JAINISM

JAINISM . Jainism is a South Asian religious tradition which takes its name from those (Sanskrit, Jaina; English, "Jain") who follow the teachings and example of authoritative teachers called Jina (conqueror). These teachers are also called "makers of the ford" (Sanskrit, tīrthaṃkara ), signifying their construction of a community of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen that provides the means to cross the ocean of rebirth. Jain tradition holds that twenty-four Jinas appear in succession throughout regular temporal movements in the course of eternity and communicate the unchanging doctrine of correct knowledge (samyagjñāna ), correct faith (samyagdarśana ), and correct behavior (samyagcāritra ).

As a soteriology, Jainism teaches that enlightenment in the form of omniscience and subsequent freedom from rebirth can be attained by progressive renunciatory withdrawal—manifesting itself most markedly as nonviolence (ahiṃsā )—from physical and sensory interaction with the surrounding world, which is constituted at all levels by embodied life monads.

According to the census of 1991, there are about 3.35 million Jains living in India, while an estimated 100,000 are domiciled abroad, largely in Africa, Britain, and North America.

Beginnings

The historical origins of Jainism can be located in the teachings of Pārśva and Mahāvīra, who are traditionally regarded as the twenty-third and twenty-fourth Jinas of the present time-cycle. Both flourished in the Ganges Basin region of eastern India. The evidence of early Buddhist writings confirms that Mahāvīra was a contemporary of the Buddha, predeceasing him by some years. Since Western scholarship has reached near unanimity that the Buddha lived from approximately 480 to 400 bce, Mahāvīra's dates must of necessity be changed from the traditional 599 to 527 bce to about 490 to 410 bce.

The Jain scriptures maintain that Pārśva lived around two centuries before Mahāvīra. He must therefore be dated to around the seventh century bce. However, the evidence for the historicity of Pārśva is neither overwhelming nor contemporaneous. Buddhist references to Jain ascetics following four restraints (involving nonviolence, nonlying, not taking what has not been given, and nonpossession) of the sort traditionally attributed to Pārśva, as opposed to the five vows (the four restraints already mentioned, plus celibacy) taught by Mahāvīra, suggest that some sort of ascetic community descended from Pārśva was still in existence in the fifth century bce, although it is not clearly identifiable subsequently. To argue that Mahāvīra reformed a preexisting style of ascetic practice promulgated by Pārśva and fitted it into a wider doctrinal setting is merely to frame a hypothesis, but it is one which makes sense of later Jain insistence that there was a link between the two teachers.

The broad trajectory of Mahāvīra's career as conveyed by tradition is stereotypical in that it was enacted by virtually all the other Jinas. The main events of his life involved the abandonment on reaching full maturity of a domestic life of royal ease, a subsequent austere search for knowledge, the gaining of full awakening, the subsequent conversion of followers and founding of a community, and death at an advanced age followed by a cremation appropriate for a king.

Mahāvīra's basic teachings, as opposed to the developed doctrine of classical Jainism that took final shape around the beginning of the first millennium ce (see below), can be reconstructed from what are accepted as being the oldest Jain texts. These teachings are anti-Brahmanic in their rejection of the validity of the Vedic sacrificial ritual, and they frequently intersect with elements of other contemporaneous renunciatory doctrines that circulated in the Ganges basin area. It was surely Mahāvīra's thoroughgoing analysis (quickly to be attributed to the quality of omniscience) of the multilayered living world which encompasses human beings, and his call for a heroic change of stance toward that world which provided a combination of the radically subversive and the inspirational, that was to render his teachings influential and long lasting.

According to Mahāvīra, the world is full of eternal life monads called jīva (from Sanskrit, jīv [live]; the oldest Jain texts also use the term āyā, equivalent to Sanskrit ātman [self], found in Brahmanic texts such as the Upaniṣads), which in their purest form possess the qualities of complete knowledge, energy, and bliss. However, those life monads, trapped in the world of rebirth (saṃsāra ) as a result of their violent activities, are of necessity embodied in not just human and animal shape, but also in plant and insect form, extending down to those that exist in earth, water, air, and fire. Interaction with this world of visible and invisible life-forms, even through such basic activities as motion and breathing, inexorably effects destruction (hiṃsā ) that leads through rebirth to further embodiment and gradual debasement of status. The only way to escape this perilous situation is to withdraw from performing, promoting, and approving physical, mental, and vocal "action" (karman ). The sole appropriate mode of life that can facilitate the full practice of nonviolence (ahiṃsā ) is ascetic renunciation.

History

A group of disciples (gaṇadhara ), originally Brāhmaṇs, is credited with channeling Mahāvīra's teachings by putting them into textual form and taking over the direction of the community. Most significant among these gaṇadhara were Gautama Indrabhūti, portrayed in the scriptures as an interlocutor of Mahāvīra; Sudharman, credited by the Śvetāmbara sect (see below) with initiating its ascetic lineage; and Jambū, the last individual of this world age to gain enlightenment.

The early history of Jainism can be broadly reconstructed. Although the community never completely abandoned the area of its origins in the Ganges Basin, it quickly moved along the main trade routes of ancient South Asia, and by around the third to second centuries bce it could be found in the northwestern city of Mathurā and in the Tamil country in the far south of the peninsula. Archaeological and inscriptional evidence from Mathurā bears witness to the existence there of ascetic lineages, a largely bourgeois lay community, and a cult centering on commemorative devotional worship of the Jinas in iconic form.

