Ahimsa (ahiṃsā)

Ahimsa is non-injury, which the Mahabharata calls the highest dharma while telling the story of the most destructive war it can imagine. The tension is deliberate and the epic never resolves it comfortably: Bhishma teaches that ahimsa is supreme, and also that a king who fails to use force fails everyone he was meant to protect. The Vyadha Gita, spoken by a butcher who sells meat and serves his parents, is the epic's most pointed attempt to show that purity of occupation and purity of conduct are not the same question.