One of the earliest accounts of violence in defense of the sasana is
of the Sinhalese king, Dutthagamani, who defeated a Tamil king in
approximately the first century BCE in Sri Lanka, declaring that his
purpose was not to win territory but to protect the sasana.
22 According
to the sixth-century Sinhalese Buddhist text the Mahavamsa, monks
allegedly disrobed in order to join his army and fight for the Buddhist
cause. When Dutthagamani experienced remorse at the bloodshed he
had caused, he was visited by eight arahants (fully enlightened beings)
who assured him that there was no need to worry. Only one and a half
“people” had died at the hands of his army: one who had taken the Five
Precepts (and who could be considered Buddhist) and one who had
taken a lesser vow. The rest, according to the exceptionally authoritative
voices of these arahants, were all non-Buddhists, less than human
and not even deserving of consideration, let alone pity.
The Burmese Buddhist King Bodawphaya argued that his intention
in conquering the Arakanese kingdom of Mrauk U in 1785 was for the
purpose of “purifying” the sasana (Leider 2008). While the Arakanese
were also Buddhist, their kingdom maintained close ties with Islamic
sultanates to the west and adopted some cultural and political traditions
from them. For Bodawphaya, the “defense of the sasana” was carried
out through a violent, expansionist policy, in this case conducted
against co-religionists.