7
Jainism
Revised and expanded by John E. Cort
Introduction
Jains have been present in India’s religious life for at least 2,500 years, and continue to be a visible and active community. At present this community includes slightly more than 3 million people (less than 1 per cent of India’s population), and its relative size has been small throughout its history. Yet the influence of the Jains on Indian culture and the continuity of their history have been such that Jainism is commonly and properly regarded as one of India’s major indigenous religious traditions.
One of the hallmarks of Jainism is an ascetic ideal. Jains take their name from the term ‘Jina’, which means ‘conqueror’. ‘Jina’ is an honorific term, not a proper name (cf. ‘Buddha’); it is bestowed by Jains on twenty-four great religious teachers and leaders. The message and example of these teacher – conquerors is that the human being, without supernatural aid, is capable of conquering the bondage of physical existence and achieving freedom from rebirth; and that this conquest is to be achieved only by the most rigorous renunciation of all physical comforts and social constraints. These teachers are also called Tirthankaras, a title meaning ‘crossing-maker’, which points to their role as teachers and exemplars for others who seek the same goal. The title Tirthankara is also interpreted as meaning ‘community-maker’, indicating that they established the fourfold Jain community of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. They are further called Arhats, ‘worthy ones’, for they are the beings most worthy of emulation and veneration in the universe.
Though relatively small numerically, Jainism is not monolithic. Regional and linguistic divisions, and differences in religious practice, have been present in Jainism since at least the beginning of the Christian Era. Jains are, by and large, divided into Shvetambaras (so named because their monks and nuns are ‘white-clad’) and Digambaras (so named because their male ascetics are ‘sky-clad’, i.e. naked), each of which is further subdivided by movements which have arisen in recent centuries. It is also important to note that, while Jainism has an ascetic basis, the majority of those who call themselves Jains are laypersons whose religious life is not monastic.
Primary Sources for the Study of Jainism
Sources for study are best treated as three categories of literature: (1) early Prakrit texts; (2) later Sanskrit and Prakrit writings; and (3) more recent vernacular literatures. The first category comprises the oldest texts of Jainism, which were composed in various Prakrits (early Indian vernacular languages). By the fifth century CE, the Shvetambara Jains had assembled a collection of important texts, commonly called the Agama [7: 61–9]. The oldest and most venerated texts are the Angas, which present early accounts of Jain monastic discipline and contain sermons and dialogues of Vardhamana Mahavira (sixth century BCE), the last of the twenty-four Tirthankaras. By the thirteenth century these texts had been categorized into a sort of canon of forty-five texts, although the specific texts varied from one list to another [12: 47–77].
Not all Jains, however, regard these forty-five texts as normative. In the seventeenth century CE a Shvetambara movement called the Sthanakavasis rejected some of them, adopting as authentic only thirty-two of the forty-five, and the Digambara Jains, while not repudiating most of the dogmatic content of the Agama, hold that the language and form of this canon are not authentic. The Digambaras preserve two very old Prakrit texts that are contemporary with later Shvetambara canonical texts. These earliest Digambara texts, the Shatkhandagama (‘Scripture in Six Parts’) and the Kashayaprabhrta (‘Treatise on the Stain of Passion’) were supplemented by commentaries and writings which, together with the older texts, give the Digambaras their own body of normative literature, called the Anuyoga (‘Expositions’).
The second category of primary source literature, written in Sanskrit and Prakrit largely from the fourth century CE onwards, signals a major change in Jainism. Alongside commentaries on older texts, this large body of literature contains new didactic texts, philosophical writings, and narrative and technical works. An important feature of this literature is that much of it deals with the lay community, and includes writings (resembling the Hindu Puranas) that give a Jain view of world history and of the origins of basic human institutions and everyday religious activity. These Sanskrit sources thus point beyond themselves to a major development in Jainism, namely the elaboration and ideological systematization of lay life, including religious discipline and temple, home and life-cycle rituals. These sources are, therefore, important for understanding the full range of Jain religious life. (For the reader’s guidance, a list of major works in several categories is provided in appendices A and B at the end of this chapter.)
The third area of primary source material, of more recent origin, consists of works in modern Indian languages (including early forms of such languages as Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Kannada) and, since the late nineteenth century, in English. The vernacular works cover a range of religious material, including translations of doctrinal texts and recastings of Prakrit and Sanskrit narratives. There are also works written in recent decades that are directed towards Jain renewal and contemporary problems.
Jain writings in English were often aimed at European and American audiences, and include efforts at presenting ancient Jain texts and ideas to the Western world. Notable in this connection, though many more examples could be cited, are the works of J. L. Jaini, a Digambara layman and lawyer, and Professor P. S. Jaini, a Digambara layman who taught Buddhist studies at the University of California, Berkeley. J. L. Jaini’s 1916 Outlines of Jainism and P. S. Jaini’s 1979 The Jaina Path of Purification both present something of modern apologetics for Jainism.
Jain History
Many standard works refer to Vardhamana Mahavira, who lived from 599 to 527 BCE (the traditional dating), as the ‘founder’ of Jainism, and regard Jain history as beginning with him. However, Jains hold that the universe is eternal and uncreated and, as do Hindus, conceive of time in vast, cyclic terms. A full cycle of time consists of two main periods of some 600 million years, each subdivided into six parts. One of these main periods is a period of ascent, in which all conditions improve; the other is a time of descent, in which knowledge, behaviour, human stature, etc. all decline. In each main half-cycle there appear twenty-four great teachers, the Jinas or Tirthankaras referred to above.
In the current cycle of cosmic time (which is a period of decline), twenty-four such teachers are thus held to have lived. The last of these was Vardhamana Mahavira. His predecessor in the series was Parshva, whom the Jains place in the ninth century BCE, and for whose life there is some (but very little) historical evidence. Modern scholarly accounts of Jain history thus begin with Mahavira, but Jain literature and religious life include all twenty-four Tirthankaras.
