Lawbook (Books)

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Bhagavad-gita As It Is

BG Chapters 1 - 6

BG 2.21, Purport: In Manu-saṁhitā, the lawbook for mankind, it is supported that a murderer should be condemned to death so that in his next life he will not have to suffer for the great sin he has committed. Therefore, the king's punishment of hanging a murderer is actually beneficial. Similarly, when Kṛṣṇa orders fighting, it must be concluded that violence is for supreme justice, and thus Arjuna should follow the instruction, knowing well that such violence, committed in the act of fighting for Kṛṣṇa, is not violence at all because, at any rate, the man, or rather the soul, cannot be killed; so for the administration of justice, so-called violence is permitted.

BG 2.31, Purport: Nonviolence in politics may be a diplomacy, but it is never a factor or principle. In the religious law books it is stated:

āhaveṣu mitho 'nyonyaṁ

jighāṁsanto mahī-kṣitaḥ

yuddhamānāḥ paraṁ śaktyā

svargaṁ yānty aparāṅ-mukhāḥ

yajñeṣu paśavo brahman

hanyante satataṁ dvijaiḥ

saṁskṛtāḥ kila mantraiś ca

te 'pi svargam avāpnuvan

"In the battlefield, a king or kṣatriya, while fighting another king envious of him, is eligible for achieving heavenly planets after death, as the brāhmaṇas also attain the heavenly planets by sacrificing animals in the sacrificial fire." Therefore, killing on the battlefield on religious principles and killing animals in the sacrificial fire are not at all considered to be acts of violence, because everyone is benefited by the religious principles involved. The animal sacrificed gets a human life immediately without undergoing the gradual evolutionary process from one form to another, and the kṣatriyas killed on the battlefield also attain the heavenly planets as do the brāhmaṇas who attain them by offering sacrifice.