One episode found in the Pali recension of the MA-
HAPARINIRVANA-SUTRA(Great Discourse on the Extinc-
tion; Collins, pp. 437–440) is typical of the kind of
political neutrality the Buddha seems to have observed.
In this passage, the wicked King Ajatasattu sends his
chief minister to the Buddha in order to learn about
his reaction to a planned attack on a neighboring peo-
ple, the Vajjis. The chief minister informs the Buddha
about the king’s aggressive plan, but the text does not
depict the Buddha as criticizing this cunning. Instead
it has the Buddha listing seven kinds of behavior that,
as long as the Vajjis stick to them, would keep them
safe from the king’s attack. The minister draws his own
conclusion: The Vajjis cannot be overcome by warfare;
other means have to be applied. And in fact, as the com-
mentary explains, these means are undertaken by the
minister, leading to the complete defeat of the Vajjis.
It is impossible to know whether this meeting be-
tween the chief minister and the Buddha ever took
place. Nevertheless, the tradition has preserved this
episode, which demonstrates that the Buddha’s re-
ported reaction was thought not to be unsuitable for
him. There are, however, other transmitted passages in
which the Buddha is confronted with conflicts of war;
one of the best known, albeit from a considerably later
source (Kunalajataka[Former Birth Story of the Bud-
dha as Prince Kunala]), describes the conflict between
the Sakyas and the Koliyas (Cowell, vol. 5, pp.
219–221). Here the Buddha is portrayed as a mediator
between the two parties, who are on the verge of war
over water rights. In this case, thanks to the Buddha’s
intervention, the conflict comes to an end.
From nonviolence to compassion
With the idea, which started to evolve in the first cen-
turies of the common era, that the spiritual career of
a BODHISATTVAis available to all, a clear shift in val-
ues becomes perceptible. If, until then, the principle of
nonviolence (ahimsa) had governed the code of Bud-
dhist ethics, KARUNA(COMPASSION) now comes to the
fore as the most essential element. The bodhisattva acts
with compassion for the benefit of all living beings.
The bodhisattva’s own final awakening becomes sec-
ondary. It is against the background of this funda-
mental shift of values that violence became a more or
less accredited means of action—unwholesome for its
performer but benefiting the “victim.” Take the case
of a robber who tries to kill a group of spiritually highly
developed persons. A bodhisattva aware of the situa-
tion and motivated by compassion will, if necessary,
kill the potential wrongdoer in order to save him from
the bad karmic consequences the murder would bring
upon him. The bodhisattva, for his part, is willing to
suffer the bad consequences caused by his violent act
as part of this spiritual maturation (see the Bodhi-
sattvabhumi[Bodhisattva Stages], a text dating from
the first centuries C.E.; in Tatz, pp. 70–71). As easily
imaginable, this shift in values paved the way for jus-
tifying further means of violence, including war.A Buddhist war ethic?
Throughout the more than two thousand years of com-
pilation of literature among Buddhists, there is not a
single text that could claim absolute authority in the
matter of a “just war.” As discussed above, Pali texts
portray the Buddha as reluctant to address the issue of
war, thereby affirming the balance of powers. This lack
of finality may have contributed to the very different
stances on the issue of war that arose from early times
on. Although there is no text dealing exclusively with
the question of war and its ethical dimensions, relevant
passages appear scattered throughout the literature.
Their positions can vary between (1) an uncompro-
mising rejection of any kind of participation in mili-
tary activities; (2) a pragmatic approach shaped by the
needs of a realistic royal policy, yet restricted by cer-
tain ethical considerations; and (3) a straightforward
call for engagement in war in order to achieve a clearly
defined goal.
Examples of the last position are extremely rare and
not found in the earliest sources. One version of the
Mahayana NIRVANASUTRA, a text composed before the
fifth century C.E., demands that lay followers protect
the “true Buddhist teaching” with weapons. The killing
of persons who oppose Mahayana is put on the same
level as mowing grass or cutting corpses into pieces
(Schmithausen, pp. 57–58). Similarly, the Bodhisattva-
bhumisanctions the overthrow of pitiless and other-
wise oppressive kings and high officials, though it is
quick to state that the bodhisattva is acting out of com-
passion so as to prevent these officials’ accumulation
of further demerit (Tatz, p. 71). Here, the shift from
nonviolence to compassion is already fully operative.
A typical representative of the second position is a
long chapter on royal ethics in the Bodhisattvago-
caropayavinayavikurvananirdes ́a-sutra(Sutra That Ex-
pounds Supernatural Manifestations That Are Part of the
Realm of Stratagems in the Bodhisattva’s Field of Ac-
tion). This text, which probably originated in the fifth
century C.E., propounds the bodhisattva ideal, al-
though its actual influence on politics in India, Tibet,
and China still remains to be investigated. The rele-WAR