Mahavira was born Vardhamana Jnatrputra in north-east India, near modern Patna. (Jnatrputra is his clan-name; ‘Mahavira’ is an honorific tide meaning ‘great hero’.) At thirty years of age, he abandoned his life as a member of the warrior (Kshatriya) class, and took up the life of a possessionless mendicant. For more than twelve years Mahavira devoted himself to renunciation and detachment from all physical needs and comforts. At the end of this time, having reached complete understanding of the nature of the universe and absolute detachment from worldly desires, he began teaching others. By Jain accounts, he had assembled a following of several hundred thousand by the time of his death at the age of seventy-two.
Leadership of the Jains thereafter passed to Mahavira’s senior disciples, and under these men and their successors the movement began to spread from north-eastern India into eastern and northwestern population centres. The Jains, like the Buddhists, benefited from the support for monastic ideals of the Mauryan dynasty (third century BCE), and the growth and geographical spread of Jainism accelerated, carrying it into central and southern India.
In the period after Mahavira’s death, divisions emerged within Jainism, in particular the Shvetambara–Digambara schism mentioned above. The two groups disagreed largely over monastic practice. The Digambaras maintained that an ascetic who had truly renounced the world would also renounce clothing, and go naked, as Mahavira apparently had done. The Shvetambaras maintained, however, that Mahavira’s life and teachings did not make nudity an absolute requirement, and that the wearing of simple white garments would be a sufficient act of renunciation. From this particular disagreement, which gradually crystallized in the early centuries CE, have come the names (see above) that characterize this lasting division within Jainism.
Other areas of disagreement also arose, no less significant than the matter of clothing, but often more technical and less subject to popular debate. These included the question of scriptures, as detailed above; there were also disagreements over other particulars of monastic life, and differing versions of the life story of Mahavira, plus a significant and lasting disagreement concerning the status of women [11]. Shvetambaras admit women to full monastic vows, but Digambaras do not, arguing that women are not capable of attaining liberation and must await rebirth as males in order to pursue full ascetic careers.
All these differences were accentuated (and may well have been partly caused) by the fact that the two groups were concentrated in different regions and subcultures of India during Jainism’s period of growth. The Digambaras were the principal Jains in south and central India, while the Shvetambaras concentrated in the north and west. Thus it is appropriate to think of the Shvetambara – Digambara division as being in many ways like the difference between Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians.
Internal divisions notwithstanding, the Jains entered a period of growth and influence by the fifth century CE. In central and southern India, the Digambaras won royal patronage and were a notable cultural force, especially in such matters as the development of vernacular literatures. A few centuries later the Shvetambaras played much the same role in the north, and even more so in western India.
This was the period, as noted above, that gave a coherent and lasting pattern to the Jain lay community. As Jainism had moved into diverse regions and had grown in numbers, the absorption of laypersons into the movement required that the lay Jain be given a distinctive identity. Thus narrative texts and models of lay discipline are prominent in the literature of this period.
By the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE Jainism was beginning to retreat geographically into its present areas of concentration (see figure 7.1). The Digambaras gradually retreated to the north and west, leaving behind only a shadow of their earlier presence in the central and southern regions. In the Shvetambara-dominated areas less contraction occurred, although the Shvetambaras also declined in influence as new Hindu movements gained a following. The Shvetambaras also experienced the increasing presence of Islam in India from the twelfth century onwards.
By 1500 CE, Jainism had largely reached its current geographical distribution, and from this time onwards began to see various movements of reform and renewal. Prominent among these was a seventeenth-century Shvetambara movement called the Sthanakavasis. Still active today, its members are recognizable by their practice of wearing a cloth or mask over the mouth and nose. This group objected to the veneration of images as practised by Jains, and to the entire complex of temple-cultus and activity that had developed in Jainism by that time. From the Sthanakavasis developed the similar eighteenth-century Shvetambara Terapantha movement; the remaining, numerically dominant Shvetambaras are known as Murtipujakas, ‘Image-Worshippers’.
Jainism has thus passed through periods of formative, largely monastic life (from Mahavira to the early Christian Era); of spread, growth and engagement with laity (early Christian Era to twelfth century); and of contraction, reform and redevelopment.
Scholarly Study of the Jains
The Jains came to the notice of Western scholarship largely through the efforts of Albrecht Weber, Georg Bühler and Hermann Jacobi. Weber and Bühler combined efforts in the 1880s to present to scholars a comprehensive account of the Jain scriptures, and Jacobi pioneered the translation of Jain Prakrit texts into European languages. A number of other scholars, too numerous to catalogue here [see 15: 1–13; 8: 23–33], contributed to early Jain studies, but the work of the three just mentioned was formative. This is so for two reasons. First, it was not uncommon for nineteenth-century scholars of India to portray Jainism as subordinate to Buddhism. The Jains were often treated merely as predecessors of Buddhism or as a schismatic offshoot. Some scholarly attempts were made to show that Vardhamana Mahavira and Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, were one and the same, the Jain schismatics having altered the founder’s portrait just enough to make it appear that they had their own unique origin [9: ix–xIvii]. It was Jacobi who put this notion to rest by his tireless translation and assembling of evidence, and since his time the Jains have been accorded appropriate recognition.
Figure 7.1 Distribution of the Jain population in India, by number and as percentage of state population
The second formative dimension of the work of Weber, Bühler and Jacobi was that their interests, typical for the nineteenth century, were heavily textual, philological and historical. Given this, they were drawn first to the Shvetambara tradition, which appeared to preserve the oldest and most complete set of texts. As a result, the Western world’s earliest complete picture of Jainism was drawn from Shvetambara sources, while the Digambaras were portrayed in a secondary light.
