Engaged Jainism: Critical and Constructive Studies of Jain Social Engagement

Explores the manifold ways in which Jains and Jain ideas become engaged in social worlds.

The Jain tradition, with roots in ancient India but now spread across the globe, is anything but static and monolithic. In Engaged Jainism, an interdisciplinary cohort of academics and practitioners explore the manifold ways in which Jains and Jain ideas become engaged in social worlds-historically, philosophically, philologically, and anthropologically. Following the legacy of Engaged Buddhism, the groundbreaking volume edited by Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, this volume shows how Jain traditions become engaged in everyday life, puts Jain ideas in dialogue with Western philosophical traditions, and examines the ways in which Jains have maintained Jain identity in their engagement with other religious traditions and cultural influences in the past and present. Across all of these disciplinary approaches, Jainism emerges as a dynamic, protean, and diverse tradition.

Christopher Jain Miller is Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of Jain and Yoga studies at the Arihanta Institute, Visiting Researcher at the University of Zürich’s Asien-Orient-Institut, and Affiliate Professor of engaged Jain studies at the Claremont School of Theology. He is the author of Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation. Cogen Bohanec is Assistant Professor in Sanskrit and Jain studies at the Arihanta Institute and Affiliate Professor of engaged Jain studies at the Claremont School of Theology. He is the author of Bhakti Ethics, Emotions, and Love in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Metaethics.