The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast · Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, Rose de Castellane, Gregory Mill

Episode 149, 'The Philosophy of Jainism' with Marie-Hélène Gorisse (Part I - Liberation)

November 16, 2025·35 min·3 clips

Marie-Hélène explains how Jain karma theory stopped her from blaming individuals for problems.

The 2nd century BCE matters here. The episode puts Jainism next to Buddhism and Hinduism, then asks what this less familiar dharmic tradition does to Western assumptions about selfhood, knowledge, divinity, and cosmic purpose. Ahimsa is the entry point, but the conversation does not stop at non-violence. It moves toward a Jain picture of reality, liberation, and escape from rebirth. Mahavira gives the discussion its pressure. His lack of possessions and uncertain nakedness make renunciation feel physical, awkward, and hard to tidy up. The Digambara, described as clothed with the sky, treat nudity as a condition for monks seeking liberation, with serious consequences for women in that tradition. Shvetambara are linked with white clothing instead. The split is about more than dress. It reaches into monastic discipline, gender, lineages, texts, and the practical conditions under which liberation can be imagined. The episode stays concrete. A dry aside about hot and cold countries gives the discussion a quick breather without pulling it away from ascetic practice. The hosts handle numbers carefully: roughly five million Jains worldwide, more than 95 percent in India, and Shvetambara at about 80 percent today. Then the textual problem takes over. Both major groups connect Mahavira's preaching with Ardha Magadhi, but they disagree over whether the old corpus survives or was lost and replaced. So liberation keeps landing back in bodies, languages, monks, nuns, remembered sermons, and institutional disputes that still matter. The ending loosens up with a quote-game involving Sisyphus, Terry's chocolate orange, systemic evil, and Eugene Nagasawa, which lets the show breathe after a dense first part.

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