For anyone reading India’s two great epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, it is soon apparent that martial arts and combat have been central to the history and cultures of South Asia since antiquity. In the well-known Bhagavadgītā section of the Mahābhārata, Kṛṣṇa elaborates a view of duty and action intended to convince Arjuna that, as a member of the warrio…