Non-Violence (Ahiṃsā)
To harm no living being — in deed, word, or thought — the first and deepest of yoga's vows.
Ahiṃsā is non-violence — the refusal to harm any living being, not only in deed but in word and thought. Patañjali lists it first among the restraints, and the tradition treats it as the root from which the other virtues grow: where non-harming is firmly established, the yoga texts say, hostility itself ceases in one's presence. Shared across Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist ethics, it became, in the modern era, the moral core of Gandhi's politics — though that is a later development built on an ancient principle.
How it traveled
- Yoga-sūtraKāśī (Varanasi) · 375explains
Key passages(9)
Even though these were to kill me, O slayer of Madhu, I could not wish to kill them, not even for the sake of dominion over the three worlds, how much less for the sake of the earth!
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Non-injury, truth, absence of anger, renunciation, tranquillity, absence of calumny, compassion to beings, un-covetousness, gentleness, modesty, absence of fickleness;
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Brahmâ (Hiranyagarbha or Paramesvara) told this to Pragâpati (Kasyapa), Pra'gâpati to Manu (his son), Manu to mankind. He who has learnt the Veda from a family of teachers, according to the sacred rul
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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
That Pragapati is the year, and he consists of sixteen digits. The nights indeed are his fifteen digits, the fixed point his sixteenth digit. He is increased and decreased by the nights. Having on t
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