By: Sonia Faleiro Published in: *Scroll* Date: January 13, 2026 Source: https://scroll.in/article/1089733/militant-buddhism-a-long-history-of-how-sri-lankan-buddhist-monks-treated-non-practitioners
An excerpt from ‘The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism Is Shaping Modern Asia’, by Sonia Faleiro. In *In Defense of Dharma*, the scholar Tessa Bartholomeusz challenges the popular belief that nonviolence in Buddhism is absolute, arguing that while it is a core principle, it is not without exceptions. “Some Buddhists asserted that, though a Buddhist king should be committed to non-violence, he might be called upon to cancel his commitment under certain conditions. Such is his duty and … such is his karma – to engage in violence and war.” Several Sri Lankan monks Bartholomeusz met during her travels – including in the civil war years – invoked a similar rationale to justify their embrace of violence. Their defence rested on a story from Buddhist mythology. In the time of the Buddha, two kings – Ajatasattu and Pasenadi – were locked in a fight for supremacy that Ajatasattu ultimately won. “The Buddha assesses the character of the two kings: King Ajatasattu, who initiates the attacks, emerges as the king who is ‘a friend of evil (papa), an acquaintance of evil, intimate with evil.’ On the other hand, King Pasenadi, even though he also armed himself, is considered by the Buddha to be ‘a friend of virtue (kalyana), an acquaintance of virtue, intimate with virtue,’” Bartholomeusz writes. In defending himself against Ajatasattu’s assault, Pasenadi is not seen as unethical, but as virtuous. The message, according to the monks the scholar interviewed, is that morality in war is not determined solely by the act of violence – but by the intent behind it. The Buddhist monks I spoke with offered a different perspective, grounded in the Mahavamsa, or Great Chronicle, a sixth-century court document that recounts the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. According to this text, Buddhism reached the island through the efforts of King Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire, which extended across the Indian subcontinent. A devoted convert to Buddhism, Ashoka sought not only to strengthen the faith within India but also to spread it abroad. The Mahavamsa recounts how he sent his children to Sri Lanka with a cutting of the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha had attained enlightenment, along with precious relics, including the Buddha’s rice bowl and collarbone. In a message to the ruler of Sri Lanka, Ashoka urged: “Take refuge in the Buddha, as I have taken refuge in the Buddha.” In 250 BCE, the Sri Lankan king converted to Buddhism at a royal park, which he then dedicated as the site of a monastery and an enormous stupa to house the sacred relics. Another key episode in the Mahavamsa ties Sri Lanka’s destiny to a figure named Vijaya, who, according to legend, landed on the island on the day of the Buddha’s death. Every Buddhist country has its own myth about how it came under the Buddha’s spell – or was chosen by him. This was Sri Lanka’s. The chronicle recounts that the Buddha, aware of Vijaya’s arrival, declared: “Vijaya, son of King Sihabahu, [has] come to Lanka from the country of Lala, together with seven hundred followers. In Lanka, 49 O lord of gods, will my religion be established; therefore, carefully protect him with his followers and Lanka.” According to the text, “Sri Lanka is the Dharmadvipa (the island of the faith) consecrated by the Buddha himself as the land in which his teachings would flourish,” notes Sri Lankan scholar Nira Wickramasinghe. According to this common interpretation, Sri Lanka is not only a Buddhist nation but one under divine protection, with Sinhalese Buddhists chosen by the Buddha himself to uphold the faith. This narrative reinforces the notion that the Sinhalese people have a historical destiny not just to rule Sri Lanka, but to save, at all costs, Buddhism itself. Gehan Gunatilleke, a lawyer and Oxford academic, identifies this episode from the Mahavamsa as having laid the foundation of what he calls the “Sinhala-Buddhist entitlement complex.” He writes that the myth is now viewed by most Sri Lankans as “indisputable history.” The hero of the Mahavamsa was King Dutthagamani, who waged war against the Hindu Tamils for control of the island in 165 BCE. The battle ended only when Dutthagamani drove a spear through his Tamil rival, King Elara. But as he surveyed the carnage around him, Dutthagamani found no joy, even though he had secured absolute power for the Sinhalese. All he could think about was the lives he had taken. Fearing that their king might lose his killer’s resolve, a group of monks reassured him: Far from having slaughtered scores, they told him, he had killed only “one and a half human beings.” In their view, a true human being was someone who had embraced Buddhism by accepting the Buddha, his teachings (Dharma), and his community (monks and nuns) – in essence, a practising Buddhist. Those who adhered to certain aspects of the Buddha’s teachings without fully committing to them were regarded as “half-human.” Most of the king’s victims, however, were Hindus, and the monks argued that this rendered them “not more to be esteemed than beasts.” The rhetoric used to dehumanise outsiders in Sri Lanka – once Hindus, now Muslims and Christians – has long been visceral, menacing, and politically expedient. This approach is neither new nor isolated; throughout history, similar language has justified occupation, enslavement, and genocide, from the British Empire’s colonial rule to the Islamic State’s massacres. In liberal democracies, this logic has found new champions. Donald Trump compared undocumented immigrants to pests, describing them as an “infestation.” Modi likened Muslims to stray dogs, while his Bharatiya Janata Party colleagues called them “termites.” In October 2023, while announcing a total siege on Gaza, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians “human animals.” As the novelist Omar El Akkad observes, reflecting on how language is used to justify violence: “When those dying are deemed human enough to warrant discussion, discussion must be had. When they’re deemed nonhuman, discussion becomes offensive, an affront to civility.” Casting human beings as vermin to be exterminated or animals to be caged normalises the idea that one group can annihilate another without consequence. After all, if a victim is no longer seen as human, are they even a victim? *Excerpted with permission from *The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism Is Shaping Modern Asia, *Sonia Faleiro, HarperCollins India.*
