The Ethics

of War.
The implementation
of war ethics in
comparison to
Mahabharata.

By MedhaChatterjee
 Introduction

We are first and foremost human being and that fact in itself is enough to show that

we cannot ever become completely ethical or unethical about our actions. The ancient Indian

texts and scholars and law-givers not only understood this aspect of human nature but also

used this aspect to give a complete idea as to what could be considered as ethical action and

what could be considered as unethical actions with all it exceptions. These texts themselves

were near to perfection but the fact remains that these were merely texts, guidelines on how

ones actions could be called completely ethical or not. In reality and practice it was quite

different. These guidelines may or may not be practiced as per the real situations. The

guidelines are continuously broken, bent and remade for the ease of the person implementing

them. It is important to understand that pre-Vedic epoch of these guidelines were quite

flexible until the time when the epics were written down, after which, these guidelines

became rigid too.

Chapter 1-Dharma according to Dharmashatras and Dharmasutras.

Dharma comes from the word dhrwhich means to uphold or maintain the order in the

universe. In the modern context, the general understanding of the term and the meaning of

dharma as law or religious law, for that matter, was not what it actually meant earlier.

Initially the institution of morals was one of the cruxes for any community and this lead to

the foundation of the idea of ethical and unethical in every community. This lead to the

formation of a group of law-givers who compiled the Dharmashastra and the Dharmasutras,

stating the ethical guidelines, along with their exceptions, that needs to be followed to

maintain Dharma.

Dharma was divided into two parts: i) Sadharana dharma or general rules, and ii)

Svadharma or special rules. The former pertained to a community in general, whereas the

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latter was pertained to an individual. There are two factors that determined this dharma; the

first factor was theVarna or the social class system; which initially was determined as per

profession rather than birth. This made Varna system quite flexible because one can be born

in a Sudra family but had the freedom to choose any profession which would later determine

his or her Varna. The shastras allowed a switch between Varnas especially under extreme

circumstances. It is important to understand that the switch between Varnas was not very

flexible in reality because, as stated earlier, the Varna was determined by the profession of an

individual in the society. This division as per profession formed communities that engaged

only in one particular job and this division came to have four categories, i.e. Brahman who

engaged only in education and rituals, Kshatriya who engaged only in statecraft, warfare and

administration, Vaishiyas who engaged only in business, clerical jobs, etc., and the Sudras

who engaged in labour works like tanning, farming, etc. The Varna system held together the

order in the society because if an individual failed to perform his job, he would only affect his

community and thus, the communities would not suffer, but if an entire community failed to

do its job, it will cause suffering to every other community. This happened because the strict

distinction in the Varna system formed an inescapable interdependence between the

communities. Over time, the upper classes misconstrued the truth behind the Varna system to

use their power to dominate over other communities. The second factor was the four stages of

life. According to ancient texts, there are four stages of life: i) Brahmachariya or the student

phase where all individuals are supposed to learn the ancient knowledge from there Gurus in

Gurukul; ii) Gryhasti or household phase where the individual takes up a profession

associated with his Varna and starts a family life; iii) Vanvas or retirement stage where the

individual, after finishing all his duties as a household man, retires to the forest to live like a

hermit and practice asceticism; iv) Sanyasa or renunciation stage, where the individual has

renounced all worldly desires and has attained enlightenment. The fear of failure in attaining

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Moksha and Swarga was heavily implemented over the masses to keep them on the path of

Dharma.

Chapter 2-Kshatriya Dharma

Kshatriya, as we all know it, is the warrior or the ruling class. It is derived from two

words, Ksattriya meaning power and Rajan meaning royal people. They are associated with

red colour, symbolising honour, power and valour. According to the Rig Veda,

“prajaaryajotigraha”, meaning that the kingdom that is ruled by the Aryans is a kingdom

ruled by divine light. This makes the king’s commands as powerful and that of a divine being,

thereby, making the king as a representative of God. Thus, the masses would not disobey him.

According to the Manusmriti, the Kshatriya ruler, who is learned in the ancient text, must

protect the Brahmaan or the Universal order and the Vedas.

The Kshatriya is an amalgamation of Indra, Surya, Varuna, Yama and Kubera. It is

because of such divine amalgamation that he is said to be beyond all creatures. Punishment is

a divine gift to the king, so that, after considering the time and place of the offence, the mind

and strength of the offender, he can inflict deserved punishment on the offender to restore and

protect dharma. A Kshatriya is pure and faithful to his promise, who acts according to the law,

in good council with the wise and delivers punishment justly. He builds his political

strategies according to the shastras.

CHAPTER 3- The Ethics of War

According to the Dharmashastra, there are two kinds of war; i) Dharmayuddha, which is,

war conducted in a righteous manner using fair means of war, for example, the Kurukshetra

war in Mahabharata; ii) Kutayuddha, which is, war that is conducted in an unrighteous

manner without upholding the moral standards using unethical means of war, for example,

the dice game in Mahabharata. It is expected of a Kshatriya to know both methods of war and

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 use the latter method only when his enemy has used it against him. It is important to

understand that a Kshatriya cannot wage a war without using other means of reconciliation. It

is said that he uses four methods of; i) Sama or gifts to the enemy to strike a mutual

agreement; ii) Dama or bribe the enemy with wealth to keep the war from taking place; iii)

Bheeda or threat the enemy to keep the war from taking place; iv) Danda or punishment in

the form of war. The use of these methods varied as per the status of the king. The Kshatriya

king would use the first two method of another king who is inferior to him in status and he

would use the latter two methods against a king who is of equal status to him.

