Rahul Parson speaks on "Towards Indic Idioms of the Individual: Tolerance, (Im)partiality, and Individualization in two Jain Intellectual Lineage"

His paper given today discusses some preliminary observations about how difference, impartiality, and the figure of the individual operate in the works of four Jain thinkers. I look at two intellectual lineages to get a sense of how the typology of the individual or vyakti embodies, refracts, and transmits religious and philosophical views (darśana). The individual’s intentions, partiality, environment, and position on the spiritual Stufensytem (guṇasthāna) informs how a religious teaching manifests. This is part of a broader discussion about religious variation, difference, and accommodation in Indic religions. The individual is at the center of this discussion of ‘tolerance’ because some Jain thinkers posit that religious difference is the product of individualized religious variation. In the recognition of historically constant and reoccurring unique vyaktis (individual, manifestation, expression), these thinkers reconciled the singularity of essential religious truth with the multitude of views regarding what that truth could be. The vyakti, as a typology, is a figure who allows for variety without being at variance with Jainism. While these Jain thinkers use the figure of vyakti and variation for different agendas, they all evince a qualified accommodation and recognition of difference, which emerges from a core Jain philosophical principle of non-absolutism.