Central to the project is Samadarshini: Seeing Equally, an anthology of personal essays by religious leaders from diverse South Asian traditions who challenge injustice and offer resources for unity and inclusivity in a fragmented world.
This initiative reflects Union’s ongoing commitment to interreligious engagement, ethical scholarship, and transformative justice across faith traditions. Learn more about Samadarshini’s mission and work at samadarshini.org.
“‘Samadarshini’ is from a line in the Bhagavad Gita where Lord Krishna explains that a truly wise person sees all people with equal vision. We chose “Samadarshini” as the name of our project to build a Hindu theology for our modern times that is truly anti-caste and egalitarian because it encompasses the full and complicated nature of the task in hand, and keeps us accountable. On the one hand, we must root our theology in the unwavering commitment to seeing everyone with equal vision; on the other hand, we must acknowledge that caste hierarchy and discrimination has been a part of our tradition from the very start, and we cannot avoid the sacred task of rejecting caste entirely,” says Samadarshini Co-Founder, Sunita Viswanath.
“At Union, we believe that justice is sacred work and that the deepest truths of our religious traditions call us toward human dignity and radical belonging. Samadarshini embodies this conviction by reclaiming spiritual texts and practices as sources of liberation rather than exclusion. In a time of deep fragmentation, this project offers a powerful witness to the possibility of interreligious solidarity grounded in equity, courage, and care for our shared earth,” states Union President Serene Jones.