Hope in the Midst of Environmental Crisis: Insights from the Jains and World Religious Leaders

Catalog description

This course serves as an introduction of the field of Jainism and ecology. In this course, we will explore how Jainism, a religious tradition that originated in South Asia, adopts a more normative and relational attitude towards non-human forms of life, disavows anthropocentric thinking, and merges with the idea of “Ecological Civilization.” The course has fours broad segments. First, we will learn how Jain cosmological, and its consequent ethics view the natural world and human-nonhuman relationship. Second, we will examine and analyze Jainism’s worldview (beliefs, perspectives, knowledge, understandings) on ecology. Third, we will be exploring the Jain approaches (non-violence, non-possession, and non-absolutism) towards ecocultural ethics. Fourth, we will learn about practices of the lived Jain tradition, and then analyze and synthesize those practices as the responses to environmental degradations and crisis.