Jain Cultural Festival

In March of 2025, the Jain Studies Program at the University of North Texas hosted a Jain Cultural Festival. This fun afternoon of free vegan food, performances, and activities celebrated Jain traditions and the Jain community in DFW.

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We kicked off the celebration on February 28 at 3 pm with a special pre-event guest lecture by Anil Mundra, the Bhagvan Vimalnath Endowed Chair in Jain Studies and South Asian Religions at UC Santa Barbara.

The cultural festival then took place on Saturday, March 1, in the atrium of the Environmental Education, Science, and Technology Building at UNT. We began with opening remarks from Dean Albert Bimper of UNT's College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. We also welcomed special guest Prem Jain representing the Jain Education and Research Foundation (JERF), which founded our endowment in 2017. Rohit Gangwal, the current president of the Jain Society of North Texas (JSNT), provided closing remarks. Throughout the festival, our activities included a community art show, a student essay contest, creative performances from JSNT youth, and booths featuring DFW-area Jain businesses and organizations.

The Jain Cultural Festival was sponsored by JERF, JSNT, and the Dallas chapter of the Jain International Trade Organization (JITO), with support from students, staff, and faculty in the UNT Department of Philosophy and Religion, the JSNT Public Relations Committee members Amit Jain and Virang Shah, the JSNT Pathshala Coordinator Shaily Jain, and JITO Dallas leaders Sapan Bafna and Vaishali Jain.

To see images of the winning artworks and read the winning essays, please see our special feature on the Jain Cultural Festival in Issue #1 of Samyak: An Undergraduate Journal of Jain Studies.

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Prem Jain and Anil Mundra at our ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the Jain Cultural Fair.

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Thanks to the efforts of organizers from the Jain Society of North Texas, we enjoyed several performances from area Jain youth.

Organizers and contributors, left to right: Rohit Gangwal (JSNT), Dilip Shah (JSNT), Atul Khara (JSNT), Prem Jain (JERF and JITO), Amit Jain (JSNT), Shaily Jain (JSNT), Leah Kalmanson (UNT), Neil Kalmanson (art show judge), Christopher Chiavetta (art show installation), Anil Mundra (UC Santa Barbara). Not pictured: essay contest judges Anup Pahade and Pradeep Shah, and art show judges Deepa Nuna and Shweta Shah.

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Community Art Show

As part of the festival, we hosted a juried art show featuring work on Jain themes. The judges included JSNT members and DFW-area artists Deepa Nuna and Shweta Shah and East Georgia State College art professor emeritus Neil Kalmanson. Below are the the winning artworks by age category. We'll link soon to a catalogue of all submissions.

The artworks below are published in our special feature on the Jain Cultural Festival in Issue #1 of Samyak: An Undergraduate Journal of Jain Studies.

Adult Category:

• Jiya Shah, "Ranakpur Temple," oil on canvas
• Tanya Sanghvi, "14 Dreams Seen by Mahavir's Mother Trishala," acrylic on canvas
• Tanvi Jain, "The Divine Radiance of Keval Gyaan: The Abhamandal of Tirthankara"

Middle School and High School Category:

• Aadee Ashish Doshi, "Shudhhaattama," paint on canvas
• Saiyati Vishal Tatiya, "Siddhashila," oil pastels on paper
• Rijul Gandhi, "Om," collage on board

Primary School and Elementary School Category:

• Prakriti Navaratan, "Jain Symbol," watercolor on paper
• Divya Khara Patel, "Jain Flag," paint on canvas
• Mishita Jain, "Jain Alphabets," collage on posterboard

Special Category, 3D Models:

• Dhriti Baldota, "Four State of Existence," 3D model

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Adult Category Winner: Jiya Shah, "Ranakpur Temple," oil on canvas

Attendees enjoy the art gallery.

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Student Essay Contest

We received fifteen essays from area youth ranging from high schoolers to college students. These were evaluated by academic scholars of Jainism as well as community members at the Jain Society of North Texas. Our submissions included research essays as well as personal reflections and creative writing. All of the works were of high quality, making the judging quite difficult. To accommodate the range of evaluations, we awarded several ties and honorable mentions. Judges included UNT professor Leah Kalmanson, special guest speaker Anil Mundra, and JSNT members Anup Pahad and Pradeep Shah.

Here, we are celebrating all of the winners, whose essays we are publishing in a special feature of the journal Samyak: An Undergraduate Journal of Jain Studies: Aashita Doshi, “Everything My Eyes Hold Ends: Lessons in Jain Aparigraha”; Yasha Godha, “Jainism and Environmental Ethics”; Ayona Katariya, “Vegetarianism and Veganism in Jainism”; Roma Ajmera, “Anekāntavāda”; Aanya Nuna, “Jainism, Ahiṃsā, and Nonviolence”; Neervi Jain, “A Minimalist Lifestyle and Aparigraha”; and Atharv Nahar, “Vegetarianism and Veganism in Jainism.” We hope readers will join us in congratulating these outstanding student participants.

To read the winning essays, please see our special feature on the Jain Cultural Festival in Issue #1 of Samyak: An Undergraduate Journal of Jain Studies.

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Booths and Displays

In addition to all these activities, we featured a variety of booths and interactive displays. Students in PHIL 3630 Jainism learned about Jain dietary practices and ran a food both with their own dishes prepared according to the Jain guidelines. The Arihanta Institute was represented at a booth informing attendees about its online programming. And multiple other local Jain businesses and organizations ran booths at the fair.

Our booths included:

This event was hosted by the UNT Department of Philosophy and Religion and our generous sponsors: