Bibliographic Essay

While there is a great deal of writing on ancient Indian kingship, until recently exploration of the relationship between kingship, violence and non-violence has been very meagre.

For a recent comprehensive and detailed treatment of the subject, see Upinder Singh, Political Violence in Ancient India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017). For an overview of the history of the important framing concept of dharma, see Patrick Olivelle (ed.), Dharma: Studies in its Semantic, Cultural and Religious History (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2009). For writings on violence and non-violence, which include essays on religion and politics, see Jan E. M. Houben and Karel R. van Kooij (eds.), Violence Denied: Violence, Nonviolence and the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural History (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Denis Vidal, Gilles Tarabout and Eric Meyer Vidal (eds.), Violence/ Nonviolence: Some Hindu Perspectives (New Delhi: Manohar and Centre de Sciences Humaines, 2003). On the concepts of ahimsa and anrsathsya, see Mukund Lath, ‘The Concept of Anrsarhsya in the Mahabharata', in R. N. Dandekar (ed.), The Mahabharata Revisited, papers presented at the International Seminar on the Mahabharata organised by the Sahitya Akademi at New Delhi on 17-20 February 1987 (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1990), pp. 113-19; J. L. Mehta, ‘The Discourse of Violence in the Mahabharata', in Philosophy and Religion: Essays in Interpretation (New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research and Munshiram Manoharlal, 1990), pp. 254-71. On kingship, cruelty, violence and nonviolence in the Mahabharata, see Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), chapter 5, especially pp. 202-14.

In recent years there have been attempts to investigate warfare and ideas about war in South Asia, largely within religious contexts.

See for instance Kaushik Roy, Hinduism and the Ethics of Warfare in South Asia: From Antiquity to the Present (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Raziuddin Aquil and Kaushik Roy (eds.), Warfare, Religion, and Society in Indian History (New Delhi: Manohar, 2012). Another trend is towards a comparative perspective with regards to war. See for instance Torkel Brekke, ‘The Ethics of War and the Concept of War in India and Europe', NUMEN: International Review for the History of Religions 52 (2005), 72-86, and Torkel Brekke (ed.), The Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations: A Comparative Perspective (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).

For a detailed discussion of various aspects of kingship, violence, war and punishment in Asoka's inscriptions, see Upinder Singh, ‘Governing the State and the Self: Political Philosophy and Practice in the Edicts of Asoka', South Asian Studies 28.2 (2012), 131-45. For a discussion of these issues in Kamandaka's Nttisara, see Upinder Singh, ‘Politics, Violence, and War in Kamandaka's Nttisara’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 47.1 (2010), 29-62. On Kalidasa's Raghuvamsa, see Upinder Singh, ‘The Power of a Poet: Kingship, Empire and War in Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa', Indian Economic and Social History Review 38.2 (2011), 177-98. These three essays are reprinted in Upinder Singh, The Idea of Ancient India: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Archaeology (New Delhi: SAGE, 2016).

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Source: Fagan Garrett G., Fibiger Linda, Hudson Mark, Trundle Matthew (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 1: The Prehistoric and Ancient Worlds. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 756 p.. 2020

Bibliographic Essay

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