ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the Buddhist war ethic is incoherent and impossible to apply in modern statecraft. The purest form of Buddhism is Theravada, prominent in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Its foundational scripture is the Pali Canon, so named for its original language. The commonalities holding Buddhism's many schools together are the veneration of the historical Buddha; the belief in a cycle of life, death, and reincarnation; the elevation of asceticism; and the belief that charity and sin have consequences in both one's current and future lives. In Buddhist political theory, the state is not an end in itself; it is neither moral nor immoral, neither just nor unjust. Several scholars have documented the development of militaristic war ethics by the Buddhist monkhood in Japan, China, and elsewhere.