The effect of this early focus on the Shvetambaras and on Jain texts is still felt. Subsequent Jain scholarship, by such eminent figures as Helmuth von Glasenapp, Ernst Leumann, Walther Schubring, Ludwig Alsdorf and P. S. Jaini, remained textual and historical in focus, and with the exception of Jaini placed an emphasis on the Shvetambaras. Recent years, however, have seen a promising new direction in Jain studies, as a number of European and American scholars have conducted fieldwork studies of contemporary Jain communities [see 1; 2; 3; 4; 13; 14; 17]. While there is still some disjunction between philological and anthropological studies, these recent scholarly developments promise to result in a much fuller understanding of the Jain tradition. The first fruit of this interaction is seen in Paul Dundas’s excellent 1992 The Jains [7].
Basic Teachings
As noted, Jainism teaches that the human being can conquer the limitations of physical existence and attain immortality by means of rigorous ascetic discipline. Jainism bases its teaching on a fundamental division of all existing things into two classes: jiva, i.e. that which is sentient; and ajiva, that which is not. Every living thing consists of a jiva (often translated as ‘soul’, but better understood as a ‘sentient essence’) and of ajiva, i.e. a non-sentient, material component that has become associated with the jiva. This association with ajiva prevents the jiva from realizing its true nature, which is immortal, omniscient and absolutely complete in itself.
There is an infinite number of jivas, and each is an eternal and discrete entity, not linked to other jivas in any fashion. The jivas neither emanate from a common source nor in any way merge with one another upon liberation. There is no single ‘supreme jiva’ or supreme creator deity, and the Jinas are not regarded as creator gods. They are venerated and worshipped as divine, but this is by virtue of their status as beings who have attained spiritual liberation and perfection, not because of any primordial creation. Jains are not atheists, however, and they do freely talk of God, by which they refer to the sum total of the Jinas and other liberated jivas. Since these liberated beings are indistinguishable one from another, there is a sense in which they blend into a single entity, a single Jina, in the religious understanding of the Jains.
Jains also hold that each jiva has eternally been associated with ajiva, i.e. that there was no ‘fall’ of the jiva into an impure state. The jiva’s association with ajiva is beginningless, like the universe, yet the condition is not unchangeable. The association of the two is understood to be the work of karma, a concept that the Jains share with the larger Hindu tradition (see pp. 284, 285), but understand in a unique fashion. In the Jain view, karma is a subtle form of matter that clings to the jiva, obscuring (but not actually altering) the jiva’s innate capacities. This obscuring of its faculties causes the jiva to be reborn into an infinite series of physical existences, another basic premise that Jainism shares with Hinduism as a whole.
There is only one way in which the jiva can be set free of this karmic bondage and resultant physical rebirth, and that way involves the ascetic life. The goal of ascetic discipline is to stop any further association of the jiva with karma, and to hasten the decay of such karma as has previously obscured the jiva. When the jiva is at last rid of all karmic association, it is held to be freed of rebirth, and to rise to the uppermost reaches of the universe, the siddha-loka (see figure 7.2), to abide there eternally in its innate perfection of total knowledge and self-containment.
An interesting dimension of the Jain consideration of jiva and ajiva is the system of philosophical analysis known as anekantavada, the teaching of ‘non-one-sidedness’, which Jain philosophers developed as a way of dealing with the multiple dimensions of reality. Jain metaphysics considers the soul to be both essentially unchanging and yet capable of various qualitative alterations, and seeks to synthesize conflicting analyses of reality (e.g. either as permanent or as constantly changing). In the Jain view, any philosophical system that holds reality to be ultimately reducible to one ontological dimension (e.g. to permanence, or to constant change) is an ekantavada, a ‘one-sided view’, and is condemned to error by its very failure to take account of the several equally important dimensions of being. Thus the Jains insist on ‘non-one-sidedness’.
(The archaic view of the universe, representing in rough outline the human form, and its four levels of abode.)
Humans dwell in the Madhya-loka. The celestial world and underworld comprise many internal levels corresponding to the type of celestial or Infernal being.
(Jain pratika, symbol of Jain faith, officially adopted in 1975 at celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of Mahavira’s nirvana.)
The symbol clearly reflects the archaic view of the universe.
The portion shown inside the dotted rectangle is a sign commonly made during puja.
The palm of the hand carries a stylized version of the word ahimsa:
Figure 7.2 Loka-akasha: the Jain conception of the universe
These core teachings contain certain key elements related to basic Jain values. The first such matter is the nature of the jiva. Jains infer the existence of the jiva from its function as ‘knower’ and agent of activity in living things, and argue that the jiva’s innate nature must be whole and complete, or else there would be an inconsistency in its existence, even though it has been eternally associated with karma. Thus it is that the jiva is held to be innately omniscient and eternal. It is this capacity for omniscience that gives authority to Jain teachings, for the Tirthankaras are held to have attained omniscience in virtue of their ascetic detachment from all physical things. There being no supernatural agency, there can be no divine revelation; the truth of a Tirthankara’s teaching thus ultimately rests on the Jain conviction that all jivas are capable of total knowledge [18: 61–4]. The work of a Tirthankara is to show the way, to ‘make a crossing’, based upon his attainment, which is, properly speaking, the recovery of his own jiva’s true nature, not the discovery of something new.
A second key element in Jain teachings is the nature of ajiva and the working of karma [see 7: 83–7; 18: 220–60]. All insentient existents are included in the category of ajiva, particularly space, time and matter, the latter conceived of as atoms. It is important to note that the actual existence of ajiva is not denied by Jains, and that matter is therefore real and eternal. Karma, then, as a subtle form of matter, is not an illusion or a result of perceptual error. It is real, and must be dealt with in a physical way, as must all components of worldly existence.
