Religion and Peace in Hinduism and the Bhagavad Gita: HSC Studies of Religion II

What this dot point is asking

Religion and Peace is a Studies of Religion II study completed "within the same TWO religious traditions". For each tradition you must investigate the understanding of peace as informed by sacred texts (for Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita), outline the principal teachings about peace, demonstrate how the tradition guides the individual to inner peace, and discuss its contribution to world peace.

This page covers all four for Hinduism. Pair it with Buddhism, Judaism or the existing Christianity and Islam pages.

One warning up front. The Gita is spoken on a battlefield, and Krishna tells Arjuna to fight. A top answer does not hide this: it explains how Hindus read the Gita as a text of peace (inner peace, selfless action, ahimsa) and evaluates the tension.

The answer

1. The understanding of peace in Hinduism

The Sanskrit word shanti means peace, calm and tranquillity. Many Hindu prayers and recitations close with Om shanti shanti shanti, a threefold wish for peace commonly explained as peace within oneself, peace with other beings and peace in the natural and divine order.

Hindu thought connects peace to its core beliefs:

• Atman and Brahman. The true self (atman) is eternal and, in many schools, one with or part of the ultimate reality (Brahman). Unrest belongs to the ego and the senses, not the true self. Peace is recognising who one really is.
• Desire and attachment. Restlessness comes from craving and possessiveness; peace comes from their mastery.
• Dharma. Right order and duty sustain harmony in the family, society and the cosmos.
• Moksha. Liberation from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) is the supreme and lasting peace.
• Ahimsa. Because the same divine presence dwells in all beings, harming another violates the sacred.

2. How the Bhagavad Gita informs the understanding of peace

The Bhagavad Gita (part of the epic Mahabharata) is a dialogue between the warrior prince Arjuna and Krishna, his charioteer and God incarnate, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Arjuna, seeing his relatives in the opposing army, refuses to fight. Krishna's teaching turns into a guide to living with a peaceful mind in the middle of conflict.

Prabhupada's translation (used by ISKCON and on Vedabase) adds bracketed explanations in places; other translations word these verses differently, but the teaching is the same.

The battlefield problem. Krishna also says: "Considering your specific duty as a kṣatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles" (2.31), and "Do thou fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distress ... victory or defeat" (2.38). Hindus read this in different ways:

• Dharma-yuddha. Some read it literally as teaching that a just war fought as duty, without hatred or selfish gain, can be righteous.
• Allegory. Gandhi read the battle as the inner war between good and evil in every heart; the Gita, for him, taught selfless action and non-violence.
• Inner peace in action. Many teachers stress that even Arjuna is asked to act with a peaceful, unattached mind: the Gita's peace is equanimity in the midst of life's struggles, not escape from them.

3. Principal teachings about peace

• Ahimsa (non-violence) is listed among the divine qualities (16.2) and is the first of the ethical restraints (yamas) in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. It shapes vegetarianism, speech and conduct.
• Dharma (duty and right order): fulfilling one's duties maintains harmony.
• Karma: violent actions return as suffering; peaceful actions bear peaceful fruit.
• The self in all beings: "A true yogī observes Me in all beings and also sees every being in Me" (6.29). This is the basis of universal compassion.
• Detachment and equanimity (2.47 to 48): peace comes from acting rightly without clinging to outcomes.
• The world as one family: vasudhaiva kutumbakam, from a verse in the Maha Upanishad (chapter 6) that contrasts the narrow-minded, who ask whether someone is "one of ours or a stranger", with the noble-hearted, for whom the whole earth is one family (paraphrased).

4. How Hinduism guides the individual to inner peace

The Gita presents several yogas (paths or disciplines), each a means to inner peace.

• Karma yoga (selfless action). Work done as an offering, without attachment to results, frees the mind from fear and ambition (2.47 to 48).
• Bhakti yoga (devotion). Loving surrender to God brings "transcendental peace" by grace (18.62). In practice: daily puja at the home shrine, japa (repeating a divine name with a mala), kirtan and bhajan singing, festivals and pilgrimage.
• Jnana yoga (knowledge). Understanding the eternal atman removes the fear of death and loss; knowledge brings "the supreme spiritual peace" (4.39).
• Dhyana or raja yoga (meditation). Gita chapter 6 describes the meditator who sits steadily and controls the mind: "For one who has conquered the mind ... he has attained tranquillity" (6.7). Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga begin with ethics (the yamas, starting with ahimsa) and move through posture and breath to meditation.
• Ethical living. Truthfulness, freedom from anger and compassion (16.1 to 3) remove the inner causes of conflict.

How they connect. The paths suit different temperaments but share one aim: a mind steady in God, "always still" like the ocean (2.70).

5. How Hinduism contributes to world peace

Leaders and movements

• Mohandas Gandhi (1869 to 1948) turned ahimsa into satyagraha, disciplined non-violent resistance, and drew on the Gita as his guide. His methods influenced Martin Luther King Jr and many later movements. His birthday, 2 October, is the UN International Day of Non-Violence. See the Gandhi page.
• Swami Vivekananda, at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago (11 September 1893), quoted the Gita's teaching that all paths lead to God and declared: "Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence". He hoped the Parliament's bell would be "the death-knell of all fanaticism".
• Vinoba Bhave, a follower of Gandhi, led the Bhoodan (land-gift) movement from 1951, persuading landowners to give land to the landless without coercion.
• Interfaith and diaspora communities. Hindu organisations take part in interfaith dialogue and bodies such as Religions for Peace, including in Australia, where 2.7% of people reported Hinduism at the 2021 Census (ABS).

Global practices. The UN International Day of Yoga (21 June) has spread yoga and meditation, rooted in Hindu traditions, as practices for inner and social peace. India used vasudhaiva kutumbakam ("One Earth, One Family, One Future") as the theme of its G20 presidency in 2023.

Limits and criticisms

• The Gita's battlefield (2.31, 2.38) has been read as supporting righteous war.
• Caste has been a source of structural violence and exclusion, which reformers such as Gandhi and critics such as B. R. Ambedkar challenged in different ways.
• Religious nationalism. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu nationalist; the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 was followed by deadly riots; hundreds of Muslims were among those killed in violence in Gujarat in 2002. Many Hindus condemn such violence as a betrayal of ahimsa.

Evaluating Hinduism's contribution

In one sentence

Hinduism understands peace (shanti) as the stillness of a mind freed from desire, anger and ego and grounded in the self and in God, taught by the Bhagavad Gita ("how can there be any happiness without peace?"), pursued through the paths of selfless action, devotion, knowledge and meditation, and carried into the world by Gandhi's satyagraha, Vivekananda's pluralism and the ideal that "the world is one family", though the Gita's battlefield, caste and religious nationalism show the limits of that ideal in practice.

Try this

Q1. Outline ONE principal teaching about peace in Hinduism. (3 marks)

• What the marker wants. A named teaching (ahimsa, detachment, the self in all beings), a Gita reference and its link to peace.

Q2. Demonstrate how the Bhagavad Gita guides Hindus towards inner peace. (8 marks)

• What the marker wants. At least three yogas or teachings, each with a verse, explaining how they produce inner peace.

Q3. Discuss how Hinduism is contributing to world peace. (20 marks, often paired with a second tradition)

• What the marker wants. Teachings, leaders, practices, limits (including the Gita's battlefield) and a judgement.