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Whitehead's Constructive Metaphysics.... : 25
religion. It moves through stages from ritual to rationalization, forming an intricate system of understanding the world around them. However, it is the last stage, the stage of rationalization, which is the most important and most dynamic, for it is the rational reorganization of beliefs and rituals to make sense of life, making it coherent so that ones thoughts and conduct are narrowed, intensified and clear.
Traditional Jainism as a religion is a mature, rational religion, with its canonical texts, commentaries, codes of conduct and apologetic tomes. It has certainly shaped generations of persons in India. However, to those in the diaspora movement, it is once again going through this 4" stage of emergence: How does one who has experienced the other which exists outside of ones own context and religion and merge it with ones own tribal religion, in order that what emerges is a rationalized religion? It is an arduous and adventurous process, one which takes ones own religion and begins to promote the habit of thinking dispassionately beyond the tribe.” The Diaspora Jain, because of its acceptance in the society in which they exist, begin to take in that society as part of who they are and move beyond the regular confines of the Jain tradition. The question that emerges from this and the one in which I would like to think through is this: how can Jain tradition be rethought in order for their to be an expansion or revision of its own system? Can its own system be open to changing times? Can the essence of its own religion engage the current form of Jainism, Diaspora Jainism? In order to do this, I will first focus on Anne Vallely's chapter titled "From Liberation to Ecology: Ethical Discourses among Orthodox and Diaspora Jains." Vallely provides a succinct summary of both orthodox and diaspora Jains citing differences between the two. Although her intended goal is how each group derives at the importance of nature, I will rather use her work to ground my discussion for its philosophical and religious value. erence where I believe diaspora Jainism cannot accept the individual focus of mokşa, liberation of the world, when the importance of ahiṁsā, aparigraha and anekāntvāda are reimagined in a new context. I will then introduce, as I have already in a sense done, Alfred North Whitehead, whose working definition of metaphysics and philosophical system is both congruent with, yet provides a certain distinction in the focus of a philosophy of organism. It grounds rationality in experience, seeks complexity over simplicity, novelty over tradition and relationality in the complex tension with singularity. It is a philosophy that is process oriented, but does not deny the permanence of actuality. What is emphasized are the “Evanescence, becoming, incessant novelty and perpetual perishing'... Care the] experiences which) are themselves our fundamental points of reference.” In the liberation centric model notions such as the end of becoming (rebirth), novelty (the new, the never before seen, the addition of what was not known prior) and perishing (death), are problems to be remedied. In Whitehead's system they are the points of reference for what is to become. Traditional and Diaspora Jainism What is most important that I would like to bring out of Vallely's chapter is the rendering of the wedding story of Nemi Kumar, who became the twenty-second Tīrthankara Arhat Neminath. I will cite the orthodox telling of the story, followed by the diaspora version.” “Nemi Kumar saw that on the side of the road there were large fenced-cages full of wailing animals and birds.