Dissolution of the jiva’s association with karma thus requires the cultivation of actual and extreme detachment from all that is not-jiva. No purely ‘spiritual’ or ‘mental’ exercise will suffice. In the second or third century CE, the Digambara philosopher Kundakunda taught that karmic bondage is a mental illusion, not a physical fact, and so promoted inner spiritual self-realization instead of physical asceticism. While Kundakunda’s teachings have been influential throughout succeeding centuries, they have always represented a minority view, and have been harshly criticized by the majority of Jain authors. Jain monastic life has always had, and has today, a quality of concreteness and actual physical rigour to it.
A third key element is the practice of ahimsa, ‘non-harm’. As Jainism evolved, ahimsa came more and more to the fore as a key component of detachment from ajiva, from the material world of karma. For Jains, ahimsa has come to embody one’s willingness to separate oneself altogether not merely from acts of injury or killing, but also from the entire mechanism of aggression, possession and consumption that characterizes life in this world. Thus ahimsa has come to be a hallmark of the Jain commitment to detachment. It is not only an ethical goal, but also a metaphysical truth for Jains that non-harm is part of the path to liberation. In contrast to the relativistic tendencies seen in the doctrine of anekantavada, for the Jains ahimsa is a moral absolute. A common Jain phrase is ‘non-harm is the supreme ethical principle’ (ahimsa paramo dharmah), meaning that for the Jains ahimsa provides a measuring stick by which all actions and all religious traditions can be judged.
The central place given to this teaching has resulted in a number of characteristic Jain practices, including the monastic practice of carrying a small broom or whisk with which to brush away gently any living creatures before one sits or lies down. The Sthanakavasi and Terapanthi practice of permanently wearing a mask stems from a desire to prevent even the accidental ingestion of invisible creatures. The concern for ahimsa has also involved the entire community, monastic and lay, in a characteristic insistence upon vegetarian diet, and opposition to animal slaughter in general, as important dimensions of non-harm. Jain laypersons are enjoined to engage only in occupations that minimize the destruction of living beings, and thus most Jains are members of mercantile or professional classes.
The achievement of such detachment, in total reliance upon one’s innate capacities, is an arduous task, and has been attempted by only a minute fraction of the Jain community at any one time. The Jain layperson has no expectation of final liberation. Living outside of monastic orders means that release from physical existence can come only in some future life. Moreover, even the ascetic is understood to live many lifetimes of renunciation before achieving total conquest. The casting of this rigorous teaching into day-to-day practice has been a dominant factor in the history of Jainism and its concrete everyday life.
Characteristic Jain Practices
Introduction
In matters of religious practice Jainism presents an interesting case. Since Jain teachings give priority to the ascetic ideal, monastic practice is the most direct outcome of the teachings. At the same time, one cannot quickly and sharply draw a line between monastic and lay religious practice in Jainism, and treat the former as orthopraxis and the latter as the ‘little’ tradition in Jainism. Such a bifurcation fails because there is a body of lay Jain practice that is modelled on the monastic life; because Jainism has regularly sought to link together monk and layperson, ascetic and lay life; and because the majority of Jains have always been laypeople.
Therefore, Jain religious practices are best seen as being of two basic types: first, those practices – monastic and lay – that are most informed by the ascetic ideal; and second, those practices – largely of laypersons, but also of monks – that are less directly linked to asceticism, and instead include practices based on devotion and veneration of the Jinas.
The more ascetic model is framed by a vision of the complete path to liberation as consisting of fourteen stages, called gunasthanas [12: 272–3; 18: 268–80]. These stages trace the progression of the jiva from a state of total karmic bondage to its final release and the regaining of its full capacities. Only at the fourth gunasthana is the jiva sufficiently free of bondage to enable one to live as a pious layperson, and the monastic path proper begins at the sixth gunasthana. Thus the formal orthopraxis of Jainism assumes a continuity between the lay and monastic careers.
Monastic Asceticism
Entry to the sixth gunasthana is marked by the taking of monastic vows. Jains have always taken the specifics of monastic practice with great seriousness; as noted above, differences over monastic practice have led to divisions within Jainism. Despite these differences, however, there is a basic set of monastic practices that is widely shared [7: 129–60; 6: 139ff]. The aspirant to monastic orders must be physically and morally fit, and will have prepared for entry into orders by studying under a chosen preceptor who is already in orders. When the aspirant is ready, a formal ceremony of initiation is conducted.
In this ceremony, the new ascetic takes five great restraining vows (mahavratas): to observe ahimsa, and to avoid lying, taking what is not freely given, sexual activity and ownership of any possessions. He or she will be given a new name, which sometimes includes the name of the preceptor’s monastic lineage. (Beginning early in the movement’s history, Jain ascetics formed themselves into monastic lineages, called gacchas among the Shvetambaras and sanghas among the Digambaras. For details of monastic organization, see [7: 103–24; 2].)
If the aspirant is entering a Digambara order, he gives up all his possessions and clothing, and is given a small whisk of peacock feathers as his only possession. A Shvetambara initiate is given three pieces of cloth to wear, a whisk made of wool, and a begging-bowl and staff. The Sthanakavasis and Terapanthis add a face-mask to this set of items. Thereafter, the new monk or nun is expected to join with at least two or three others and to live a life of increasingly rigorous discipline. Such a small group of ascetics generally remains relatively mobile for eight months of the year, spending periods of time in various temples, study centres and places of pilgrimage, or simply travelling. They beg for all their food and accept no possessions beyond those given them at their initiation. During the four remaining months, specifically in the rainy season (late June to early October), monks and nuns congregate in various towns and villages, to be with their preceptors and the leaders of their larger monastic groups. Here the monks and nuns are instructed, formally confess their transgressions of monastic discipline to their superiors, and in turn instruct and assist the lay community that hosts them for this period of time.
