Ahimsa
Babylon English English dictionaryDownload this dictionary
ahimsa
n. Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and principle of nonviolence and revering all living creatures and refraining from harming any living thing

Wikipedia English The Free EncyclopediaDownload this dictionary
Ahimsa
Ahimsa (SanskritDevanagari; ; IAST , Pali: ) is a term meaning to do no harm (literally: the avoidance of violence - himsa). It is an important tenet of the Indian religions (HinduismBuddhism and especially Jainism). Ahimsa is a rule of conduct that bars the killing or injuring of living beings. It is closely connected with the notion that all kinds of violence entail negative karmic consequences. The extent to which the principle of non-violence can or should be applied to different life forms is controversial between various authorities, movements and currents within the three religions and has been a matter of debate for thousands of years. Though the origins of the concept of ahimsa are unknown, the earliest references to ahimsa are found in the texts of historical Vedic religion, dated to 8th century BCE. Here, ahimsa initially relates to "non-injury" without a moral connotation, but later to non-violence to animals and then, to all beings. Though ritual sacrifice of animals and meat-eating are condoned in the earliest Vedic texts, other texts present counter-arguments against these activities. In the 19th and 20th centuries, prominent figures of Indian spirituality such as Swami VivekanandaRamana MaharishiSwami Sivananda and A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada emphasized the importance of ahimsa. Mahatma Gandhi applied ahimsa to politics, by his non-violent satyagrahas.

See more at Wikipedia.org...


© This article uses material from Wikipedia® and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
WordNet 2.0 DictionaryDownload this dictionary
ahimsa

Noun
1. a Buddhist and Hindu and especially Jainist doctrine holding that all forms of life are sacred and urging the avoidance of violence
(hypernym) religious doctrine, church doctrine, gospel, creed
(classification) Buddhism


Rakefet DictionaryDownload this dictionary
Ahimsa
Ahimsa (Sanskrit) [from a not + the verbal root hims to injure, kill, destroy] Harmlessness; one of the cardinal virtues. The sanctity of life is imbodied in the teachings of the Buddhists and Jains, as well as of many Hindu schools. Asoka, the first Buddhist emperor, particularly espoused ahimsa as part of the practice of dharma. According to Manu (4:148), one may acquire the faculty of "remembering former births" by the observance of ahimsa.
In the Vamana-Purana, ahimsa is personified as the wife of Dharma, whose offspring, Nara and Narayana (epithets of Arjuna and Krishna respectively), pointed the way to spiritual enlightenment.

Hinduism Glossary for Introduction to ReligionDownload this dictionary
ahimsa
In Sanskrit, literally, "noninjury." It is the principle that a person should do no harm. In Jainism, this restriction includes all living creatures because they all contain a jiva .


| Ahimsa in French | Ahimsa in Italian | Ahimsa in Spanish | Ahimsa in Dutch | Ahimsa in Portuguese | Ahimsa in German | Ahimsa in Russian | Ahimsa in Turkish | Ahimsa in Hebrew | Ahimsa in Arabic | Ahimsa in Thai | Ahimsa in Polish | Ahimsa in Czech | Ahimsa in Latvian | Ahimsa in Catalan | Ahimsa in Urdu | Ahimsa in Bulgarian | Ahimsa in Danish | Ahimsa in Norwegian | Ahimsa in Swedish | Ahimsa in Farsi | Ahimsa in Vietnamese
Copyright © 1997-2012 Babylon Ltd.   All Rights Reserved to Babylon Translation Software. | Privacy Statement | Terms of Use