Jain Approaches to Plurality

Identity as Dialogue

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In Jain Approaches to Plurality Melanie Barbato offers a new perspective on the Jain teaching of plurality (anekāntavāda) and how it allowed Jains to engage with other discourses from Indian inter-school philosophy to global interreligious dialogue. Jainism, one of the world’s oldest religions, has managed to both adapt and preserve its identity across time through its inherently dialogical outlook. Drawing on a wide range of textual sources and original research in India, Barbato analyses the encounters between Jains and non-Jains in the classical, colonial and global context. Jain Approaches to Plurality offers a comprehensive introduction to anekāntavāda as a non-Western resource for understanding plurality and engaging in dialogue.

“Building upon earlier work in this field without simply reduplicating it, Melanie Barbato’s work delves deeply into the question of the relevance of Jain approaches to religious and philosophical diversity to contemporary issues of inter-religious dialogue, and dialogues across worldviews more generally. (…) This work is a most welcome contribution to the conversation.”

— Jeffery D. Long, Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College. April 2017. Author of Jainism: An Introduction.

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Melanie Barbato is a researcher at the Institute for Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology at WWU Münster. She holds a doctorate in Indology and Religious Studies from LMU Munich and a Master in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford.
Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: Identity in Changing Times
 The Historical Development of Anekāntavāda
  First Stage: Discourse within the Jain Community
  Second Stage: Indian Inter-school Discourse
  Third Stage: Colonial Discourse
  Fourth Stage: Global Discourse
 The Structure of the Book

2 Who are the Jains? A Community between Indian Tradition and Global Modernity
 The Fordmakers
 Beliefs and Worship
 Puṇya and Pāpa
 The Historical Development of Jainism
 Conclusion

3 Jains in Inner-indian Dialogue
 The Schools of Indian Philosophy
 The Historical Development of Jain Philosophy
 The Classical Concept of Anekāntavāda
 Plurality in Jain Ontology
  Indian Ontologies
  An Ontology of Organic Plurality
  Origination, Destruction and Persistence
  Substance, Qualities and Modifications
  The Complex Union of Reality
 Classical Applications
  Universals
  Relations
  Cause and Effect
  The Nature of the Soul
 Plurality in Jain Discursive Logic
  Logic in India
  The Nyāya Inference Model
  The Aim of Indian Logic
  Jain Logic: Every Statement is Conditional
  Sevenfold Predication
  Yaśovijaya’s Interpretation of the Saptabhaṅgī
  Śankara’s Criticism of Jain Logic
  Jain Logic, Nyāya Logic, Western Logic
 Plurality and Perfect Knowledge
  Jain Soteriology
  The Stages of Knowledge
  Limited Knowledge: The View-points
  False Views and Absolutism
  What the Omniscient Know
  Plurality in the Light of Omniscience
  Kundakunda’s Two Viewpoints
 Conclusion

4 Plurality in Modern Jain Dialogues
 Tolerance and Interreligious Dialogue
  The World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago
  Indian Inclusivism
  The Limits of Jain Tolerance
  Gandhi and Shrimad Rajchandra
  Anekāntavāda as Intellectual Non-violence
  Anekāntavāda as Relativism
  Identity, Values and Doctrine
 Jainism in Dialogue with Science
  The Historical Context
  A Scientific Religion?
  Jainism as Scientific Theory
 Jain Diplomacy
  Jain Environmental Activism
  Acharya Sushil Kumar and Religious Diplomacy
 Conclusion

5 Jain Dialogic Identity – Then and Now
Anekāntavāda between Philosophy and Rhetorics
 Four Understandings of anekāntavāda
  A Philosophical Understanding of anekāntavāda
  A Conservative Modern Understanding of anekāntavāda
  A Modernist Understanding of anekāntavāda
  A Lay Orthodox Understanding of anekāntavāda
 Who Speaks for anekāntavāda?
 Conclusion

Bibliography
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