At the historical core of Jain monastic practice are a set of six Obligatory Actions (avashyakas). These rituals, performed in some cases constantly, in other cases at set times of the day, and in further cases whenever appropriate, comprise a mix of ascetic and devotional activities that provide a well-rounded rhythm of ritual life. The first of these is samayika, a state of perpetual meditative equanimity that so pervades the monks’ lives that even while sleeping they are always aware of their movements. The second is caturvimshati-stava, the recitation of a devotional hymn of veneration to the twenty-four Jinas. The third, vandana, is related to the second, but consists of veneration of the monastic leaders rather than the liberated Jinas. Fourth is pratikramana, a rite of veneration and atonement for improper actions. This rite, which lasts several hours, is performed every morning and evening, with special versions in fortnightly, four-monthly and annual cycles. The fifth Obligatory Action is pratyakhyana, the ritual statement of the monk’s intention to perform certain karma-destroying austerities. The final Obligatory Action is kayotsarga, literally ‘abandoning the body’. This is not a separate rite, but rather is found as a constituent of each of the other Obligatory Actions. It is a form of standing meditation, with the arms at one’s side, and the eyes fixed on the tip of the nose.
In the course of this day-to-day life, the monk or nun strives to further the jiva’s continuing dissociation from the bonds of karma and to advance it along the subsequent gunasthanas. As noted above, many lifetimes of monastic discipline are required to traverse these stages; and as the Jain ascetic reaches old age, he or she may choose to die voluntarily, undertaking a ritual death by fasting, which is called sallekhana. Performed under the close supervision of one’s preceptor, this ideally passionless death ensures that one will not void one’s spiritual progress by clinging to material existence at the end of one lifetime. It is a powerful sign of Jainism’s dedication to the conquest of material existence by renunciation.
Lay Asceticism
As noted above, Jainism passed through a period of change from c.500 to 1300 CE, particularly in respect of its lay community. While there is evidence for the presence of laypersons in Jainism from early on, their role vis-à-vis the monastic orders probably remained somewhat fluid until the early centuries of the Christian Era. Growth in royal patronage, the influence of charismatic monks, and Jainism’s presence among new populations in the Deccan and western India led to the accomplishments of this period, namely, the development of a distinctive lay Jain religious identity.
One of the foci of this development was the ordering of an ideology of lay discipline modelled on monastic practice. To further this, some forty texts and manuals of lay discipline (called shravakacaras) were produced [19: xxvii–xx]. A basic pattern of lay requirements emerged from these texts, consisting of a set of prescribed disciplines that leads the Jain layperson through eleven stages of heightened renunciation.
These eleven stages, known as pratimas, are essentially a lay version of the monastic career, and all Jain laypersons are expected to reach at least some point of progression through these stages. The stages are: (1) right views; (2) taking vows; (3) practising equanimity through meditation; (4) fasting on certain holy days; (5) purity of nourishment; (6) sexual continence by day; (7) absolute continence; (8) abandoning household activity; (9) abandoning possessions; (10) renouncing all concern for the householder’s life; and (11) renouncing all connections with one’s family [12: 186].
Linked to the pratimas is a collection of some twelve lay restraining vows. These are also modelled on monastic vows, and involve restraint in diet, travel, clothing and the like. These vows are taken at the second pratima, and full practice of them is attained as one moves through the stages. There is even a thirteenth and final vow, recommended but not obligatory, that is a lay version of the ascetic death by starvation.
The pratimas clearly carry the layperson along a path of increasing ascetic rigour, leading at the eleventh stage to virtual ascetic renunciation. There is nothing here of the Hindu or Buddhist notion that the layperson can find salvation through alternative disciplines or devotional religion. The lay discipline of the Jains can have only one of two results: (1) rebirth in circumstances that permit an ascetic life, brought about by partial progression through the stages; or (2) full ascetic renunciation in one’s present life. In neither case will the lay vows and stages themselves lead to liberation.
There is, thus, great consistency between Jainism’s basic ascetic teaching and this view of lay life. Given that the authors of these manuals of lay discipline were by and large monks, this consistency should not be surprising. Arising as it did in Jainism’s period of greatest growth and change, the lay programme represents a major effort to bind together the lay and monastic community.
Daily Religious Life
Notwithstanding the significance of formal lay discipline, a great many Jains do not practise only the ascetic model of lay piety, but rather participate in the Jain tradition by means of other religious activities that are often the more visible features of Jainism. These include temple worship, pilgrimage, observance of holidays, veneration of monks and participation in Jain ‘rites of passage’. From the outside many of these would appear to have only a tenuous connection with Jain asceticism; yet the ascetic model has at least penetrated these to some extent, and long historical association has woven them into a ritual and philosophical whole that exhibits great continuity with Jainism’s earliest teachings.
Temple Worship
The most visible non-ascetic practice is the temple cult. Although Jainism teaches no creator deity, Jains do venerate the Jinas as humans who have attained a god-like perfection. There is an extraordinary profusion of Jain temples to be found in India, so that few Jain communities, however small, are likely to be without one or more. Evidence of a cult of images as old as the first century BCE, and votive slabs from the early Christian Era, found at Mathura, show images of Tirthankaras in standardized forms identical to those in later temples: seated in deep meditation or standing erect, arms and hands held at the side, in an attitude of immobile bodily discipline (cf. the great statue of Bahubali (Gommateshvara) at Shravana-Belgola in Karnataka, Mysore).
The seated image came to dominate Jain iconography, and at least one such image is the focal point of each Jain temple. This image is offered puja (‘worship’, i.e. homage shown by acts of symbolic hospitality) by laypersons according to their private patterns of temple attendance. Jains are enjoined to perform puja especially in the early morning, after bathing and before breakfasting.
The ceremony itself is constructed around a basic rite known as the ‘eightfold worship’, though it can be much more elaborate [see 1]. For the purpose of discussion, the ritual can be divided into four basic parts.