Mathurā and its environs seem to have been the center of a monastic community that styled itself ardhaphālaka (partially clothed), owing to its members being completely naked apart from a distinctive strip of cloth carried over the forearm. By the beginning of the common era, there existed a variety of styles of Jain monastic praxis, in which the wearing or abandonment of clothes were emblematic. This originally fluid situation became polarized by around the fourth to fifth centuries ce with the formation of two sects, the Śvetāmbara (white-clad), whose monks and nuns wear white robes, and the Digambara (sky-clad), whose monks go naked.

Further differences between these two groups were to emerge, although there was no disagreement about the central teachings of Jainism. The Digambaras were to reject the authenticity of the scriptural canon that emerged among the Śvetāmbaras (see below) and also claimed, unlike the Śvetāmbaras, that the fully enlightened individual (kevalin ) transcended normal human behavior in not needing to eat, drink, or sleep. The Śvetāmbaras have always accepted that women are capable of gaining the goal of the religions in the same manner as men, whereas the Digambaras deny this on the grounds that women cannot, for social reasons, go naked like the true ascetic, and because they are incapable of any form of intense moral action. There are today only a small number of Digambara nuns who accept that because of the necessity to wear clothing they will only be able to make serious spiritual progress when reborn as males.

While other Jain sects existed, such as the Yāpanīyas who eventually disappeared around the beginning of the second millennium ce, the Śvetāmbara and Digambara sects have remained the two main pillars of the Jain community, with each claiming its interpretation of the practice of Jainism to be the more valid. The prestige of these two sects in the first millennium was enhanced by the achievement of a number of celebrated teachers, such as Siddhasena Divākara (Śvetāmbara; sixth century) and Akalaṅka (Digambara; ninth century). The Śvetāmbara Haribhadra (of uncertain date, possibly sixth or ninth centuries) left a particularly impressive body of writings in a wide variety of genres and became a major authority for later tradition.

Initially Jainism gained less consistent royal support than Buddhism, although at least one monarch, Khāravela (second century bce) of the kingdom of Kaliṅga (modern Orissa in eastern India), was a devotee. However, Jainism subsequently deployed some of the imperial symbolism current in north India and presented itself in a manner congenial to aristocratic patrons as well as those of a trading background. This was particularly the case in medieval south India, where Digambara Jainism, with its ideology of spiritual transformation couched in the imagery of heroic conquest, was patronized by rulers and feudatories of prominent dynasties such as the Cālukyas and the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. The greatest Jain monument to the interaction between royal power and ascetic renunciation is the fifty-two-foot-high image, erected by the general Cāmuṇḍarāya in 951 at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa (south Karnataka), of Bāhubali, a prince who withdrew from martial violence to become an ascetic and was, according to Digambara tradition, the first individual of this world age to achieve liberation. The ritual anointment of this image, which occurs every twelve years, attracts huge numbers of onlookers and is one of India's most spectacular religious ceremonies. Although Jainism was an integral part of south Indian culture and Digambara monks played an important role in the early promulgation of literature in languages like Tamil and Kannada, the religion gradually lost its access to political power, and from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries vigorous anti-Jain Śaiva movements supplanted it in royal favor and effected large-scale conversions to Hinduism.

From the medieval period, the religious affairs of the image-worshiping Digambara community have been conducted by orange-robed celibate clerics called bhaṭṭāraka (a title signifying "learned"), specialists in ritual and the scriptures who occupy pontifical seats endowed with some of the trappings of secular kingship. The most well-known bhaṭṭāraka seats are at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa, Mūdbiḍrī, and Hombuja in Karnataka and Kolhāpur and Karānjā in Maharashtra. Those Digambaras, largely to be found in Madhya Pradesh, who do not approve of image-worship and the presiding role of bhaṭṭārakas assign a prominent ritual position to sacred texts. The Digambara ascetic lineage was revived in the nineteenth century after becoming virtually defunct in the late medieval period. Today the Digambara Jains, around one million in number, remain a numerically small, although resilient community in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu.

Since the fifth century ce, the main center of Śvetāmbara Jainism has been in Gujarat in western India. The Digambaras had lost serious influence in that region by the eleventh century, according to Śvetāmbara tradition, because of their failure in public debate. The greatest figure in medieval Gujarati Jainism was Hemacandra (1089–1172), a polymath monk who became court scholar of the Caulukya dynasty during the reigns of Siddharāja and his nephew Kumārapāla (1144–1173). Hemacandra is credited with having persuaded Kumārapāla to rule his kingdom in partial accordance with Jain ethical principles. The Yogaśāstra, written by Hemacandra as a compendium of lay behavior and still an authoritative text, may have been intended to guide Kumārapāla. Western India is the location of the most conspicuous exemplifications of Śvetāmbara religiosity, the great temple complexes built on Mount Śatruñjaya near Pālitāna, Mount Girnar near Junagaḍh, and Mount Ābū, the major initial impetus for which came in the eleventh century. Of particular note is the Dharnā Vihāra temple at Rāṇakpur in south Rajasthan, which was consecrated in 1441.

Beginning in the eleventh century a variety of Śvetāmbara sublineages (gaccha ) appeared in western India, deriving from teachers who claimed to be reforming ascetic practice or who advocated ritual and calendrical innovations. While all represented themselves as promulgating the true form of Jainism reaching back to Mahāvīra's disciple Sudharman and converted numerous lay followers, only three of these have remained significant until the present day: the Kharatara Gaccha (founded in the eleventh century), the Añcala Gaccha (founded in the twelfth century), and the Tapā Gaccha (founded in the thirteenth century). Of these, the Tapā Gaccha is today by far the most prominent Śvetāmbara subsect in terms of numbers and intellectual and social prestige.

