Episode 149, 'The Philosophy of Jainism' with Marie-Hélène Gorisse (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)
The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast
Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane
4.8 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jainism, along with Buddhism and Hinduism, is one of India's great dharmic traditions – though far less well known than its siblings. Emerging around the second century BCE, it is best-known for valuing ahimsa in pursuit of liberation – a devout practice of non-violence. Yet there is far more to Jain philosophy than liberation and ahimsa. Jainism offers a rich way of understanding the self, the cosmos, and the divine. It's a philosophy with a vision of reality that continues to challenge Western preconceptions on, well, just about everything: from the nature of souls and knowledge to the meaning of life and the origin of the universe.
Today, we'll be exploring Jainism with Dr Marie-Hélène Gorisse. Dr Gorisse is currently Dharmanath Assistant Professor in Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham, where she's co-project lead of the Global Philosophy of Religion Project 2. Marie-Hélène's work explores South Asian philosophy of religion and, most specifically, she is a world-leading expert on Jaina philosophy.
In this episode, we'll trace how Jainism arose, how its sages taught that the self can escape the cycle of rebirth, and the purpose of the universe. And perhaps more importantly, we'll explore how Jainism can help us all live better lives for the sake of ourselves, and the world around us.
This episode is produced in partnership with The Global Philosophy of Religion Project at University of Birmingham, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan |
| 0:07.0 | Scicast |
| 0:08.0 | Part 2, further analyses and discussion. |
| 0:25.9 | In the last installment, we spoke to Marie Helen about the philosophy of Jainism. |
| 0:30.4 | We explored its history and the seven categories. |
| 0:33.1 | The nature of the world, the nature of karma and the path to liberation from rebirth. |
| 0:36.9 | We also began to delve into karma and what it means to live well. |
| 0:40.8 | In this installment, we're going to take a step back at the beginning and sort of think about the bigger picture, |
| 0:46.3 | some of the metaphysics and perhaps the epistemology of Jaina philosophy. |
| 0:50.3 | Coming to the universe more generally, as you know, Jains are often said to not believe in God or gods as traditionally conceived. |
| 0:58.7 | Do you think that's a fair characterization? |
| 1:00.6 | Is there anything godlike in Jainism? |
| 1:03.6 | So what is important is that the world was not created by any single consciousness. |
| 1:09.4 | The world is what it is. |
| 1:10.6 | And really, Jains are regularly depicted as being the philosopher of created by any single consciousness. The word is what it is. |
| 1:15.7 | And really, giants are regularly depicted as being the philosopher of common sense. |
| 1:17.1 | We start with this world. |
| 1:19.0 | What can we infer from that? |
| 1:30.4 | But then the souls, the souls, the way they are and they were perceived, I would say that the souls are like gods, each of them actually. They are permanent, they are omniscient and blissful, whole blissful, but only liberated souls are like this. As long as they are |
| 1:38.6 | trapped in current embodiment, they don't know really what they are yet. So in that way, the liberated beings are like gods, and especially in temples, you know that |
| 1:49.6 | there are a lot of different traditions of Jainism, but some of the traditions they will worship |
| 1:54.1 | the statues of those liberated beings and really do Pudja on them. |
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