1 Before coming to the temple, the worshipper bathes and dons clean clothes. Upon entering the temple, the worshipper approaches the central shrine, and with hands folded in a gesture of prayer bows down before the image of the Jina while reciting verses of obeisance to the Jina’s teaching. In many cases the central shrine is a discrete room in the middle of the temple; if this so, the worshipper circumambulates the shrine three times clockwise, while singing hymns of praise.
2 Now the worshipper enters the central shrine and begins the eightfold worship proper. The worshipper offers the image a symbolic bath, dabs it at nine places with cooling sandalwood paste, places whole flowers on the image, waves incense before it, and waves a lamp before it. These five actions are collectively known as the ‘limb worship’, for in them the worshipper physically touches the limbs of the image.
3 The worshipper leaves the shrine room and performs the second part of the eightfold worship, known as the ‘facing worship’, because the actions are done while facing, but not touching, the image. On a small table the worshipper makes the final three offerings of unbroken grains of rice, food (usually in the form of a hard sweet) and fruit. The rice is formed into the Jain svastika (as shown in the area within the dotted rectangle of figure 7.2). Jains interpret the four arms of the svastika as representing the four possible levels of existence within the round of rebirth: divine, human, nether world, and animal/vegetable; the three dots are the religious virtues of insight, knowledge and conduct, that collectively constitute the religious path to liberation, which is represented by the crescent [7: 108, 200].
4 The eightfold worship is known as physical worship (dravya puja), for in it the individual offers physical substances to the image. The final part of the ceremony is known as spiritual worship (bhava puja), for rather than making physical offerings, the person engages in spiritual veneration. The worshipper sings his or her own favourite hymns, and recites the universal Jain prayer known as the Litany of Reverence (Namaskara Mantra):
I revere the Jinas.
I revere the [other] liberated souls.
I revere the monastic leaders.
I revere the monastic preceptors.
I revere all monks in the world.
This fivefold reverence
destroys all demeritorious karma
and of all holies
is the foremost holy.
Many, but by no means all, Jains perform temple puja daily, and there is great variation in the style of its performance from one individual to the next. The temples more commonly draw the entire community to them on festival occasions, particularly those that celebrate events in the lives of the Tirthankaras or other cardinal events in Jain history. On such occasions elaborate puja ceremonies are staged, often including decorations and renewal of a temple’s images.
This act of worship is related to ascetic Jainism in that its stated purpose is to focus the layperson’s desires on detachment from material existence as represented by the virtues of renunciation and dispassion, physically symbolized in the Tirthankara’s image, and thus to reduce karmic bondage. But it is doubtful that its significance ends there. It is also fruitful to see puja in Jainism as an institution that gives the lay community a sense of identity in addition to the identity derived from the ascetic ideals and monastic lineages. The temple cult is largely the province of laypersons. Monks and nuns may not serve as temple officiants, nor is their presence during puja even welcomed. Temple servants, who may assist with puja and who care for the images and the temple itself, are from the lay community and in the case of the Shvetambaras are usually not even Jains, but rather high- or middle-caste Hindus. Nevertheless, ascetics have often attached themselves to temples for purposes of study and teaching, are centrally involved in the consecration of images and the propagation of the temple cult, and among southern Digambaras have become almost a class of temple specialists. As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the Sthanakavasis and Terapanthis object to the temple complex and the veneration of images. In place of the temple cult, they focus on meditative veneration of the Jinas, instruction by monks and nuns, confession and study [7: 215–24].
Briefly put, the temple-cultus in Jainism, while penetrated by the ascetic ideal and orthodox Jain teachings, is also kept apart from asceticism by being – at least ideally – outside the domain of monastic control. Thus the Jain layperson, while being drawn towards the rigorous ideals of an ascetic tradition, also has an institutional arena in his or her religious life in which lay control is dominant.
Pilgrimage and Holidays
Pilgrimage to holy places is an important act for Jains, and is closely related to the purposes of temple puja. Pilgrimage sites are associated with events, especially the attainment of final liberation, in the lives of Tirthankaras and other great Jain saints, and pious laypersons have endowed such sites with great complexes of temples and shrines. Among major sites of pilgrimage are Sammeta Shikhara and Pavapuri (in Bihar), and Mt Girnar (in Saurashtra), all of which are sites where Tirthankaras attained liberation; also Shatrunjaya (in Gujarat), Mt Abu (in Rajasthan) and Shravana-Belgola (Karnataka), which are sites of major temples and monuments celebrating the asceticism of Tirthankaras and other Jain saints.
Jains also celebrate a complex calendar of holidays whose principal festivals are, like many pilgrimage rites, linked to five major events in the lives of the Tirthankaras, especially Rishabha (the first Tirthankara), Mahavira and his predecessor Parshva. The events are: (1) descent into the mother’s womb; (2) birth; (3) ascetic renunciation; (4) attainment of omniscience; (5) physical death and final liberation. Many of these events are particularly celebrated by pilgrimage to sites associated with the Tirthankaras; and the birth date and death/liberation date of Mahavira (March/April in Caitra and October/November in Karttika) are widely celebrated by all Jain communities. A wide range of other celebrations and monthly fast-days are also observed [see 12: 146–225]. Notable among these is Akshayatritiya (‘the immortal third’, celebrated on the third day of the waxing moon in Vaishakh (April/May)), commemorating the first giving of alms to the first Tirthankara, Rishabha, and emphasizing the virtue of alms-giving to ascetics in general.
