This chapter examines the ambivalence and tension generated when the putatively universal premodern category of sāsana (referring to the full range of material and ideational aspects of the Buddhist community) aligns uncomfortably with the more bounded modern category of the nation-state. Through its association with existing polities, sāsana has been effectively mobilized to encourage or defend violence against non-Buddhists and against coreligionists, sometimes producing the complicated phenomenon of “Buddhist nationalism.”

This chapter dispels the guiding misconception of Buddhist pacifism, historically and textually, with reference to its origins in the early transmission of Buddhism to the West and the influence of mistranslations of ahiṃsā in the distorting modern discourse of “nonviolence” versus violence. At the same time, it highlights the Buddhist ideal of nonharm and the nuanced ways in which Buddhists applied compassionate values to the avoidance of armed conflict, the effective and ethical conduct of warfare, and postwar reconciliation.

This chapter surveys the intertwining of religion (both Buddhism and Shinto) and war in the history of Japan, including: Buddhism’s initial introduction and subservience to the state in the 6th century; the emergence of warrior-monks (J. sōhei) in the Heian era; and the role of Buddhism in the samurai-dominated medieval period. Of particular interest to Western readers will be the emphasis on samādhi-power, acquired through Zen meditation, which was cultivated among the samurai class prior to the Meiji Restoration of 1868, contributing to the fanaticism that emerged in the modern Japanese Empire.

While many accounts of early Christianity see the early Church as a pacifist movement, closely following Jesus’ non-retaliatory teaching, this chapter argues that there is a more ambiguous relationship to violence in the first three centuries of the Christian movement, including military service. Aside from the violent rhetoric in the eschatological parables of Jesus, Christians appropriated the violence of the Hebrew Bible to shape negative views of outsiders, which in turn prepared the way from actualised violence in the post-Constantine era.

This chapter examines the development of the just war idea in Christian thought from its beginnings through its taking classic shape until the early modern period, when it became the basis for the idea of the law of nations while also remaining as a religious concept in both Catholic and Protestant thought.

Christian liturgy and ritual underpinned the practice and ideals of holy war and especially the Crusades (11th–16th centuries) in the medieval Christian imagination. As the mechanism of connecting the salvific and eschatological to the secular events of war and warfare, the liturgy – in the form of knightly blessings, votive masses for war, and penitential processions – articulated and sacralized the ideology of holy war throughout the period.

The chapter highlights the place of spiritual purification in the Islamic ethos and its relation to physical jihād. Tracing such ideas from early Islam, the chapter considers the jihād in the era of the Crusades and the ways in which pietistic motifs were essential components of jihād preaching and practice.

This chapter considers foundational Buddhist thought and the relevance (or not) of modern just war theory. A just way to think about war, conduct war, and repair harm from war from a Buddhist perspective would be to stop the endless cycle, to avoid war altogether by accepting responsibility, and addressing the catalytic harms that perpetuate it.

This chapter explores the role of early modern non-state actors in organized martial conflicts to understand how diverse social formations define “war” prior to the institution of the nation-state system. Exploration of how such actors interacted with states, and often operated independently of them, enhances our understanding of the multiple locations of organized violence without the assumption of state formation as a goal and allows greater appreciation of the sometimes dispersed nature of martial coercion.

From songs of liberation (Exodus 15) to prescriptions for genocidal violence (Deuteronomy 7:1), the biblical views on war are diverse and complicated. Ritualized preparations and borrowed Near Eastern mythological paradigms for battle have been argued to serve Israelite identity formation rather than to report actual history, but also to support fantasies of violent end-times, moments of therapeutic repose in the face of oppression, and hope for the eventual restoration of righteousness.

This chapter explores key concepts of justice in war in the main strands of Hindu literature on politics: the dharma literature, the Arthashastra (or statecraft) and the animal fables known as the Pancatantra. The chapter ends with a section about the uses of classical Hindu concepts of justice and war in the struggle for independence from British colonial power.

Postclassical Muslim just war developments focused upon dealing with the twin challenges of the Crusades and the Mongols, both of which occupied substantial sections of the Muslim world as well as constituting religious challenges to Islam. These challenges were overcome by moving away from the earlier heroic manner of Muslim sacral warfare and adopting a more professional, technology-based military that at least attempted to assimilate standard Sunni Muslim norms (in terms of personal morality) into the military methodology. The expansion of Islam from the 13th to the 17th centuries demonstrated that this formula was a success.

All aspects of war in China were surrounded by religious activities, ranging from rituals to predict the future and guarantee success in war and the safety of its participants to rituals dealing with the bloody aftermath of war.

This chapter examines how Judaism has negotiated the problematic of war with its standard of ethics from biblical to modern times.

The so-called Great Peace or Taiping Rebellion is one of the most destructive events of Chinese history. Indigenous beliefs in the efficacy of violence to fight demonic beings, including humans identified as such, were an essential element of this event, next to Christian and Confucian sources of inspiration.

The introduction provides an overview of the link between religion and war, offering a broad sketch of classical legends, wartime ethics, national sentiments, and ritual traditions. This is followed by summaries of each chapter.

Christian millennialism served as a kind of lingo through which Americans debated politics and the country’s place in the world during times of war in the USA. Focusing on the role of ecumenical Protestant millennialism, this chapter details the ways in which ideas about the end of the world, combined with contested notions about the USA’s role in divine plans, fostered Christian nationalism and American exceptionalism from the Revolution to the war on terror in the 21st century.