the state. The international legal system attempts to extend legal protection to all non-combatants while Hindu texts mention various groups by name but the principle is the same. It is important to note that the July 1996 advisory opinion of the World Court is not clear on the use of nuclear weapons.15 However, the conditions under which they may be legitimately used is severely circumscribed.

Once the parameters of a war are established, there are further norms of chivalry that prescribe the use of weapons and on whom they can be used. One rule demands that battle must be among equals. Although this makes more sense in the case of duels, modern-day appropriation of this rule would imply that a nuclear power should only consider its nuclear arsenal when in conflict with another nuclear power. The use of the term “equality” should not be taken to mean equality in absolute terms. In the Mahabharata, combatants ranged in age from teenagers (Abhimanyu) to octogenarians (Bhishma and Drona). Each warrior excelled with different weapons but fought with a variety of weapons nonetheless. Thus, equality implies training and material attributes more than actual skill. In modern warfare, this could perhaps be translated as a prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons or the threat thereof to only between nuclear powers. A nuclear power cannot use or threaten to use nuclear weapons on a state that does not possess nuclear weapons.

The virtue of restricting combat to only among equals implies that Hinduism would be strongly in favour of a doctrine of no first use. The allowance of deceitful means if one’s opponent does so first also supports the doctrine of no first use. But implicit in the term “no first use” is that use is permissible. Thus, a Hindu approach to warfare does indeed envision scenarios in which nuclear weapons may be used. Of course, even in such dire circumstances, use is restricted to combatants on the battlefield. As is stated in the texts, women, children, the aged – non-combatants – are not to be harmed. Any use of nuclear weapons will have to be on the battlefield against enemy combatants. This can be seen as acceptance of tactical nuclear weapons but not strategic weapons which target civilian populations and infrastructure. Although there seems to be no explicit injunction against the destruction of an enemy’s economic infrastructure and supplies, the way battle was conducted – far from urban development – indicates that such acts were frowned upon.16 Such a constraint would spare cities and other high-value targets from being targeted by nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons were to be used, they would, thus, have to be in response to the use of similar measures by the enemy and should be restricted to the targeting of enemy military targets.

More fearsome than the immense destructive power of nuclear weapons, even small ones, is the radiation that remains afterwards. Poisoning the land, water, and sky long after the conflict is over, residual radiation affects even future generations. Even though tactical nuclear weapons leave behind a far smaller radioactive signature than their bigger city-buster cousins, they nonetheless do have an adverse impact on the environment. This would seem to militate against the Hindu injunction against damage outside the field of battle, in this case, temporally outside. However, in the Sauptika Parva of the Mahabharata, Arjuna uses the brahmasirsha astra against a similar one deployed by Ashwatthama. Before the two astras could collide and cancel each other, Narada and Vyaasa, two great rishis, stop them with their hands and command both Arjuna and Ashwatthama to revoke them for the place where they were used would not have rainfall for twelve years. Arjuna responds that the only reason he used such a terrible weapon despite the consequences was to protect himself and his kinsmen against a similar weapon used by his foe. This incident demonstrates that despite the injunctions against disproportionate damage, weapons of such magnitude could indeed be used in dire circumstances.

It is interesting to note that after the war, when Yudhishtira is lamenting at the funeral pyre of his friends and family, and in his despondency asks what is the use of inheriting the world that has been stricken of all its beauty, Krishna answers that a king’s duty is the preservation of dharma in his kingdom. Yudhishtira would not be following the path of dharma if he did not fight the Kauravas and allowed their many injustices to go unpunished. This short exchange tantalises us with the question of the use of strategic nuclear weapons and the targeting of population centres and infrastructure as a last resort. If the ultimate duty of a king is the preservation of just rule, would it be permissible to use the ultimate weapon in battle as an ultimate measure? The Mahabharata does not answer this question as the war barely leaves Kurukshetra, the field of battle. However, considering what extreme measures are sanctioned by Manu in the Manavadharmashastras in times of extremity, it is not entirely clear that total nuclear war is indubitably prohibited. Yet Hinduism also stresses the suvarna madhya, the golden mean, which speaks against extreme acts. It is perhaps more likely that Hindu theorists would recommend an immediate suing for peace in the face of unfavorable odds and engaging the enemy at a later date when the odds have improved. The Manavadharmashastras prescribe that when facing a superior foe, the king should take refuge with a righteous and stronger king who can defend him against his enemy.17 Although Manu thus recommends the avoidance of total war, the fact remains that the Mahabharata witnesses what can only be described as a total war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.

