Abstract:
Contemporary political debates diverge on whether multispecies solidarity can occur *with* or only *on behalf of* more-than-human beings. The South Asian concept of nonviolence (*ahiṃsā*), notably developed in the Jain tradition, challenges this either/or approach. Jain cosmology, emphasizing universal sentience with karmic difference, offers a foundation for solidarity *with* other beings. Its account of reciprocal suffering and responses of carefulness and compassion provide a foundation for solidarity *on behalf of* other beings. Moreover, the Jain view provides a third alternative—solidarity *as* other beings—through religious practices of cosmic merger missing in political accounts that presume a subject-centric “I think” as their onto-epistemic ground. Jain accounts of rebirth memory and fasting unto death provide modes of *un*selfing and *un*knowing necessary to support costly multispecies solidarity. Importantly, the Jain view maintains a clear sense of anthropocentric privilege, paradoxically occurring and reaching full expression only through multispecies nonviolence.