During the premodern period, Śvetāmbara Jainism in western India often found itself in an embattled situation because of the dominance of Islam. On occasion, however, Jain monks had access to political authority and were able to intercede to gain privileges for their community. Most notably, Hīravijaya Sūri (1527–1596), the head of the Tapā Gaccha, had a preceptorial relationship with the Moghul emperor Akbar (r. 1555–1605), at times prevailing upon him to abandon hunting and the slaughter of animals for food.

Controversies were to emerge within the Śvetāmbara Jain community in the early modern period. In the fifteenth century a layman called Loṅkā provided the impetus for the eventual appearance of new Śvetāmbara lineages that adopted a more radical approach to ascetic practice and abandoned temple-oriented Jainism and its attendant image cult. The Sthānakvāsī (Living in Lodging Houses) sect emerged in the seventeenth century, gaining its name from the fact that its ascetics took their temporary residence not in halls specially built beside temples but in dilapidated or unused buildings. Sthānakvāsī monks and nuns adopted the permanent wearing of the "mouth-shield" (muhpattī ), hitherto only used on ritual occasions, in token of their continual adherence to nonviolence through minimizing injury to organisms in the air. The Sthānakvāsins have remained an important component of Jainism, particularly in Gujarat and Panjab.

In the eighteenth century a monk called Bhikṣu left the Sthānakvāsī community in the Marwar region of Rajasthan in rejection of its perceived laxity and founded a sect that came to be called Terāpanthī (Following the Thirteen Principles). This sect, recognizable by its ascetics' adoption of a mouth-shield more extended in shape than that of the Sthānakvāsins, was particularly radical in its espousal of a scripturally derived mode of life, and it accordingly claimed that the duty of the ascetic lay in the attainment of his or her own liberation, not in facilitating the gaining of merit. From Bhikṣu's time, sole authority in the Terāpanthī sect has been concentrated in the hands of each succeeding teacher, unlike the more fragmented situation prevailing in other Jain sects. In postindependence India, the Terāpanthī sect was associated with a campaign to uplift public morals and ban nuclear weapons.

Scripture

For Jain tradition, the scriptural corpus (āgama ) formulated in identical manner by each Jina is eternal and totally authoritative in that it conveys the teaching of omniscient beings. Both the Śvetāmbara and Digambara sects maintain that there were originally fourteen texts called Pūrva (Prior) that eventually became lost, with some surviving texts representing a residue of what had once been a huge quantity of textual material.

Viewed historically, the Jain scriptural corpus as transmitted by the Śvetāmbaras developed over a considerable period of time, with the version current today apparently having been established at the council of Valabhī in the fifth century ce, in the last of a series of redactions. Only a relative chronology can be established. While some portions of the scriptures, such as the first chapter of the Ācārāṅga Sūtra, can realistically be dated back almost to the time of Mahāvīra, when composition and transmission were oral, others are (from the stylistic point of view) productions of the early common era, by which time writing had become the preferred method of transmission.

The language in which the canon was composed is called Ardhamāgadhī (Half Māgadhī), signifying a connection with the Magadha region of the Ganges Basin. Although having a vernacular base, this most likely functioned as a scriptural language only and was never spoken as a mother tongue. Some demonstrably later portions of the canon are composed in Mahārāṣṭrī Prākrit, a literary vernacular of the early common era.

The scriptural canon as accepted today by image-worshiping Śvetāmbaras consists of a large number of texts, divided into various subgroups. (There is no generally accepted number of texts, as the Sthānakvāsins and Terāpanthins omit thirteen from the total listed below and other enumerations have also been in circulation.) The first subgroup, the Twelve "Limbs" (Aṅga ), consists of:

1. The Ācārāṅga Sūtra, which describes ascetic behavior and contains a biography of Mahāvīra.
2. The Sūtrakṛtāṅga Sūtra, which contains a wide range of material including accounts of non-Jain teachings.
3. The Sthānāṅga Sūtra.
4. The Samavāyāṅga Sūtra, encyclopedic texts listing significant categories for all aspects of Jainism.
5. The Vyākhyāprajñapti Sūtra, which records dialogues between Mahāvīra and his disciple Indrabhūti concerning a wide range of cosmological, ontological, and disciplinary issues.
6. The Jñātādharmakathāḥ Sūtra, exemplary and legendary narratives.
7. The Upāsakadaśāḥ, narratives of pious laymen.
8. The Antakṛddaśāḥ, narratives of those who ended rebirth.
9. The Anuttaraupapātikadaśāḥ, narratives describing those reborn as gods.
10. The Praśnavyākaraṇāni, questions and answers about doctrinal issues.
11. The Viṗākaśruta, descriptions of the operation of karma.
12. The Dṛṣṭivāda, which were accepted as lost by the early common era.

The second subgroup, made up of the Twelve "Subordinate Limbs" (Upāṅga ), includes:

1. The Aupapātika Sūtra, a description of a sermon by Mahāvīra and an account of non-Jain teachings and ascetics.
2. The Rājapraśnīya Sūtra, a discussion between King Prasenajit and a monk concerning ontological matters.
3. The Jīvājīvābhigama Sūtra, which describes the various categories of existence.
4. The Prajñāpanā Sūtra, which describes a wide range of epistemological and ontological topics.
5. The Sūryaprajñapti Sūtra.
6. The Jambūdvīpaprajñapti Sūtra.
7. The Candraprajñapti Sūtra, cosmological and astronomical texts.

