Jainism in a Global Perspective - Collection of Jain papers of 1993 Parliament of World Religions, Chicago

SR No.: 014010
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sagarmal Jain, Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 1998
Total Pages: 402
Language: English
Classification: Seminar & Articles
File Size: 23 MB

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Jainism in a Global Perspective
as Mahāvīra welcomed Earth with all of its multifarious obstacles and temptations, so also the intention to commune with all life forms makes explicit the particular responsibility with which humanity is endowed."?
Five hundred years after the Columbian Encounter it is perhaps the particular opportunity of the Jaina community in North America to party the actual enactment of pain (Dravya-himsā) with the values of differentiation, subjectivity and communion realized through ahimsā. There is no little irony in the fact that the Indians whom Columbus thought he had discovered have indeed arrived centuries later bearing a way of thinking and living that has the potential to reclaim the entire continent from his legacy of exploitation and greed. Of course, members of the Jaina community cannot accomplish this alone. But their willingness to resacralize the place in which they find themselves is utterly indispensable if this is to occur. For it will be within this querencia, this sacred space that the encounter with Columbus' European "descendants" can continue to take place. And there it may be possible to yoke, within the minds and hearts of these "descendants," the Christian teaching on unconditional love (agape) with the unwavering instrumentality of co-creation that is ahiṁsā.
The difficulty of this challenge should not be underestimated nor should the potential fruitfulness of this ongoing encounter be denied. What is required is nothing less than replicating a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a hundred thousandfold--- Jaina linkage between Gandhi and King that so altered the conceptual landscape occupied by the peoples of Narth America. In this lies great hopefulness. For when transformations of the conceptual landscape occure, rastoration of the physical landscape becomes a more distinct possibility. As all of us search for a querencia, let us take heart. Increasing numbers of seekers, embodying diversity in the form of ethnic origin or religious tradition, are providing new coherence for the human adventure. As they engage one another according to a common vision, their path into the future will also be marked by a common quest for that state of mutuality according to which Earth's wisdom and human self-knowledge will be revealed together.