Jain Missionaries and Ecology

I will present my findings on the following topic at the American Academy of Religion Annual 2009 Conference in Montreal:

This paper analyzes the ecological discourse in the Terapanth Svetambara Jain saman order's missionary expeditions in the West. The saman order is a unique mendicant order instituted in 1980 by the late Terapanth leader, Acharya Tulsi, as a vehicle for spreading both Jain teachings as well as a spiritual curriculum known as Jeevan Vigyan, or Science of Living. Over one hundred samans currently teach Jeevan Vigyan in community and academic settings in Europe and North America. These courses highlight ecological issues of overpopulation, poverty, pollution, and ecological devastation as negative manifestations of social and individual disease. The Jeevan Vigyan curriculum is based on a sectarian, secular interpretation of Jain doctrine. Samans seek to engage diasporic Jains and non-Jains alike in order to promote ahimsa, or non-violence, through changes in daily lifestyle.

Samans are working to propagate a change of lifestyle in the West regarding diet, over-consumption, and economic activities, i.e. a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Samans and the Jeevan Vigyan curriculum both explicitly claim to be non-sectarian and to present a universal spiritual value system that it is the most effective solution to current socio-ecological problems. The underlying claim of this missionary enterprise that positive global change begins with individual transformation will be evaluated.

I briefly compare ecological discourse in the saman movement and the Jeevan Vigyan curriculum with Western ecological discourse on environmental problems to identify whether this Jain movement is limited to issues that pertain to their religious beliefs and spiritual goals. Also, I investigate to what extent the saman movement involves itself in Western ecological movements and vice-versa. In short, this paper analyzes the Jeevan Vigyan curriculum used in saman missionary enterprises to determine whether its ecological component is better understood as a tool to facilitate Jain evangelism, an authentic component of Jain religious tradition working to increase visibility in Western ecological discourse, or a form of secular Jainism that proposes a comprehensive argument for sustainable human-earth relations.