Sikhism, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism are three distinct traditions — each ancient, each philosophically complete, each offering a total vision of the cosmos and the human place within it — that are frequently marginalized in global religious conversation despite their enormous historical significance. Sikhism, founded in fifteenth-century Punjab, teaches the unity of God and the equality of all humans; Jainism, one of the oldest Indian philosophies, centers on non-violence and the radical interdependence of all life; Zoroastrianism, the faith of ancient Persia, gave the world some of its earliest visions of cosmic moral struggle, heaven and hell, and the final renovation of creation. To encounter these traditions seriously is to discover that the questions they have been asking for millennia are still alive.
Rumi