This panel provides an inter-religious dialogue between Hindu and Jain traditions, and between these and the Jewish tradition. Specific topics include food security, nonviolence, speciesism, hospitality, and ritual as shaping the dynamic interactions between people, food, and lands.
Food security means the availability of sufficient nutritious food for all. Establishing and maintaining food security does not only depend on technology and logistics but also on a shared horizon for cooperation. Religious traditions can ground discussions about food security in a broader vision of human (and non-human) flourishing. Their practices and narratives can help to understand and promote beneficial attitudes towards food and those we may be required to share with. The report 'Collective Action for Ending a Collective Problem: A Multi-stakeholder Project on Global Food Security' that was published this year by the Centre for Religion, Human Values, and International Relations at Dublin City University, Ireland, includes such interreligious elements in a document aimed at policy-makers. This paper aims to explore how food security can be rethought specifically through the Jewish, Jain and Hindu traditions and what categories could be the starting points for an interreligious discussion.
While many notable scholars have rightly indicated that South Asian ideas of nonviolence (ahiṃsā), cow-protection, and vegetarianism are not necessarily related, we can nonetheless see a recurring motif of respect for animals related to issues of nonviolence (ahiṃsā) and protection of cows and other animals across a wide span of Hindu sacred texts—especially in the overt injunctions against killing animals or eating meat. An overview of canonical Hindu literature reveals an overarching spirit of valuation of animals, and the eventual accretion of animal-related ideas towards a decidedly animal-affirming spirit of compassion, respect, and intrinsic worth. This provides ample recourse for those in the Hindu tradition who would use their abilities as constructive theologians and as effective allies in the global shift towards a stronger valuation of nature and non-human animals particularly in the global vegetarian, vegan, and animal protection movements.
This presentation considers recent ethnographic encounters with Jains in both India and in the diaspora who draw, in various ways, directly from Jain texts to argue in favor of, or against, a dairy-free lifestyle. Drawing from the academic fields of Food Studies and Critical Animal Studies, the presentation broadly categorizes those in favor of a dairy-free lifestyle as “Jain Vegans” and those in favor of a lacto-vegetarian lifestyle as “Jain Speciesists.” The presentation identifies some of the main features and leaders of these debates, who use 3 primary strategies to make their arguments: 1) Extracting quotes directly from Jain texts to make sophisticated arguments to defend their position; 2) Drawing from popular Jain comic books and children’s stories based on Jain texts; or 3) Quoting Jain ascetics, who themselves quote Jain texts to advocate for or against veganism in the Jain community.