8–12. A series of short narrative texts.

The third subgroup is formed by the Cheda Sūtra s, which consist of seven texts dealing with disciplinary matters. The eighth chapter of the first, the Ācāradaśāḥ, is the Kalpa Sūtra. This text, which contains a biography of Mahāvīra, disciplinary recommendations, and the early lineage of the Jain ascetic community, is the focus of the most important period of the Śvetāmbara ritual year, Paryuṣan, when it is publicly recited and illustrations of it are displayed. The Mahāniśītha Sūtra is, on the grounds of language and content, later than the other texts, and its status was a source of controversy during the Medieval period.

The fourth subgroup consists of the "Fundamental" (mūla ) Sūtras—namely, the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra, the Daśavaikālika Sūtra, the Āvaśyaka Sūtra, and (treated together) the Piṇḍaniryukti and Oghaniryukti —which set out the parameters of ascetic behavior and are to be studied at the beginning of the renunciant career.

The fifth subgroup consists of the "Mixed" Texts, which are, according to the most common enumeration, eleven short (and generally late) works describing subjects such as astrology and ascetic ritual.

Finally, the sixth subgroup consists of two hermeneutical texts, the Nandī Sūtra and the Anuyogadvāra Sūtra.

There is at present no definitive critical edition of the Śvetāmbara Jain scriptures. An extensive exegetical literature was produced from the early common era, with the oldest examples being the Prakrit mnemonic verses, called niryukti, attributed to the early–common era teacher Bhadrabāhu. The leading commentator in Sanskrit was Abhayadeva Sūri (eleventh century).

The Digambaras reject the authority of the Śvetāmbara scriptural canon in favor of texts that emerged at the beginning of the common era and are regarded as representing the residue of the ancient tradition. The Prakrit in which they are written, whose origins lie in the Mathurā region, is generally called Jaina Śaurasenī. The Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama (Scripture of Six Parts) attributed to the monk Dharasena (c. second century ce) and the approximately contemporary Kaṣāyaprāb-hṛta (Treatise on the Passions) are massive compilations dealing with the soul and its varying connections with karma. Also authoritative for the Digambaras are two early–common era works on ascetic behavior, the Mūlācāra (Basic behavior) of Vaṭṭakera and the Bhagavatī Ārādhanā (Revered accomplishing) of Śivārya. Of slightly more uncertain date are the influential verse treatises of Kundakunda, which adumbrate a radically interiorized, soul-oriented version of Jainism and have remained highly influential to the present day.

Unless they are scholars, Jains of both sects have generally had the scriptural tradition mediated to them in the form of practical canons consisting of short, often epitomizing texts that have sometimes been produced in relatively recent times. For the last two millennia, Jain writers have been major contributors to Indian literature in a wide variety of languages and in all the important literary genres. The literary language known as Apabhraṃśa was employed predominantly by Jain poets whose willingness to use popular song meters ensured their compositions wide circulation in western India between 1000 and 1300. A vast number of Jain hymns were composed in early forms of vernacular languages like Hindi and Gujarati.

Teachings

Although tradition regards the teachings of Jainism as having been enunciated in full by Mahāvīra, it is possible to trace an evolution through the scriptural texts that reveals the intermittent influence of non-Jain philosophical positions and attempts to tighten up doctrinal structures. The introduction of the ontological categories of motion (dharma ) and rest (adharma ) and an atomic theory to explain the functioning of the material world are cases in point.

The textual catalyst for the formulation of a definitive version of the teachings is the Tattvārtha Sūtra (Sūtra on the meaning of the reals) by Umāsvāti, a monk belonging to a northern lineage who flourished around the fourth century ce. This sūtra is claimed, with some variants, by both the Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras. Using the medium of the short rule formulated in Sanskrit (sūtra ), Umāsvāti identified and explained the main components of Jain teaching as they had developed throughout the canonical period in a manner that has remained authoritative until the present day.

Jainism is both dualist—in that it posits that the soul is different from nature—and pluralist—in its acceptance of the existence of a multitude of separate entities in the universe. Contrary to Brahmanic ideology, it teaches that there is no creator god and that the universe has existed and will continue to do so throughout eternity. Reality, identified as both permanent and subject to change, is composed of five (or six) categories: the jīva, or "life monad," and the four (or five) categories of non-jīva, namely motion, rest, atoms, and space (the Digambaras add time). The jīva —while eternal and in its purest form possessed of consciousness (including the faculty of understanding), energy, and bliss—embodies itself in six forms: earth-bodied, fire-bodied, air-bodied, water-bodied, stationary (in the form of plants and trees), and moving (including insects, animals, men, gods, and hell-beings). These embodiments are further differentiated by the number of senses they possess.

The cause of the external differentiation and psychic degradation of the jīva is karma, envisaged in Jainism as a fine material substance not dissimilar to dust. Each modulation of the jīva, whether physical, mental, or vocal, intentional or unintentional, attracts karma to itself. The more intense the modulation, the more karmic substance is attracted to the jīva to occlude the efficacy of its innate characteristics. Some awkwardnesses in this explanation had to be resolved by later Jain systematizers. For example, an allowance for the possibility of intention as motivating the quality of action was introduced to modify what might otherwise have been an excessively severe moral vision. Jain theorists were to develop, over almost a millennium and a half, a highly elaborate taxonomy of karma, charting in detail the subdivisions of the "harming" (ghātiyā ) type, responsible for the diminution of faith, knowledge, and energy and the creation of false and deluded attitudes to the world, and the "nonharming" (aghātiyā ), responsible for setting the parameters of existence in terms of birth, gender, length of life, and quality of experience.

