Ideology of Peace
PEACE IN DIFFERENT RELIGIONS
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Toynbee, has called this a ‘live and let live’ concept
of peace. That is, we should give peace to others
and in exchange receive peace from them.
It was 2500 years after the establishment of
Hinduism that Mahavir was born in a Hindu family
in India. He laid down five principles of religion,
and although the term ‘non-violence’ probably did
not exist at that time in the ancient Hindu
scriptures, the first and most important of these
principles was
ahimsa
, which means non-injury.
According to this principle, violence and aggression
of any kind are absolutely wrong. Jain belief can be
summed up in these words: The killing of a sensate
being is a sin.
The Hindu religious leaders accepted Mahavir as
their 24th avatar. In this way, the concept of
ahimsa
too became a part of Hinduism. In the 20th century
too, there is the great example of Mahatma Gandhi,
a Hindu reformer of world repute, who interpreted
the Bhagwad Gita in the light of the principle of
non-violence, and launched a full-fledged freedom
movement entirely committed to this principle. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984) explains the degree
