On an extremely cold day with heavy snowfall in January 2006, as I was wandering through the bunker-like labyrinths of the
Peace Research Institute in Oslo and searching for the smoking room, I accidentally met Professor Gregory Reichberg. While
chatting, he told me that he was interested in the interconnections between religious ethics and the conduct of warfare. Then
he asked me if I had ever thought of the interconnections between one of the world’s oldest religions (Hinduism) and the conduct
of war. I showed my interest and said that I was willing to research it. And then Reichberg said, well then, you are ‘in’
the project. I am extremely grateful to him not only for introducing the idea of the interrelationship between religion and
warfare but also for sustaining me financially and morally for about five years while I was engaged in writing this monograph.
While I was writing the monograph, my friend and mentor at PRIO, Professor Scott Gates, always made me conscious of what Hinduism
has to say about unconventional (intra-state) warfare. This volume builds upon the two essays I published in the
Journal of Military Ethics (2007) and in a volume published by the United Nations Press (2009), and also on the 30,000-word piece on Hinduism and warfare
I wrote for an anthology as part of Reichberg’s project. I am also fortunate to have met Dr. Beatrice Rehl in Cyprus and then
in Oslo; she kindly agreed to consider the volume for publication by Cambridge University Press. Thanks to the two unknown
referees and my friend Torkel Brekke for their criticism and input. My special thanks to my wife, Suhrita, who accepted my
continuous ‘mindless’ chattering about the
acharyas’ views on
yuddha and
vigraha during the last five years. As a final take, if this volume satisfies none of its readers but provokes them to think about
the complex interstices between Hinduism and warfare, my work is done.