Jainism is envisaged in ideal terms as a path of self-discipline that can progressively effect the "warding off" (saṃvara ) of the influx of new karma and the "wearing away" (nirjarā ) of that karma which has already been bound. When a human being (the only creature in the universe capable of this) destroys the harming karma s through the fire of asceticism (tapas ), he gains pure omniscience and becomes an omniscient kevalin (Jinahood is reached by a particularly rare type of karma ). When the karmically dictated period of life reaches its end, the jīva leaves its human shell to gain liberation (mokṣa ) and moves in one instant to the roof of the universe, where it dwells in a state of pure energy, bliss, and knowledge along with but separate from all the other liberated (siddha ) jīva s. Although the path is presented in universalist terms, Jainism posits the existence of a category of jīva called abhavya that is innately and eternally incapable of gaining liberation, thus ensuring that the world of rebirth will never be emptied.

Since any epistemological judgment short of that based on omniscience is necessarily incomplete, direct cognition and inference (along with two other advanced forms of knowledge accepted by Jainism, namely the ability to read other people's minds and clairvoyance) can only provide a partially correct understanding of a multiform world that is simultaneously permanent and changing. In acknowledgement of the complex nature of reality, Jain teachers formulated the "Many-pointed Doctrine" (anekāntavāda ), which stipulates that any given object must be approached from seven standpoints (naya ) in order to construct a valid judgment about it. The various judgments that can be formed are nonetheless provisional and should ideally be prefaced with the word syāt (maybe, perhaps).

In medieval times this pluralist style of analysis served the polemical purpose of destabilizing Brāhmaṇ claims concerning permanent essences and Buddhist teachings about impermanent constructed entities, both regarded by the Jains as partial and inadequate explanations of reality. In more modern times, the Many-pointed Doctrine has enabled liberal-minded Jains to present their religion as unique in terms of its tolerance and promotion of peace.

Renunciant Practice

Historically, the monk (most commonly, muni, sādhu; in the earliest period, nirgrantha [bondless]) has been the main representative of Jain values. This central role is commemorated within the most ubiquitous portion of Jain liturgy, the "Five Homages" (Pañcana-maskāra ) mantra, in which homage is expressed in Prākrit to the omniscient teachers, the liberated souls, the teachers and preceptors, and all monks in the world.

According to the Kalpa Sūtra, an order of nuns was in existence at Mahāvīra's death that was three times as numerous as that of the monks, and female renunciation has been an important dimension of Jainism until the present day, with senior nuns having authority over the female order. However, the Jain nun has always been in a subordinate position to the monk and, invariably, female ascetic experience and its obligations were vectored through the prescriptions of male practitioners. No writings by nuns appear to have been produced before the modern period.

The nascent Jain order seems to have taken the broad structure of its practice from Brahmanic models. The Vedic term vrata (calling, vow) is used by the Jains to refer to the "Great Vows" (mahāvrata ), the five main renunciatory vows defining the practice of an ascetic. Ascetic initiation, which is perceived as a form of radical transformation, is called dīkṣā, a term originally signifying the symbolic rebirth of the sponsor of the Vedic sacrifice.

In order to enter the Jain ascetic community, the novice (male or female) undergoes a preliminary initiatory period during which key texts are memorized and the implications of ascetic life conveyed. In the formal ceremony of initiation the presiding senior ascetic gives the novice, as tokens of entry into a transformed mode of life, a new name and various implements (among the Śvetāmbaras, a pair of robes, an alms bowl, a whisk emblematic of nonviolence, a staff, and, for Sthānakvāsī and Terāpanthī initiates, a mouth-shield; among the Digambaras the fully initiated monk who must henceforth go naked is given only a whisk and a water pot for cleaning himself after evacuating bodily wastes). In ancient times the novice pulled out his or her hair in token of sexual and social renunciation, although the general custom today is for the head to be shaved. Thereafter, the ascetic will be a member of a lineage which traces its teacher-pupil relationship back to Mahāvīra (in the case of the Digambaras) or his disciple Sudharman (in the case of the Śvetāmbaras) and will be under the control of senior ascetics who convey the wording and meaning of the scriptures and prescribe and keep watch over all aspects of behavior.

The life of the Jain ascetic is intended to provide the appropriate environment for the enactment of the requirements of nonviolence and the other vows, and thus effect a diminution of the passions. It is envisaged as involving a heroic struggle to overcome the various physical and mental discomforts (parīṣaha ) that assail the renunciant. A continually watchful and controlled life is schematized in the form of three "Protections" (gupti ) that involve the guarding of mind, body, and speech, and five "Careful Actions" (samiti ) that enjoin continual care in movement, speech, seeking for food, receiving or putting down any object, and voiding the bowels.

Wandering mendicancy punctuated by short periods of fixed residence is obligatory, other than for those ascetics who are too infirm or engaged in scholarly activity and during the period of the rains, when the peripatetic life is suspended and monks and nuns live (separately) in lodging halls provided by the laity. Study, religious exercises, and preaching to the laity are the main occupations of ascetics during those periods when they spend time in villages and towns.

