Jain Temple in Atlanta’s Joyous Celebration of the Generous S& R Palvia Veetraag Vigyan Professorship in Jain Studies at GCSU

By Mahadev Desai

On Sunday, March 5th, the Jain Society of Greater Atlanta hosted a commemorative event in celebration of a generous gift on the part of Dr. Shailendra and Mrs. Rajkumari Palvia to Georgia College & State University. The donation will fund a newly created professorship in Jain Studies at the university, supporting curriculum, programming, and study-abroad opportunities related to Jainism for both students and faculty.

The well attended ‘S& R Palvia Veetraag Vigyan Endowed Professorship in Jain Studies at GCSU’ event was graced by the presence of the GCSU delegation comprising of Dr.Eric Tenbus, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Dr. Sunita Manian, Chair Philosophy and Liberal Studies; Dr. Justin Henry, Lecturer of Religious Studies; Dr. James Winchester, Professor of Philosophy; Bob Preston, Senior Development Officer, GCSU; Basil Cooper, undergraduate majoring in English and Art History; and Liam Landry, undergraduate majoring in Math and minoring in Philosophy; and Dr. Nuru Akinyemi, Director, Center for African Studies, Kennesaw State University, Professor Dr. Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Business, Goizueta Business School, Emory University and his wife Madhu Sheth; Dr.Sulekh Jain; BOD and EC members of the Jain Society of Greater Atlanta Temple; and Federation of Jain Associations in North America (JAINA); and family members of Dr. Shailenra Palvia and Mrs. Rajkumari Palvia.

The packed program contained a lineup of popular Jain prayers and devotional songs, talks on history and growing popularity of Jainism in many parts of the world, a felicitation of GCSU delegation members, a gift of Jain literature to GCSU, and more
 

This report is to highlight two addresses by Dr. Eric Tenbus and Dr. Justin Henry respectively.

Eric Tenbus, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, spoke in his address of the relevance of Jain Studies to the mission of GCSU, which, as the state's designated public liberal arts college, strives through its core curriculum to expose students to a multiplicity of perspectives on issues of global importance today--precisely the spirit of intellectual inquiry articulated by the Jain precept of anekantwad ("seeing multiple viewpoints").

In his insightful talk Justin Henry said: “Jai Jinendra. I am honored to be here addressing you all today on this most auspicious occasion. As someone who found myself enamored with philosophy and the academic study of religion as an undergraduate at a small liberal arts university, and as someone who has now come full circle to be an instructor at Georgia College, I can say enthusiastically that the integration of Jainism into our university’s curriculum will be an excellent compliment in many respects to the mission and ethos of our state’s official liberal arts institution of higher learning. The Jain principle of anekantwad, which reinforces the necessity of approaching any given subject from more than one point of view, is the very essence of our pedagogy in the liberal arts.

There is also much that we have to learn from Jainism as we confront the urgent and complex issues of our dynamic and increasingly interconnected world today. In the realm of the personal and the psychological, the Jain lifestyle—particularly the ideal of “equanimity” (mādhyastha)—offers the possibility of repose and mental quietude in an age of perpetual hyper-stimulus. Our undergraduate students today have grown up in a world of almost debilitating digital stimulation—they are from adolescence immersed in a social media environment which demands that users curate a personal brand to be evaluated and critiqued by friends and strangers alike—an industry which normalizes unremitting self-promotion and which, to paraphrase Marx, “lives vampire-like by draining the emotional labor of America’s youth, and lives the more it sucks in.” It should perhaps come as little surprise to us then when we hear statistics like the recent one unveiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education, that nearly one third of undergraduate students in the United States have by this point received a professional diagnosis of anxiety disorder; or another set of studies informing us that the average college student spends between nine and ten hours a day engaged on their phone.

I’m talking about a culture in which personal physical appearance, conspicuous consumption, and material acquisition are exalted as the primary means of achieving personal fulfillment and happiness—in a word, a world in which “grasping” (parigraha, in the most plenary sense of the term) has become not just a norm but almost a religion in and of itself. The Jain worldview then offers a counterbalance to this spiritual malaise by opening the door to a radically different way of being—one which promises contentedness through abstinence, self-reflection, and mindful awareness of the present.

Joining our delegation today is Liam Landry, an undergraduate math major and philosophy minor in the Honors Program at Georgia College. Liam is hoping to spend time at the International School for Jain Studies in Pune, having been initially attracted to this field of study on account of the entirely unique perspective that Jains have toward the natural world. This includes first and foremost the broadest ontology of any religion in terms of its maximal catalogue of soul-possessing, conscious beings. The depth of Jain wisdom in this domain is being confirmed by scientists who are today learning more and more about the sensory faculties, communication abilities, and collective intelligence of plants, with some biologists now talking about “plant consciousness” in a serious and empirically grounded way. Jain appreciation for the interconnectedness of all living beings as well as the Jain insistence on care for the natural world (as mandated by Mahavir in the Acaranga Sutra) is an outlook with urgent relevance for us in the 21st century, as we confront environmental crises transcending national borders, reminding us of the reality of global interconnectedness and of our obligations with respect to environmental stewardship beyond the realms of the mere local, national, regional or even human, extending to care and respect for all life.

It is in this spirit and with these insights in mind that on behalf of Georgia College I express sincere gratitude for this gift from Mr. and Mrs. Palvia. This timely endowment will underwrite programming educating students, faculty and members of the community on the insights of Jain Dharma, which will no doubt have immediate as well as inter-generational positive consequences, instructing students in the future perhaps beyond even our own lifetimes in the shared Buddhist and Jain principle of kṛta-jñā, or “remembrance of what was done in the past,” a term usually applied in reference to the great World Conquerors but today in reference to those generous friends here before us. Thank you.”

Justin Henry is Lecturer in Religious Studies at Georgia College & State University, having earned his PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2017. He is an expert on the religious traditions of Sri Lanka, where he lived for five years studying Sanskrit, Pali, Sinhala and Tamil. His first book, Ravana's Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below, was published this year by Oxford University Press. He is currently working on a book on “alternative versions of the Ramayana” for trade publication in New Delhi.