In the Fall of 2025, Claremont School of Theology (CST) will offer an advanced, 15-week Sanskrit graduate seminar which focuses on translating the Jain Yoga-śāstra of Hemacandra (12th c. CE) and his auto-commentary, the Svopajña-vivaraṇa. Developed in collaboration with Arihanta Institute’s Center for the Study of Jain Yoga (CSJY), the course, Sanskrit 3: Translation & Reading of Jain Sanskrit Texts will be taught by Professor Cogen Bohanec (Arihanta Institute), serving as Adjunct Faculty at CST. As an advanced course, students are expected to have at least a year of Sanskrit (two semesters) covering all basic grammatical forms.

 

The seminar is intended to deepen textual and linguistic competencies and strengthen textual, philosophical, and historical foundations for scholars of Jain yoga studies, broader yoga studies, and related fields. Interested students and qualified auditors can enroll directly through CST.

 

Hemacandra’s Yoga-śāstra is significant as a distinctly Jain engagement with familiar themes from Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtra, placing them in dialogue with core Jain commitments—ontological pluralism and non-theism, anekānta-vāda, and a pronounced emphasis on karma-theory and ethically oriented, soteriological practice. It also marks a culmination of earlier Jain yogic discourse, rooted in the Tattvārtha-sūtra and developed by predecessors such as Haribhadra-sūrī and other seminal authors.

Through close translation of the Svopajña-vivaraṇa, the course inducts students into the Sanskrit commentarial tradition, training them in its core stylistic and hermeneutic conventions. We examine how Hemacandra deploys this style exegetically—to clarify doctrine, establish textual authority, and position Jain yoga in dialogue with the broader premodern yoga discourse. In doing so, students develop transferable competence for reading commentaries across Sanskrit genres and related South Asian literary traditions.

Alongside philological and linguistic training, students will cultivate philosophical acuity through sustained work in comparative philosophy of religion, focusing on parallels among Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist articulations of yoga together with instruction in historical-critical methods. Collectively, these competencies elevate the methodological rigor and scholarly standing of students’ work and, as foundational tools across the humanities and South Asian religious studies, have broad applicability in academic research.

 

Equally important, this graduate seminar fosters reflexive inquiry: as we translate and interpret, students critically examine their own metaphysical assumptions, ontological commitments, and epistemological approaches—an exercise that both strengthens scholarship and can transform personal worldviews. In line with the mission of Arihanta Institute’s CSJY, the course pairs rigorous training with socially engaged learning, amplifying the voices of historically marginalized South Asian traditions in public discourse. By cultivating ethical awareness alongside advanced Sanskrit research skills, the seminar prepares students for responsible, impact-oriented scholarship today and for meaningful personal engagement with contemporary society through the insights of ancient teachings.

 

About CSJY: The Center for the Study of Jain Yoga at Arihanta Institute is a pioneering online hub for advanced research and education in Jain yoga. Founded after the April 2024 Yoga in Jainism conference, CSJY advances interdisciplinary study of Jain yoga texts, the history of dhyāna in Jain traditions, and contemporary practices—offering graduate-level and public programs that situate Jain yoga within the wider field of Yoga Studies.

 

 

To register for credit or as an auditing student, please email: study@arihantainstitute.org.