But perhaps the most significant holiday period is Paryushana, held for eight days (by Shvetambaras) or ten days (by Digambaras) in the months of Shravana and Bhadrapada (August/September), while the monks and nuns are in their rainy-season retreat [8: 189–211; 4: 157–85]. In this period, laypersons particularly seek to perform fasting and austerities on the ascetic model, and to spend time with monastic leaders. The holiday thus takes advantage of the rain-retreat, which brings ascetics and laypersons together for a protracted period. It also serves the lay community itself, for on the final day of Paryushana, known as Samvatsari, laypersons make a general confession for the transgressions of the past year, not only to their monastic confessors but also to each other. Letters are written and visits paid for the purpose of asking and extending forgiveness. Persons will often return to home villages and towns for these holidays and the accompanying activities. Thus Paryushana, while it emphasizes the layperson’s efforts to participate in ascetic activities, also serves to bind together the lay community and strengthen its identity.
Rites of Passage
As one would expect in a tradition whose fundamental basis is ascetic and which counsels absolute detachment from social values and material existence, the oldest Jain teachings do not establish norms in the area of religious life to do with life-cycle rites, an area of great importance for communal identity in a social setting. In the period after 500 CE, when Jainism was growing vigorously, the problem became critical. Various efforts at defining the Jain relationship to Hindu day-to-day religious culture came to full fruition in the eighth century CE in the Digambara Jinasena’s Adipurana, a Jain purana, or ‘account of ancient things’. In it, Jinasena sought to establish a Jain version of the Hindu samskaras, or life-cycle rites (see pp. 289–90).
In this case, however, the ideal has not fully penetrated day-today practice. Jinasena’s vision of the life-cycle rites extends to fifty-three ‘sacraments’, of which the first twenty-two cover the life-cycle of the lay householder, while the remaining thirty-one ‘sacramental’ stages trace one’s life through post-householder ascetic renunciation, rebirths on the ascetic path and, finally, absolute liberation. But Jains, by and large, use a series of life-cycle rites only somewhat different from its Hindu counterpart.
One significant difference does remain between the Jain and Hindu rites, in that most Jains do not observe the rites of shraddha, the post-funeral rites that Hindus observe in order to effect the transition of the deceased’s soul from one existence to the next. These rites have been sharply decried by Jain teachers as being contrary to Jain views concerning the jiva and the workings of karma [12: 302–4]. Jains thus cremate their dead ceremonially, and might performa commemorative puja in the temple, but there the formal life-cycle rites end. Hence, even where Hindu practice appears to have been adopted by Jains, at least one characteristic sign of Jain orthodoxy remains, enough perhaps to mark a distinctive identity even in this area where the Jain lay community most resembles its larger Hindu context.
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Developments in Jainism
Remarkably little is known about the actual condition of the Jain community at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lay Jain communities appear to have been thoroughly embedded in the broader Indian cultural milieu, and to many outside observers such as early British merchants and administrators the Jains appeared to be merely a subsect of the Hindu merchant castes. The number of fully fledged monks, who observed the letter of the five great vows, was quite small: perhaps several dozen each among the Shvetambara Murtipujakas, Sthanakavasis and Terapanthis, and even fewer among the Digambaras. The dominant monastic form among Murtipujakas and Digambaras was that of quasi-priestly resident monks, known as yatis among the Murtipujakas and bhattaraks among the Digambaras. These resident monks held legal title to their monasteries, and in some cases also controlled extensive landed estates. The monks fulfilled a number of social roles, from acting as hereditary caste priests to performing magical and healing rituals.
Reform Movements
Through a process the origins of which are still obscure, a number of monks and lay Jains came to criticize the existing state of the Jain community and instituted a vigorous movement of reform. This reform was not without precedents, however. Periodically throughout Jain history influential laymen and monks have criticized their contemporary Jain community as lax and debased in its religious observances, and called for a return to Mahavira’s original teachings of non-harm, renunciation and asceticism. The history of many of the Shvetambara gacchas (mendicant lineages) revolved around charismatic reforming monks, assisted at some times by leaders of the lay community, and at other times by kings.
The nineteenth- and twentieth-century reform movement was led by both monks and laity. The leading Murtipujaka monk was one Acharya Vijay Anandsuri (1837–96), who began his monastic career as a Sthanakavasi monk named Atmaramji (the name by which he continued to be known). Through studying Jain texts he became convinced that the Sthanakavasi opposition to image worship was wrong, and so in 1876 in Ahmedabad he and eighteen of his Sthanakavasi disciples were reinitiated as Murtipujaka monks in the Tapa Gaccha, the dominant Murtipujaka lineage, in a public ceremony. Atmaramji spent the remaining twenty years of his life preaching against the yatis and for reform of monastic praxis, initiating monks, converting Sthanakavasis to the Murtipujaka position, and encouraging laity to build and renovate temples. He also came to the attention of Western scholars, and was even invited to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, but declined to attend since to do so would violate his monastic vow of non-harm. (In his stead he educated and sent a young layman named Virchand Gandhi, who was one of the foreign stars of the Parliament.) The number of fully fledged Murtipujaka monks increased greatly under Atmaramji, and continued to increase dramatically under his successors, so that in the mid-1980s the number of monks in the Tapa Gaccha was nearly 1,200, and the number of nuns nearly 3,700 [4: 491–4]. At the same time, the institution of the yati has nearly disappeared in little over a century. Similar revivals of the monastic orders also occurred among the Digambaras and Sthanakavasis, although the growth in the number of monks has not been as dramatic.
While Atmaramji and other monks were preaching reform, leading members of the laity were also aroused to reinvigorate their tradition. In part they were inspired by the joint challenge of British colonial rule and Christian missionary efforts, but these reformers also had before them the memory of the earlier and totally indigenous reforms. What was new about the nineteenth- and twentieth-century movement was not the idea of reform, but rather certain aspects of the methods and the content of reform, as well as the rhetoric of modernity in which the reforms were couched. The principal vehicles for the lay reform efforts were well-funded lay conferences, founded around the turn of the century. They were organized along sectarian lines, except for the All-India Jain Association, which remains as an effort to bridge the long-standing and deep sectarian divides within the Jain community. These conferences published magazines and newspapers in both English and vernacular languages to spread their message of reform. They also held large conventions every few years, attended by thousands of laypeople. These conventions were organized along Western lines, with chairmen, subcommittees, delegates and the adoption of formal resolutions.
