Arihanta Institute congratulates the two recipients of the "Women in Dharma and Compassion Studies" travel grant, Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa-Baker (Loyola Marymount University) and Alba Rodríguez Juan (UC Riverside).

 

Both scholars will be presenting their research in compassion studies at the 2025 Dharma Academy of North America's (DANAM) conference at the American Academy of Religion's Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Here, they will speak on a panel presided by Professor Christopher Jain Miller titled "Compassion as a Path to Freedom."

 

Nirinjan Khalsa-Baker shared these words in response to receiving the travel grant:

 

"I am very grateful to receive the 'Women in Dharma and Compassion Studies' travel grant to share my research about Sikh approaches to compassion with the Dharma Academy of North America (DANAM). Having served for many years on various academic, local, and global interreligious initiatives, I have come to understand the critical role of embodied compassion when engaging with suffering in the world today. In my scholarship, teaching, music, and movement building work with the Revolutionary Love Project, I have been exploring the ways in which the Sikh concept of compassion (daya) is linked both with love (pyaar) and courage (bahadur). This year Sikhs celebrate the 350th anniversary of the 9th Guru, Tegh Bahadur whose life and death serve as an example of courageous compassion through his sacrificial martyrdom for the religious freedom of the Kashmiri Hindu community. Today Sikhs look to Guru Tegh Bahadur to inspire compassionate courage in the face of injustice and suffering for communal and individual sovereignty, liberation, and freedom."

 

Alba Rodríguez Juan also shared her reflections upon receiving the travel grant:

 

"Thank you to Arihanta Institute for the 'Women in Dharma and Compassion Studies' travel grant. It will support my graduate student research on compassion in the dharma traditions and allow me to present this research to the scholarly community at the American Academy of Religion on DANAM's 'Compassion as a Path to Freedom' panel. In my presentation, 'Between Entanglement and Enlightenment: Rethinking Compassion in Jain and Buddhist Thought,' I will show how the śramaṇa traditions usually framed compassion as a transformative practice linking inner development with ethical engagement in the world. My paper will argue that in the śramaṇa traditions, and with a particular focus on Jainism as a case study, compassion is not merely an emotional response, but a disciplined form of ethical self-cultivation rooted in detachment and the pursuit of a higher mode of being."

 

We once again congratulate both scholars on their outstanding scholarship and achievement.

 

The "Compassion as a Path to Freedom" panel and the "Women in Dharma and Compassion Studies" travel grant is made possible through the support of the Uberoi Foundation, who have provided generous support for Professor Christopher Jain Miller's 2025 project titled "Compassion in Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism". This project is part of Arihanta Institute's Compassion Studies Initiative.