Throughout the Great War in the Mahabharata, Krishna instigates Arjuna to commit various transgressions against the warrior ethic. In one incident, Krishna intervenes in a duel on Arjuna’s behalf. In another, he causes the chariot to sink and saves Arjuna from being killed by an arrow. Most significantly, he urges Arjuna to kill Karna while the latter was without a chariot and without his weapons. In each case, Krishna argues that if following dharma allows adharma to prosper, then it is not dharma at all. The ultimate duty of a king, Krishna repeatedly reminds Arjuna, is the destruction of his foes. What is dharma and what is unjust is highly subjective and therefore, practically, the Hindu code on the field of battle only demands victory.

This cold and realist assessment is supported by various pieces of evidence. The incident with the brahmasirsha and Krishna’s advice to Arjuna and the other Pandavas throughout the war, the permission to use deceitful means (kutayuddha) if the enemy does so first, and the allowance for extreme measures in extreme circumstances (aapad) together exonerate the combatants of any responsibility for waging a war of limited means and methods. However, such responsibility is placed on the combatants in the form of personal virtue. A virtuous king would employ the three other methods of conflict resolution rather than rely on danda; he would not stoop to kutayuddha. This behaviour is dictated to him more by a code of personal virtue ethics than a formal and precise jus in bello.

From an analysis of the few religious sources on right conduct in war available in Hinduism, it appears that Hindu strategists would have spoken out strongly against nuclear weapons. However, as a system of thought that pays attention to the practical as well as the ideal, a Hindu military manual would allow for the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, and in extreme cases, perhaps allow for total war. Typical of Hindu laws, these recommendations come with many caveats regarding intent and situation that attempt to reign in the extreme acts that might have been made necessary. Thus, although to say that Hinduism accepts the use of nuclear weapons in war would be an overstatement, it would not be erroneous to say that Hinduism reluctantly concedes that nuclear weapons may be used in war.

——–

1: Louis Renou, Religions of Ancient India (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1972), 50.

2: Romila Thapar, “Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity,” in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1989, 216.

3: Supreme Court Case, Ramesh Yeshwant Prabhoo vs. Prabhakar Kashinath Kunte, Date of Judgment: December 11, 1995, Citation 1996 (1) SCC 130 [http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/chejudis.asp].

4: A.K. Ramanujan, “Is there an Indian way of thinking?: An informal essay,” in, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1989, 45-48.

5: Torkel Brekke, “Between Prudence and Heroism: Ethics of war in the Hindu tradition,” in The Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Torkel Brekke (London: Routledge, 2006), 119-120.

6: For more on the difference between concepts of war, see Torkel Brekke, “The Ethics of War and Concept of War in India and Europe,” Numen, Vol. 52, No. 1, Religion and Violence (2005), 59-86.

7: Mahabharata, Udyoga Parva.

8: Arthashastra, Book VII, Chapter XVI. These are also mentioned in the Manusmriti, 7:107 – 7:108.

9: Wendy Doniger, Brian Smith, The Laws of Manu (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1991), lii-liv.

10: Srimad Bhagvatam, 7:11:14. For the instance of the yaksha prashna, see the Mahabharata, Vana Parva.

11: Manusmriti, 9:56 – 9;64. See Wendy Doniger, Brian Smith, The Laws of Manu, 203-205.

12: “Ashwathama hathaha iti, narova kunjarova.” See Mahabharata, Drona Parva.

13: Manusmriti, 7:90 – 7:93. “Climbing a mound” means, according to ancient commentators, being on the ground, trying to get up to face the king on his chariot.

14: Nick Allen, “Just War in the Mahabharata,” in The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 139.

15: Paul Szasz, “The International Law Concerning Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives, ed. Sohail Hashmi and Steven Lee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 63-66.

16: The Arthashastra and Nitisara in fact recommend such acts but as stated earlier, these are political treatises and not religious texts.

17: Manusmriti 7: 174.