23.05.2015 ►FIU ►Lecture ►Ethics of Ācārāṅga Sūtra ►Christopher Key Chapple

Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He has published more than 15 books, including Karma and Creativity (1986), Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions (1993), Hinduism and Ecology (2000), Jainism and Ecology (2002), Reconciling Yogas: The Yogadrstisamuccaya of Haribhadra (2003), Yoga and the Luminous: Patanjali's Spiritual Path to Freedom (2008), Yoga and Ecology (2009), In Praise of Mother Earth: The Prthivi Sukta (2011), and Sacred Thread: Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (2015). He serves on the advisory boards for the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale), the Ahimsa Center (Pomona), and the International School for Jain Studies (Delhi). He is editor of the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology.

Outline of lecture: Ethics of Ācārāṅga Sūtra

The Ācārāṅga Sūtra, the earliest surviving Jaina sacred text, seeks to protect life in its myriad forms, including animals, plants, insects, and the elemental bodies found in earth, water, fire, and air. To support this practice, Jainism teaches the five great vows of ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacarya, and aparigraha, as described in Ācārāṅga Sūtra II:15,i-v (Jacobi 202-210). This lecture will explore these vows and their practical application.

Bibliography:

Jaina Sutras translated from the Prakrit by Hermann Jacobi. Part One: Akaranaga Sutra and Kalpa Sutra. New York: Dover, 1968. First published 1884, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions. Christopher Key Chapple. State University of New York Press, 1993. Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Christopher Key Chapple. Harvard University Press, 2002.