The physical environment plays a key role in the Jaina worldview, which makes a direct connection between its cosmology and its ethical system. From the earliest extant text of the tradition, one learns that Jaina monks and nuns were keen observers of the elements and the living beings of the natural world. The Ācarāṅga Sūtra, which dates from the fourth or fifth century before the common era, indicates that Mahāvīra (c. 500 BCE), who established Jainism in its current institutional form, was a keen observer of nature. The text states: "Thoroughly knowing the earth-bodies and water-bodies and fire-bodies and wind-bodies, the lichens, seeds, and sprouts, he comprehended that they are, if narrowly inspected, imbued with life" (1.8.1.11–12; in Jacobi, 1884). These observations indicate the underpinning of the Jaina worldview: the belief that life (jīva) takes many interchanging forms. The life force exists...