There is a certain ethical code of war that all Kshatriya warriors follow not only on

the battlefield but beyond the battle field as well. A few of these laws are as follows:

i) A king should always be from the Kshatriya community because of the material

advantage they held. Women were not expected to take the place on the throne

unless the circumstances demanded otherwise.

ii) A Kshatriya should die on the battlefield. If a Kshatriya is to die due to sickness,

old age or suddenly, rituals are help where his chest is wounded and yagna is

performed for his soul.

iii) A Kshatriya cannot become an ascetic or take up asceticism.

iv) A Kshatriya has to send the message “Fight or Submit” through an ambassador

before attacking the enemies. The Ambassador has to be treated with respect and a

Kshatriya cannot kill the Ambassador who bought the declaration of war.

v) The victorious ones are prohibited from destroying the garden, temples and

agricultural lands of the conquered land. A Kshatriya king would treat the women

of the conquered land with respect and send them back to their home. The

conquered king is given back his land after deciding on mutual agreements with

the conquerors.

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 vi) The conflict between two kingdoms has to be kept with between the Kshatriyas.

The conflict should not affect other Varnas and they should be able to continue

with their work with ease.

vii) A Kshatriya always fights one-on-one. A Kshatriya ceases to attack one who has

been disabled, wounded or surrendered.

viii) A Kshatriya never attacks from the behind.

ix) A Kshatriya does not fight with one who is of an inferior status than him or one

who is less armoured than him. A Kshatriya must fight with this equal.

x) A Kshatriya never kills or disrespects a woman, a child and an elder.

xi) A Kshatriya never backs away from war.

xii) A war cannot continue post sunset. After the sun sets, the enemies are expected to

respect each other like allies.

xiii) A Kshatriya never strikes below the waist.

xiv) A Kshatriya never attacks or kills a Brahman, a kinsman, a guru or an elder. He

can attack them only if the other individual intentionally chooses to be enemy.

xv) A Kshatriya never kills or attacks one who is wounded or has no son.

xvi) No other Varna except the Kshatriya is allowed to fight the war.

Chapter 4-The Kurukshetra War

The Kurukshtra war in the Mahabharata is a classic example of the practicality of the code

and ethics or war. The rules are neither broken nor kept, but always bent. It is only under

extreme circumstances that the rules were eventually broken. Few instances of such choices

are:

i) the war was a battle between cousins. It was unethical of Duryodhana to declare war on his

own brothers because a Kshatriya never attacks a fellow kinsman but it was ethical of the

Pandavas to respond war with war even against his own brother because their cousins chose

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to be their enemy. The Pandavas are expected not to attack Bishma because he is an elder but

it was ethical because Bhisma chose to take sides with their enemy. Moreover, Krishna

quotes ancient Indian philosophy of the soul being an eternal entity and it only the body that

dies, therefore, killing Bhisma was only killing his body and not his soul.

ii) the killing of Bhisma was neither ethical nor unethical. Even though he was unarmed

and to kill an unarmed man is unethical, it was Srikhandi who kill Bhisma, who is not a

Kshatriya, and thus, the rules were merely bent.

iii) Drona taking part in the war was unethical because he was a Brahman, but it was

ethical for Arjuna to attack Drona because Drona chose to takes side with the Kurus.

iv) Karna and Drona attacked Abhimanyu together which was unethical because the fight

always takes place one-on-one. Moreover, Dushyasan’s son killed Abhimanyu even

though he was disarmed.

v) Drona was unarmed when he was killed was Dristadumna, which was unethical.

Moreover, Drona though his son, Aswathama, is dead even though he was not. Here

again the rule was bent.

vi) Karna was killed unethically, because he was unarmed but it was ethical as well

because he attacked Abhimanyu when Abhimanyu was unarmed.

vii) The killing of Duryodhana by Bhima, was again both ethical and unethical. To begin

with, it was unethical of Duryodhana as a Kshatriya to have attacked the honour of

Draupadi, which was the reason why Bhima wanted to kill him. So it was only ethical of

Bhima to hit him below the waist.

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Conclusion

To understand whether the war was ethical or unethical in the first place, we have to

go back to Kshatriya dharma. For the Kshatriya, it is his foremost duty to die on the

battlefield and thus, this makes the war ethical. In ancient times the war was considered

as a yagna in itself; but by the laws of dharma it is unethical to take lives, and war causes

loses a lot of lives. The Dharmashastra and the Dharmasutras states a lot of laws in

theory which are almost binary, i.e. it’s either ethical or unethical. But in practice, there

was no binary. It was always an amalgamation of both. The Kurukshetra war bent all the

rules that the shastra talked about. The laws were merely guidelines whereas their

effectiveness of the laws remained as per the circumstances. The war showed that there

was no black and white of ethical and unethical but rather the grey hue of both, which is

the reality of dharma.