As Jain ascetics are not permitted to possess money, cook food, or grow crops, they must seek suitable vegetarian sustenance from (preferably) lay supporters or anybody appropriate who is disposed to give it. Acts of donation to ascetics are deemed to bring about merit for the donor. Śvetāmbara ascetics seek food (an activity called gocari [grazing], in token of its supposedly random nature) in the morning and before evening, consuming it out of sight of the laity, whereas their Digambara counterparts seek food only once in the morning, eating from their cupped hands in front of the donor. No Jain ascetic is allowed to eat after dark because of the possibility of unwitting destruction of life forms. Fasting, often over lengthy periods of time, is a regular feature of ascetic practice. Water can only be drunk after it has been boiled and filtered by laypeople.

An important structuring feature of Jain ascetic life is regular ritual activity, the standard model for which was in place by the early common era. The six "Obligatory Actions" (Āvaśyaka ) to be performed daily are equanimity (sāmāyika ), praise to the twenty-four Jinas (caturviṃśatistava ), homage to the teacher (guruvandaṇa ), repentance (pratikramana ), laying down the body (kāyotsarga ), and abandonment (pratyākhyāna ). Equanimity is a form of temporary withdrawal of the senses, traditionally to be maintained for a period of forty-eight minutes; praise to the Jinas involves a strong devotional and commemorative element; homage to the teacher betokens Jainism's keen awareness of the transmission of the teachings (this ritual can be performed in front of a symbolic representation of a dead teacher); repentance, to be performed twice daily by the ascetic, as well as at various significant times of the year, expresses a desire to atone for acts of violence, witting or unwitting, inflicted on any living creature; laying down of the body is a temporarily assumed motionless pose; and abandonment relates to pledges to abstain from types of action or from consumption of food and drink in the future.

Equanimity is perhaps the nearest approximation in Jainism to what in other religious paths is called "meditation." However, little significant value is attributed to structured meditation by Jain tradition, no doubt because of the prestige of asceticism as the predominant means of eliminating karma. In the early common era, contemplative activity (anuprekṣā ) directed toward subjects such as impermanence and human solitude was considered to be a component of asceticism. However, Digambara Jain teachers in the medieval period, such as Yogīndu (sixth century), did develop forms of soul-directed contemplative discipline, and in modern times the Śvetāmbara Terāpanthī sect has promoted a form of meditative practice drawing on eclectic sources.

The ideal ending to life for the Jain ascetic is the freely undertaken fast unto death called sallekhanā, literally "scouring out negative factors." This climactic and ritualized act of austerity, which should only be performed by developed practitioners (although in the medieval period laypeople often ended their lives in this manner), involves progressive withdrawal from food and drink and should conclude, in death, in a state of pious awareness. Such a heroic end will invariably ensure a positive rebirth. In modern times, sallekhanā has generally been practiced by aged or infirm ascetics near the conclusion of their lives and, most recently, by nuns of the Terāpanthī order.

Although the Jain renunciant life does involve unremitting austerity, the tradition has always stressed that benevolence, compassion, and friendship toward all living creatures are its predominant characteristics.

Lay Practice

An emphasis on the renunciatory dimension of Jainism obscures the extent to which the religion has also been followed throughout history by laymen and laywomen (Sanskrit, śrāvaka [hearer]; fem., śrāvikā ) for whom abnegation and social withdrawal do not inform the totality of their lives. Although most early texts of the Jain scriptural tradition are almost exclusively preoccupied with ascetics, later portions contain exemplary stories, probably dating from the early common era, of rich and pious laymen, often enduring attack by jealous demonic beings. These laymen, at this early period called "servants" (upāsaka; fem. upāsikā ) in token of their support of the ascetic community, are depicted in idealized fashion as advanced followers of the Jain path whose lives gain fulfillment in ultimate abandonment of wealth and renunciation.

Such stories, and the extensive literature produced by monks during the medieval period that legislates (male) lay behavior, have encouraged a picture of the Jain laity as following a way of life that, if less intense in its ascetic enactment, is nonetheless like that of the initiated renunciant in being totally directed toward the gaining of deliverance (mokṣa ). In actuality, the Jain tradition perceived as a whole is not oriented exclusively toward the realm of spiritual liberation and the values of mokṣa —it also markedly privileges social qualities such as prosperous well-being and auspiciousness that, while informed by renunciatory ideology, very much relate to positive attitudes toward worldly values. While Jain laypeople regularly involve themselves in pious and merit-generating activities such as fasting, it would be wrong to think of their lives as incomplete versions of those of monks and nuns.

The parameters of Jain lay life have been from early times textually defined as centering around five "Small Vows" (anuvrata ) that parallel the five "Great Vows" (mahāvrata ) of the ascetic. These are ethical injunctions that the typical layman must integrate into his public and domestic life, although they are almost invariably never formally assumed. Such an individual should take care to avoid any livelihood that might entail violence. He should not lie, particularly in business transactions. He should not steal, an interdict that can extend to any dishonest or improper dealings. He should avoid excessive sexual activity, and in his later years adopt total celibacy. He should not have excessive or conspicuous possessions and should unburden himself as much as possible of his wealth for charitable purposes. Further restrictions, embodied in the three "Subsidiary Vows" (guṇavrata ), are placed upon the layman's behavior with regard to unnecessary movement, excessive enjoyment, and self-indulgent brooding. The four "Vows of Instruction" (śikṣāvrata ) enjoin him to engage regularly in various forms of contemplative and pious activity, such as fasting.

In keeping with this idealized style of ethics that encourages self-development and an avoidance of activities that might lead to destruction of life forms, the standard occupations of lay Jains in modern times have been in business or professions such as law. More rarely, Jains are found as agriculturalists, particularly in the area of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border.

