The Islamist terror and subsequent Iraq War have let loose a huge debate around what is "Just War"? The Islamists claim that Just War is Jihad and it is perfectly legitimate to fight against oppression by unbelievers. The Iraq Just War claims are based (and debated) upon legal arguments arising from UN and parliamentary resolutions. As it so happens, both the UN and western parliamentary resolutions are broadly based upon Judeo-Christian religious heritage and in particular, the Just War theories going back to the 12th century teachings of St. Aquinas, who - it has been said - was influenced greatly by books written by religious scholars expounding on the legal reasons and justifications of Jihad. But there is another strand of human thought around the Just War theory, which goes back centuries and millennia before Just War was a twinkle in the eyes of the Abrahamic faith theologians. Let us explore that a bit.

I was in a discussion last year with some people who were debating about Crusades, Jihad and Just War came up. I was hearing about how the Just War is defined as war against the other, but having a just cause such as fighting against oppression, which authority can launch a just war, so on and so forth. And I was reminded of two things when I heard that these concepts were relatively new. The first was the fact that Just War is not a new concept for me, in fact this is pretty old and secondly, this is not just Hinduism which I refer to, but also Buddhism (yes, that religion of peace.) which has a full blown concept of Just War. So I promised to write about it and this essay relates to the first aspect. The Buddhist concept of Just War will need a full essay of its own.

One might be surprised as to why a country like India, with such a long and sometimes violent history, can house two violently competing thoughts about war at the same time. The first is a very well developed doctrine and corpus of war and military science (perhaps even the first in the world), while the second is more known as the doctrine of non-violence. The latter was obviously popularised by Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the Nation. It says a lot about Hinduism's concept of "duality" and of "Maya" (illusion) that these two ostensibly mutually incompatible concepts can co-exist merrily, but this essay is not on that aspect, it is on the first.

The genesis of Just War within the overall rubric of Hinduism as a philosophy can be traced back to the oldest religious and philosophical books of mankind, the Vedas. Take for example, the Rig-Veda, the oldest written book. It is but a collection of hymns, to a variety of old Hindu Gods, and therein you will find a very large collection of hymns which pray to various God(s) to intercede in times of war and help in winning battles.

So whether one is praying to Indra, the Lord of Heavens or Agni, the Lord of Fire, it is your basic prayer before war. Or consider the fourth Veda, the Athar-veda which is more aimed at particular purposes such as hymns and charms to protect against arrow wounds, confusing the enemy, protection of equipment such as the battle drum, etc.

It goes without saying that at that time of human development (expressed both in oral and written tradition); one would not have expected people to have deep philosophical thoughts about the nature of war and that too Just War. Life was short, the world was scary and the only people who could make sense of this scary dark world were the Gods. Hence hymns and prayers to them would be the primary philosophical output of human kind (you see the same behaviour in the books of the dead in Egypt or the hymns of the ancient Mesoamerican cultures). But philosophy relating to the world and events as we know it emerged in the annals of the Upanishads (btw, Hinduism provides philosophical guidance to all aspects of human behaviour and endeavour, none of this separation of church and state malarkey but it is again a nature of its duality (see note about Arthshastra below) that secularism has found such a firm root in a largely Hindu country such as India).

But to go back to philosophy, the second aspect of war is explored in the Upanishads which is a body of Hindu scripture discussing philosophy, meditation, hymns, nature of the world and emotions. For example, one might be familiar with the concept of Greater Jihad in Islam, where one fights against the inner evils and sins, tries to attain self actualisation against inner weaknesses and limitations. It is the Lesser Jihad which is the physical manifestation of this battle against evil, oppression and injustice. But hundreds of years ago, fighting against the inner evil was enjoined in a variety of Upanishads, (such as in the Chandogya Upanishad - Eighth Prapathaka; twelveth Khanda, first paragraph, to the Mundaka Upanishad - third mundaka, first khanda, third paragraph to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad- third Brahmana).