Jain: Couple Teaches South Florida About One Of The Oldest Religions

7:45 am
Wed July 24, 2013
By JoAnn Adkins

South Florida’s small, tight-knit Jain community built a temple in 2009 to practice one of the world's oldest religions. In this holy space where a marble likeness of the Swami Mahavir smiles benevolently, families gather to teach their children about a faith that practices spiritual independence and non-violence towards all beings.

The Weston temple gave them a place to congregate, but it did little to foster a deeper understanding among the larger South Florida community. The Jain community decided to shift their focus to education. They tapped married Florida International University alums Gitika and Sapan Bafna to help guide the vision.

The couple is firmly rooted in the Jain principle of non-absolutism, the belief that no human thought can represent ultimate truth. They wanted to develop an education program that encourages conversations and celebrates spiritual understanding. In the FIU Department of Religious Studies they found a welcome environment for their ideas. In 2010, Jains from around the world came together with FIU to create the only endowed professorship devoted to the study of Jainism in the Western Hemisphere. The Bhagwan Mahavir Professorship of Jain Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences is named for the 24th and last Jain tirthankara, or spiritual fathers of Jainism, who lived from 599-527 BCE.

Now, the Bafnas are guiding another initiative to establish an interdisciplinary center for religious pluralism at FIU.

http://wlrn.org/post/jain-couple-teaches-south-florida-about-one-oldest-religions