Imagination, Intention, and the Living Earth: Dharma Traditions and the Futures of Sustainability

This panel examines how Dharma traditions mobilize imagination and intention to envision and enact sustainable futures. Drawing on classical texts, ethnographic case studies, and contemporary agrarian and legal discourse, the papers collectively demonstrate that Hindu and Jain intellectual and spiritual traditions offer not merely ethical guidelines but generative cosmologies — ways of imagining the human–nature relationship that carry transformative power. Chair: Christopher Chapple, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles; Pankaj Jain, FLAME University, Pune, India; Gyanendra Tiwari, FLAME University, Pune, India; Veena Howard, Fresno State, CA; Raja Rosenhagen, Fresno State, CA