Jain laypeople, like ascetics, practice a stringent vegetarianism that represents a vital component of their self-perception. Particular care is taken with food, which, as with all Indian religions, is regarded as a potentially dangerous substance. In addition to rejecting meat, fish, and eggs, Jains will avoid root and bulb vegetables, such as potatoes and onions. At religiously significant times of the year, many Jains will also avoid green-leafed vegetables and, like ascetics, avoid eating after dark.

The source of a layman's social and business prestige is perceived as deriving from his liberality (dāna ). The ancient ritual of meritorious giving of food and shelter to ascetics was transformed in the medieval period to include public enterprises such as temple building, the sponsorship of the copying of manuscripts, and the financing of public works. The thirteenth-century royal ministers Vastupāla and his brother Tejapāla are proverbial exemplars of such activities. Today, prominent members of the Jain community are celebrated for philanthropic work and their support for medical and educational establishments, social relief, and animal hospitals.

Practical Religiosity

Jainism may reject the possibility of a creator god who has the power to intervene in human affairs, but the religion is nonetheless strongly theistic and devotional in idiom. God (Bhagavān ) is envisaged both as the totality of all the Jinas throughout eternity and as the spiritual principle within every living being, called by the Digambaras the "supreme self" (paramātman ), which has the potential to actualize itself in enlightenment.

Devotion to the Jinas in iconic form, perhaps deriving from an original ritual involving homage to the teacher and the desire to commemorate the illustrious dead, stretches back at least to the beginning of the common era and is common to the majority of Jains. However, Śvetāmbara sects, such as the Sthānakvāsins and the Terāpanthins, as well as some Digambara groups, reject image worship on the grounds that it is not a significant feature in the scriptural tradition and involves a breach of the principle of nonviolence through digging in the earth to construct the temples in which images are housed.

Jain temples are envisaged as simulacra of the site of each Jina's first sermon. Allowing for regional and historical variation, they are structurally similar to Hindu shrines, most commonly having a series of halls (maṇḍapa ) leading to an inner shrine where the image of the Jina, depicted in either seated or standing ascetic posture, is housed. Alternatively, a temple can take the form of an axial hall with a quadruple Jina image approached through doors located at each of the cardinal directions. It is not uncommon for laypeople to worship at small domestic shrines.

Images represent a devotional focus and means of recalling the message of Jainism, for the significance of the Jinas lies in the fact that having taught the doctrine they gained freedom from rebirth and are thus not directly accessible to human beings. While particular images are often regarded as having special powers, a temple with a central Jina icon will typically have ancillary shrines at its entrance dedicated to a tutelary deity credited by devotees with the ability to intercede in worldly affairs. Goddesses such as Ambikā and Padmāvatī, who emerged into prominence in the medieval period, are vital components of Jain religiosity.

The most basic type of worship of Jina images, practiced by ascetic and layperson alike, is "seeing" (darśana ), in which the worshiper brings his eyes into focus with those of the icon. Worship of images (pūjā ) with material substances, such as rice, flowers, camphor, and fruit, and often involving anointment with water or milk, can only be performed by laypeople (or, in their absence, temple servants). The idiom of this form of worship, which is not structured in any binding form, is one of abandonment, in that the offerings are given up (the Jina being worshiped cannot in any way consume them). The mind of the devotee is turned toward the qualities of the Jinas, with the resolve to emulate them. Ascetics are forbidden to have physical contact with images and can only engage in inner, mental worship.

A wide repertoire of hymns can be used by Jains when they worship. The Bhaktāmara (Immortal Devotees), composed by Mānatuṅga in the sixth century ce in honor of Rṣabha, the first Jina of this world age, is of particular popularity among all sects and the focus of much devotional and esoteric commentary. Today, the composition and performance of hymns, often set to current film tunes, is an important area of female religiosity.

The Jains are no different from the adherents of other religions in experiencing many of the modalities of their faith in the context of the rhythm of the sacred year. For the Śvetāmbaras, the central point of the year is Paryuṣan (Abiding), which takes place over a period of eight days in August and September when there are recitations of the Kalpa Sūtra by monks and displays of illustrations from copies of it. The last day is called Samvatsarī (Annual), during which laypeople express repentance and a request for forgiveness for any injuries committed during the previous year. The Digambaras, who reject the authority of the Kalpa Sūtra, listen to recitations of the ten chapters of Umāsvāti's Tattvārtha Sūtra over a ten-day period called Daśalakṣaṇaparvan (also referred to as Paryuṣan). Both sects celebrate the birth of the last Jina as Mahāvīra Jayanti during March and April, and they also have in common Akṣayā Tṛtīyā (Undying Third), which occurs in April and May and commemorates the first act of alms-donation of this world age: King Śreyaṃsa's giving of cane juice to the Jina Rṣabha.

Modern Developments

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw Jainism's engagement with modernity lead to a reassertion of certain traditional features of the religion and a reconfiguration of others to take account of altered circumstances.

Among both the image-worshiping Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras there has been a resuscitation of ascetic lineages that had come near to becoming defunct, and many senior monks regained the prestige and celebrity of earlier times. Noteworthy in this respect are Vijayavallabha Sūri (Śvetāmbara, 1870–1954) and Ācārya Śāntisāgara (Digambara, 1873–1955). At the same time, the lay community, while not seriously attempting to supplant ascetic authority, organized itself in associations such as the Dakṣiṇ Bhārat Jain Sabhā (South Indian Jain Society) in order to disseminate the values of Jainism, engage in educational projects, and mobilize membership in respect to issues of social reform, particularly relating to the reduction of caste influence.

