The twenty-five-hundred-year-old tradition of Jainism, which emphasizes nonviolence as the only true path leading to liberation, offers a worldview seemingly compatible with the goals of environmental activism.

But can Jainism adopt a sociocentric environmentalism without compromising its own ascetic principles and spiritual tradition? How does traditional Jain cosmology view the natural world? How might a Jain ethical system respond to decisions regarding the development of dams, the proliferation of automobiles, overcrowding due to overpopulation, or the protection of individual animal species? Can there be a Jain environmental activism that addresses both the traditional concern for individual self-purification and the contemporary dilemma of ecosystem degradation? The voices in this volume reflect the dynamic nature of the Jain faith and its willingness to engage in discussion on a modern social issue.

I. Jain Theories about the Nature of the Universe
The Jain Worldview and Ecology
Nathmal Tatia                                              3
Jain Ecological Perspectives
John M. Koller                                            19
The Nature of Nature: Jain Perspectives on the
Natural World
Kristi L. Wiley                                           35
II. Challenges to the Possibility of a Jain Environmental Ethic
Green Jainism? Notes and Queries toward a Possible Jain
Environmental Ethic
John E. Cort                                              63
The Limits of a Jain Environmental Ethic
Paul Dundas                                               95




The Living Earth of Jainism and the New Story:
Rediscovering and Reclaiming a Functional Cosmology
Christopher Key Chapple                                 119
Ecology, Economics, and Development in Jainism
Padmanabh S. Jaini                                      141
III. Voices within the Tradition: Jainism Is Ecological
The Environmental and Ecological Teachings of
Tirthaikara Mahavira
Sadhvi Shilapi                                          159
Ecology and Spirituality in the Jain Tradition
Bhagchandra Jain 'Bhaskar'                              169
Jain Ecology
Satish Kumar                                            181
IV. Tradition and Modernity: Can Jainism Meet the
Environmental Challenge?
From Liberation to Ecology: Ethical Discourses among
Orthodox and Diaspora Jains
Anne Vallely                                            193
Appendix:
The Jain Declaration on Nature
L. M. Singhvi                                               217