Peacebuilding & Interfaith Dialogue in the Jain Tradition
Course Number: 1007
In this course we will explore how we can talk with others from different religious (or non-religious) traditions in a way that fosters friendship and mutual respect. We will discuss the Jain tradition’s many resources that further the goals of peacebuilding in a pluralistic society, and what it means to create social unity despite the diversity of perspectives in various belief systems. Given the history of interfaith conflict and violence in our world, the Jain tradition has much to offer in terms of how understanding the religious (or non-religious) “other” and how dialoguing with those who have fundamentally different beliefs can be a source of friendship, harmony, and strength, rather than conflict and disunity as it so often is.
We will also discuss how such interfaith dialogue can be understood not only in social terms, but in the Jain philosophical terms of anekānta-vāda, ahiṃsā, etc. such that interfaith interactions can be a means of our own personal spiritual development—as well as social unity at a time when people seem more polarized than ever. We will also give particular emphasis to how the Jain tradition has employed a shared framework of yoga to dialogue with other dharma traditions, and what this tells us today about the potential for interfaith, intercommunal peacebuilding from the perspective of the Jain tradition.
Social Justice
Cogen Bohanec, MA, PhD
We will also discuss how such interfaith dialogue can be understood not only in social terms, but in the Jain philosophical terms of anekānta-vāda, ahiṃsā, etc. such that interfaith interactions can be a means of our own personal spiritual development—as well as social unity at a time when people seem more polarized than ever. We will also give particular emphasis to how the Jain tradition has employed a shared framework of yoga to dialogue with other dharma traditions, and what this tells us today about the potential for interfaith, intercommunal peacebuilding from the perspective of the Jain tradition.
Learning Area
Social Justice Instructor
Cogen Bohanec, MA, PhD
Cogen Bohanec currently holds the position of Assistant Professor in Sanskrit and Jain Studies at Arihanta Institute where he teaches various courses on Jain philosophy and its applications. In addition, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Claremont School of Theology (CST) where he teaches Sanskrit and Gujarati, and he has taught numerous classes on South Asian Culture & Religions and Sanskrit language at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley. Dr. Bohanec specializes in the Jain and Hindu traditions, comparative dharma traditions, philosophy of religion, theo-ethics (virtue ethics, and environmental and animal ethics in particular), and Sanskrit language and literature, and has numerous publications in those areas, particularly in the fields of Jain and Hindu Studies amongst other disciplines. He has a PhD in “Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion” with an emphasis in Hindu Studies from GTU, where his research emphasized ancient Indian languages, literature, and philosophical systems. He also holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies at GTU where his research primarily involved translations of Pāli Buddhist scriptures in conversation with the philology of the Hindu Upaniṣads. He is the author of “Bhakti Ethics, Emotions and Love in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Metaethics” (Lexington, 2024), an interdisciplinary study that frames traditional Hindu themes of ecotheology, ecofeminist theology, feminist care ethics, within a framework of virtue ethics in conversation with a bhakti-based psychology of emotions. Currently he is largely engaged in publication and research on various aspects of the Jain tradition, emphasizing translations and analyses of Jain Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Gujarati texts, but is also publishing academic works on various topics within the Hindu tradition.