Articles & Blog
207 articles
Reverence for Life and the Value of Biodiversity
Jainism's reverence for the multiplicity of living forms harmonises with modern ecology's recognition that biodiversity is essential to the...
Fasting, Ayambil and the Science of Nutrition
Jain fasting practices, from complete fasts to the austere ayambil diet, find intriguing echoes in modern research on caloric restriction, i...
Preksha Meditation and the Brain
Preksha dhyana, a modern systematisation of Jain meditation, involves focused perception and breath awareness. It invites comparison with ne...
The Body in Jain Thought: Anatomy and the Self
Jain texts describe multiple bodies, gross and subtle, that clothe the soul, and reflect closely on the physical body. Here doctrine and obs...
Embryology in the Tandulaveyaliya
The Jain text Tandulaveyaliya describes conception and the month-by-month growth of the embryo, an ancient embryology that engaged seriously...
Yoni: The Eighty-Four Lakh Birth-Forms
Jain tradition counts eighty-four lakh yonis, or categories of birth, into which souls can be born. It reflects an ancient effort to enumera...
Two Suns and Two Moons: Jain Astronomy
The Jain astronomical text Surya Prajnapti presents a distinctive model with two suns and two moons illuminating Jambudvipa, an ancient syst...
Jambudvipa: Mapping the Jain World
Jain geography centres on Jambudvipa, a great continent ringed by concentric oceans and lands. It is a symbolic cosmography rather than a ph...
Mantra, Vibration and the Physics of Sound
Jain tradition treats sacred sound and mantra as powerful and, since sound is matter, physically real. This connects to the genuine physics...
The Four Sensory Qualities of Matter
Jain physics holds that all matter carries four kinds of quality: colour, smell, taste and touch. This systematic account of sensory propert...
Media of Motion and Rest: Dharma and Adharma
Jainism posits two unique substances, Dharma and Adharma, that make motion and rest possible. This subtle idea of an enabling background res...
Jiva and Consciousness: The Hard Problem
Jainism treats consciousness as a fundamental substance, the jiva, irreducible to matter. This speaks directly to the modern hard problem of...