There have also appeared neo-Digambara groups such as the Śrīmad Rājacandra movement and the Kānjī Svāmī Panth, whose leaders were laymen influenced by the mystical dimensions of Jainism as taught by the early–common era teacher Kundakunda and his successors, and in which initiated ascetics play less-pronounced roles than elsewhere in Jainism. Rāycandbhāī Mahetā (1867–1901), known as Śrīmad Rājacandra, was a Gujarati jeweler and mystic who was a confidant of the young Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, while Kānjī Svāmī abandoned the Sthānakvāsī ascetic order to promulgate an intensely soul-oriented path that he claimed had been transmitted to him directly by Kundakunda. The Akram Vijñān movement, founded in western India in the 1960s by A. M. Patel, who was born a Vaiṣṇava Hindu, privileges spiritual gnosis as the road to salvation and rejects scriptural and institutional authority.

The most significant development during the second half of the twentieth century was the arrival of many Jains in the United Kingdom (generally via East Africa) and North America. It has not been easy for the full requirements of traditional Jainism to be followed in this new cultural context, in particular because image-worshiping Śvetāmbara and Digambara ascetics are not allowed to travel and teach outside India (although some Sthānakvāsī and lower-order Terāpanthī ascetics are now permitted to do so). Instead, elements of Jainism have been emphasized that are congenial to modern Western liberal opinion: nonviolence, vegetarianism, contemplative practice, and a style of environmentalism in which the Jain path is presented as a philosophy with an ecological message at its center.

See Also

Ahiṃsā; Cosmology, article on Jain Cosmology; Jñāna; Karman, article on Hindu and Jain Concepts; Mahāvīra.

Bibliography

Alphen, Jan van, ed. Steps to Liberation: 2,500 Years of Jain Art and Religion. Antwerp, 2000. An outstanding collection of illustrations of Jain religious art.

Balbir, Nalini. "Women and Jainism in India." In Women in Indian Religions, edited by Arvind Sharma, pp. 70–107. New Delhi, 2002.

Cort, John E. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. New York, 2001. A pioneering fieldwork-based study that foregrounds the worldview of the Śvetāmbara Jain laity in contemporary Gujarat.

Dundas, Paul. The Jains. 2d rev. ed. London and New York, 2002. A study of Jainism throughout history, with extensive bibliography.

Fischer, Eberhard, and Jyotindra Jain. Jaina Iconography. 2 vols. Leiden, 1978. Contains a large number of illustrations pertaining to Jain ritual, practice, architecture, and iconography.

Folkert, Kendall. Scripture and Community: Collected Essays on the Jains. Edited by John E. Cort. Atlanta, 1993. Contains a series of studies of the interaction between sacred texts and the Śvetāmbara Jain community.

Hemacandra. The Yogaśāstra of Hemacandra : A Twelfth-Century Handbook on Śvetāmbara Jainism. Edited and translated by Olle Qvarnström. Cambridge, Mass., 2002. A highly authoritative account prescribing Śvetāmbara lay behavior written for Hemacandra's patron, Kumarapāla Caulukya.

Jacobi, Hermann. Jaina Sutras. 2 vols. Oxford, 1884–1895. Pioneering translations of the Ācārāṅga Sūtra, the Kalpa Sūtra, the Sūtrakrtāṅga Sūtra, and the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra, which, though outdated in many ways, have never been adequately replaced.

Jaini, Padmanabh S. Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women. Berkeley, Calif., 1991. Richly annotated translation of key sources relating to the debate between the Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras concerning the religious status of women.

Jaini, Padmanabh S. The Jaina Path of Purification. Rev. ed. New Delhi, 1998. A clear account of doctrine and practice, invaluable for its Digambara perspective.

Jaini, Padmanabh S. Collected Papers on Jaina Studies. Delhi, 2000. An essential collection of often seminal studies.

Kelting, Mary Whitney. Singing to the Jinas: Jain Laywomen, Mandal Singing, and the Negotiations of Jain Devotion. New York, 2001. A study of female religiosity among a Śvetāmbara Jain community in Puṇe in the context of the production and performance of devotional hymns.

Pal, Pratapaditya, ed. The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India. Los Angeles, 1994. Contains illustrations of many important images and manuscripts.

Schubring, Walther. Die Lehre der Jainas, nach den alten Quellen dargestellt. Berlin and Leipzig, Germany, 1935. Translated as The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources. 2d rev. ed. Delhi, 2000. An authoritative account of canonical Jainism by the leading Western scholar of the last century. The German edition contains a still valuable bibliography of primary sources.

Shāntā, N. The Unknown Pilgrims: The Voices of the Sādhvis: The History, Spirituality, and Life of the Jaina Women Ascetics. Translated by Mary Rogers. Delhi, 1997. This diffuse study, originally written in French, presents Jainism from the historical and contemporary perspective of nuns of all sects.

Umāsvāti. That Which Is: Tattvārtha Sūtra. Translated by Nathmal Tatia. San Francisco, London, and Pymble, Australia, 1994. The classic summation of Jain doctrine.

Vallely, Anne. Guardians of the Transcendent: An Ethnography of a Jain Ascetic Community. Toronto, Buffalo, N.Y., and London, 2002. A study which focuses upon the religiosity of nuns of the Terāpanthī sect.

Paul Dundas (2005)