This Sanskrit word, universally translated to mean "nonviolence," has a great depth of meaning that is not expressed by the English equivalent. Like many Sanskrit words of philosophical and ethical usage, it is poly-dimensional in its importance.
Ahimsa' has been mentioned in many ancient Hindu words, including the Bhagavad Gita'.
The practice of ahimsa' is perhaps best known by the works of Mahatma Gandhi. He, in the quest of how humans may become like God, resorted to the idea of various incarnations, that is, evolutionary, spiritual and philosophical "stages" towards perfection.
However, Gandhi took the ideal of divine perfection in human form away from the mythological past and placed it in the undetermined future pf every person's possibility, that is, not as an object of hard-to-reach worship but as an ideal goal for everyone.
Gandhi insisted on the practical aspects of self-realization, wherein "practical" referred not to that which is possible on a theoretical level, but that which should be rendered into actual observance regardless of its difficulty. The realm in which all this takes place starts with one's neighbors and extending to all the outer limits of reality.
John G. Arapura, The Spirituality of Ahimsa' (Nonviolence): traditional and Gandhian, pp. 392, 409.
