Phd in the Study of Religion, University of California, Davis
Dr. Miller holds master’s degrees in Theological Studies and the Study of Religion, as well as a doctorate in the Study of Religion. Combining critical and yet community-engaged methods, he passionately engages in ethnographic and theological research seeking to address some of society’s most pressing concerns in light of Jain and yogic principles. These concerns include interconnected issues like climate change, animal rights, food and social justice.
At Arihanta Institute, Dr. Miller’s current research focuses on two primary areas: Engaged Jain Studies and modern yoga studies. In the field of Engaged Jain Studies, he has published and is currently working on articles pertaining to Jain veganism and Karma theory as well as Jain contemplative practice, and has recently compiled a thematic, full-length course workbook that applies Jain principles to many common issues of daily life.
In the field of modern yoga studies, Dr. Miller is currently finishing a book manuscript that is a critical ethnographic project exploring the ways in which yoga practices are transformed in their interaction with particular cultural logics around the world. In this project, Dr. Miller specifically engages in interdisciplinary research that brings the field of modern yoga studies into dialogue with the fields of food studies, ethnomusicology and pollution studies.
Dr. Miller has published a number of peer-reviewed articles in the fields of Jain studies and modern yoga studies, and is the co-editor of the volume Beacons of Dharma: Spiritual Exemplars for the Modern Age (Lexington 2020).
He is the author of Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation (Routledge 2023).
PhD in Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion (Hindu Emphasis), MA in Buddhist Studies, IBS/GTU
Dr. Bohanec’s scholarship focuses on the comparative philosophies between major dharma traditions (Jain dharma, Buddhism, Hinduism), within these traditions, and in dialogue with Western theoretical frameworks. He specializes in Sanskrit and Indian literature but has engaged in textual work in texts in a variety of languages such as Pali, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali and Ardhamāgadhī. By employing methods of textual hermeneutics, philology, literary criticism, and translation, Dr. Bohanec seeks to nuance the academic understanding of dharma traditions by employing the lexicon of Western philosophy in a way that is vigilant against the possibility of distorting these traditions, yet renders them more accessible to the Western milieu. During his time at Arihanta Institute, Dr. Bohanec has engaged in extensive research to develop curriculum and corresponding manuscripts that will soon bear publications. The first of these, “Jain Yoga Philosophy: Peacebuilding and Contemplative Practice,” is a philosophical engagement with various Jain yoga texts (e.g. Yoga-bindu, Yoga-dṛṣṭi-samuccaya, and the Yoga-śāstra). This work brings various philosophical fields of inquiry (metaphysics, epistemology, logic, psychology, and ethics) into dialogue with similar categories of thought in the broader field of dharmic yoga texts from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. In the process, the book proposes a model of interfaith dialogue and peacebuilding and asserts the Jain tradition’s rightful place in the broader academic field of contemplative studies.
A second manuscript that Dr. Bohanec has developed which corresponds to his curriculum at Arihanta Institute is titled, “Jain Pragmatism in the Ātma-Siddhi Śāstra.” This text engages in a dialogue with Western philosophical pragmatism, particularly as articulated by William James. In the Ātma-siddhi, Śrīmad Rajchandra invokes a number of themes that resonate with the evidentialist claims of a pragmatic maxim (the evidence and meaning of a proposition can be found in the result of its engagement). James has specifically argued in favor of an ontological pluralism in his attempt to synthesize the dialectical tension between empiricism and rationalism. His way of framing the discussion has great potential to lend conceptual and linguist constructions to the understanding of a similar Jain ontological pluralism and dialectical logic. While there are a number of dissimilarities between James and Śrīmad Rajchandra’s teaching, the illuminating process of dialogue between these views unfolds with a translation and scholastic analyses on the Ātma-siddha by Dr. Bohanec, and in consultation with Nitya-kram commentary by Pujyashri Brahmachariji.
PhD in Religious Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara
MA in Religious Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder
Dr. Dickstein is a specialist in the premodern religious traditions of South Asia. His three areas of research span Yoga Studies, Religious Studies, Critical Animal Studies, Environmental Studies, Diaspora Studies and Comparative Ethics.
Dr. Dickstein’s previous research involved issues of theism, agnosticism, and atheism in yoga traditions. Critical questions involved the existence and role of a supreme deity in effecting a practitioner’s eventual achievement of the goal of liberation. Dr. Dickstein is finalizing an article on theism in the Pātañjala Yogaśāstra and its relevance for the beliefs, sensibilities, and aims of contemporary practitioners. He sees this work as broadly informative on how practitioners in Jain and non-Jain yoga traditions reconcile ancient views on soteriology and ethics with current atheistic trends in yoga practice and yoga-inspired practical ethics.
Currently focused on Animal Studies, Dr. Dickstein’s doctoral work investigated ancient Indic perspectives on domesticated animals, examining animal taxonomies and their relationships to regulations on ritual sacrifice and dietary practice. Ancient Jain texts offer a unique viewpoint on this topic given their emphasis on the sense-faculties of various living beings, and sentience as the basis for human ethical responsibilities towards animals and the environment. In his current scholarship, Dr. Dickstein draws parallels between this Jain viewpoint and contemporary arguments in moral philosophy that reject anthropocentric and species-centric approaches to animal and environmental ethics.
Dr. Dickstein will soon initiate a new research project that connects the long history of animal rescue and caretaking in Jainism with animal rights advocacy in the United States that also promotes the rescue and caretaking of exploited animals. Using an animal sanctuary in Colorado as the field location from which to generate this discussion, Dr. Dickstein will put Jainism’s rich history of caring for animals in conversation with the direct action tactics employed by animal activists to rescue animals from sites of abuse.