---
type: Concept
bundle: dharmic-ethics
bundle_version: "0.5.0"
id: ahimsa
title: "Ahiṃsā — Harmlessness as the Ground of All Conduct"
iast: "ahiṃsā"
devanagari: "अहिंसा"
description: "The disposition of non-harm rooted in seeing the one Self in all beings; the first and root yama. Not the political tactic of non-violence, not pacifism, not a dietary rule, not passivity."
darshana:
  - Yoga Darśana
  - pan-dharmic (sādhāraṇa-dharma)
school_scope: "First of the five yamas (YS 2.30); treated across the tradition as the root from which the other restraints follow. The Mahābhārata's ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ states its primacy."
text_source: "YS 2.35; Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva"
tags:
  - ahimsa
  - yama
  - ethics
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "non-violence (as political tactic)"
    why: "the Gandhian reading the West absorbed treats ahiṃsā as a strategy for social change measured by political results; in the yoga-darśana it is an inner state of established harmlessness (YS 2.35) whose fruit is that hostility ceases in one's presence, independent of any campaign or outcome"
    instead: "Render ahiṃsā as harmlessness or non-harm rooted in the recognition of the one Self in all; not as a tactic of non-violence."
  - term: "pacifism"
    why: "pacifism is the absolute refusal of force; ahiṃsā does not forbid the kṣatriya's duty to protect (Arjuna is told to fight), because the measure is the absence of hate and the will to harm, not the absence of action"
  - term: "vegetarianism (as a mere rule)"
    why: "dietary non-harm is one expression of ahiṃsā, but reducing the yama to a food rule mistakes a downstream practice for the disposition; ahiṃsā governs thought, word, and deed toward all beings, not a menu"
  - term: "passivity"
    why: "passivity is the failure to act; ahiṃsā is an active, demanding discipline of refusing harm in intention even under provocation, which is harder than inaction, not the same as it"
related:
  - /concepts/satya.md
  - /concepts/asteya.md
  - /concepts/nishkama-karma.md
  - /concepts/svadharma.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Ahiṃsā — अहिंसा

**Not:** non-violence (as political tactic), pacifism, vegetarianism (as a mere rule), passivity

Ahiṃsā is the disposition of non-harm: the established refusal to injure any being in thought, word, or deed, grounded in the recognition that the same Self dwells in all. It is the first of the five yamas and the root from which the rest grow, because every other restraint is a particular form of not-harming.

## Etymology

From *a-* (not) + √*hiṃs* (to injure, to strike, desiderative of √han, to kill). Literally "the state of not wishing to harm." The word names an absence, but the tradition reads it as a positive inner condition: not the mere lack of a blow, but the extinction of the will to strike.

## What It Actually Means

Patañjali ranks ahiṃsā first because the other yamas are its specifications (Vyāsa-bhāṣya on YS 2.30): truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-grasping are each a way of not harming. Its measure is internal. YS 2.35 states that when ahiṃsā is firmly established in a person, beings in their presence give up enmity, even those naturally hostile. The fruit is relational and effortless, which tells you the cause is a settled state of being, not a performed behavior.

## Harmlessness and the Kṣatriya's Duty

The hardest case is the one the Gītā opens with: Arjuna lays down his bow in the name of not-harming, and Kṛṣṇa corrects him. Ahiṃsā does not collapse into refusal of all force, because the deciding factor is the interior one, the presence or absence of hatred and the craving to injure. Duty discharged without malice, without attachment to the harm, can be ahiṃsā; withdrawal driven by aversion and self-protection is not. This is why ahiṃsā is paired in this bundle with svadharma and niṣkāma-karma: harmlessness is held inside right action, not against it.

## Why the Substitutes Fail

"Non-violence" as a political tactic and "pacifism" both move the test outward to behavior and results, missing that ahiṃsā is an established inner state whose proof is that enmity dissolves around it. "Vegetarianism" names one practice and mistakes it for the whole. "Passivity" inverts the concept entirely, since ahiṃsā is a strenuous discipline of the will, not the easy option of doing nothing.

## Cross-References
- [Satya](satya.md) — truthfulness is subordinated to ahiṃsā: a truth told to wound is not satya
- [Asteya](asteya.md) — non-stealing is a form of not-harming applied to what is another's
- [Niṣkāma-Karma](nishkama-karma.md) — action without the craving to harm is how ahiṃsā survives inside duty
- [Svadharma](svadharma.md) — one's own duty (including protective force) is performed within, not against, harmlessness

## Audience Metaphor

Think of a surgeon's hands. The surgeon cuts, draws blood, breaks the body open, and yet there is no violence in it, because there is no will to harm and the whole act is bent toward healing. Now picture someone who never lifts a hand but seethes with contempt for everyone around them. The first is ahiṃsā in action; the second is hiṃsā in stillness. The blade is not the question. The heart that moves it is.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtra](/references/yoga-sutra.md) 2.30, 2.35 — ahiṃsā as the first yama; enmity ceases in the presence of one established in it
2. [Mahābhārata](/references/mahabharata.md) — ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ: non-harm as the highest dharma, held alongside the warrior's duty
3. [Bhagavad Gītā](/references/bhagavad-gita.md) 13.7, 16.2 — ahiṃsā listed among the marks of knowledge and the divine endowment
