Ahimsa · Pāli/Skt: ahiṃsā, avihiṃsā

The word carries its meaning on its face. The Pali Text Society’s dictionary analyses ahiṃsā as a + hiṃsā and glosses it “not hurting, humanity, kindness”; the early texts also use the related avihiṃsā, which Bhikkhu Sujato translates “harmlessness”. Both words appear in Sanskrit Buddhist writing too, for instance in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (on verse 2.25). Britannica places the principle in “the Indian religions of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism”, so the ideal is shared even where its strictness is not.

The Pali Dhammapada grounds it in comparison with oneself. Verse 129 opens the chapter on the rod: “All tremble at the rod, all fear death. Treating others like oneself, neither kill nor incite to kill.” Verse 130 repeats the thought with “all love life” in place of the fear of death, and verse 270 uses the word itself, ahiṁsā sabbapāṇānaṁ: “One harmless toward all living beings is said to be a noble one” (all trans. Bhikkhu Sujato).

Non-harming is also built into the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Vibhaṅga Sutta (SN 45.8) right intention, which Sujato calls right purpose, is defined in a single line: “The purpose of renunciation, good will, and harmlessness.” Right action begins with “Refraining from killing living creatures”, the first of the five precepts. The Abhisanda Sutta (AN 8.39, trans. Sujato) counts that abstention among five great gifts, since one who gives up killing gives “to countless sentient beings the gift of freedom from fear, enmity, and ill will”.

How strictly the principle is kept differs between religions. Britannica observes that “the Hindus and Buddhists never required so strict an observance of ahimsa as the Jains”, for whose ascetics it reaches “not only to human beings and to large animals but also to insects, plants, and microbes” (see Buddhism vs Jainism). The same entry records that the Buddhist emperor Ashoka, “in his inscriptions of the 3rd century BCE, stressed the sanctity of animal life”, and that Mohandas K. Gandhi later “extended ahimsa into the political sphere as satyagraha”.

What non-harming asks of a Buddhist in practice, at table, towards animals and insects, and when force is in question, is taken up in its own guides: can Buddhists eat meat?, Buddhism and animals and Buddhism and violence, which follows the principle from the first precept into history. See also karuṇā, sīla and at least do no harm.