Sri Lanka, a nation that claims to be Buddhist and whose constitution gives Buddhism “the foremost place”, had engaged in a bloody civil war with the LTTE which sought to create an independent homeland for the Tamil minority. The war ended in 2009 with the defeat of the LTTE and heavy civilian casualties. Both sides have been accused of human rights violations.
This inevitably raises the question about Buddhist morality and its relation to war given the prevailing perception of Buddhism as an inherently peaceful religion. How are Sri Lankan Buddhists going to justify killing thousands in the name of sovereignty and territorial integrity using Buddhist morality? Is sovereignty worth more than human lives? Given the death of thousands could have been avoided had the Sri Lankan state simply recognized the right to self-determination of the Tamils, the war could only be seen as unnecessary and preventable bloodshedding.
Yet evidently the Lankan Buddhists valued sovereignty over human life. This is not consistent with the Buddhist position which calls for renouncing attachments. This position, however, would be more in line with the Mahavamsa version (or bastardization) of Buddhism as practiced in Sri Lanka which teaches that it’s righteous to wage war in the name of Buddhism and to unite the country under a Buddhist monarch.