The resolutions tell us much about the thrust of this reform movement. Some were concerned with advancing the legal position under the British colonial government; but most were aimed inwardly at the community itself. They called for the establishment of commercial, religious and women’s educational institutions. They urged financial support for the restoration of the traditional Jain manuscript libraries, the publication of critical editions of ancient and medieval texts, and the distribution of vernacular religious literature. Among the Murtipujakas there were calls for the restoration and rebuilding of famous old temples. Laity were urged to withdraw their support of yatis, and in many cases lay congregations filed lawsuits against yatis to gain control over the monasteries, temples and libraries controlled by the latter. Finally, Jains were urged to abandon a wide array of ‘harmful practices’ and return to a more strictly Jain ceremonial life in accordance with the Jain emphasis on ahimsa. These practices included social customs such as child marriage, polygamy, intermarriage with Hindus, and paying bride-price, as well as religious practices such as excessive mourning at funerals, worshipping Hindu deities and observing Hindu or Muslim festivals. The end result was to engender in the Jain community a sense of ‘Jainness’ in contrast to Hinduism and the surrounding Indian culture.
While the Jain community was consciously trying to change itself, broader currents in Indian society were effecting changes with far-reaching consequences. The fact that the offices of several of the sectarian conferences were in Bombay, rather than in older centres of Jain population, indicates the extent to which even in the nineteenth century the Jains were migrating within India. Bombay, in Maharashtra, is now far and away the largest Jain population centre (see figure 7.1), and many villages and small towns in Gujarat and Rajasthan in which Jains lived for over a thousand years have lost as much as 90 per cent of their Jain population. This migration to Bombay (as well as other metropolitan centres such as Madras, New Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Jaipur) has been in search of the greater economic possibilities these cities provide. The Jains have on the whole been very successful in fields such as manufacturing, wholesale marketing and gemstones, so that per capita they now are one of the wealthiest communities in India. This increase in wealth has allowed the Jains to pay for many of the reform projects, such as renovating temples, establishing research institutes and schools, and underwriting publication of Jain texts. In addition, since many newly wealthy Jains attribute their wealth in part to their devotion to individual charismatic monks, this money has been channelled into public expression of that devotion through building new temples and donating large sums on public occasions such as festivals and monastic initiations.
The Jain tradition has also seen several new movements in the twentieth century. One was initiated by a Shvetambara layman named Raychandbhai Mehta, known as Shrimad Rajchandra (1867–1901) [7: 224–7]. He was influenced by the spiritual writings of the second- or third-century Digambara philosopher Kundakunda, and devoted the final years of his life to intensive meditation and fasting. Rajchandra also had a significant influence on his slightly younger contemporary, Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi, through whom the Jain ideals of ahimsa were brought into the political sphere. Another movement influenced by the writings of Kundakunda was that started by Kanjisvami (1889–1980), a Sthanakavasi monk who in 1934 declared himself to be a Digambara layman [7: 227–32]. In recent years these two movements, both of which are centred in Saurashtra in Gujarat, have come together as a new community of Digambara laity known as the Kanjisvami Pantha, from which monks are conspicuously absent, although there is a small number of lifelong celibates who are accorded respect.
Jainism, like all religious traditions, has exhibited a range of responses to the problems posed by modernity and secularism to a world-view based not upon the post-Enlightenment Western principle of doubt and scientific method, but rather upon a notion of absolute truth expressed in the omniscience of Mahavira. The Shvetambara Terapanthis, under their charismatic leader Acharya Tulsi (b. 1924), have launched a number of vigorous programmes designed both to revitalize the Terapanthis and to reach a larger audience [7: 218–24]. In 1949 Tulsi inaugurated the Anuvrat Movement, designed to purify Indian social life of corruption through the application of the twelve lay vows of Jainism. Another innovation is prekshadhyana, associated with Tulsi’s successor Acharya Mahaprajna. This is a form of meditation, aimed at both monks and laypeople, that claims to revive the Jains’ long-lost meditation system. A third development under Tulsi has been the creation of a new class of temporary monks and nuns, known as samans (monks) and samanis (nuns). While they take the five great vows, the vows are modified so that they can travel abroad and thus minister to the growing overseas Jain population.
A rather different response to the challenges of modernity can be seen in what might be called ‘Jain fundamentalism’. One expression of this trend has been a rejection of Western astronomy and an affirmation of the traditional Jain cosmographical teachings, found in Prakrit and Sanskrit texts, of a flat earth at the centre of the universe. Under the guidance of the late Shvetambara Murtipujaka monk Abhaysagar (1924–86), a temple was built at Palitana, Gujarat, designed to illustrate the Jain cosmography, and a research institute was founded with the task of scientifically proving this cosmography. A similar temple and research institute were founded at Hastinapur, Uttar Pradesh, under the guidance of the Digambara nun Jnanmati (b. 1933). A more far-reaching rejection of many aspects of modern society has been initiated by the Shvetambara Murtipujaka monk Chandrashekharvijay (b. 1934). At Navsari, Gujarat, he has established a boarding school called Wealth of Asceticism (Tapodhan) to raise Jain youth on strictly Jain lines. His teachings have been spread throughout the Shvetambara community through his many books, a monthly magazine called The Messenger of Liberation (Muktidut) and a voluntary organization of young men known as Vir Sainik, ‘Mahavira’s Army’. Chandrashekharvijay emphasizes physical discipline, respect of elders, self-sufficiency and personal piety. He has also engaged in various social campaigns emphasizing a reliance upon Jain virtues of asceticism and frugality in the face of a society perceived to be materialistic and morally decadent.
The Jain Diaspora
Perhaps the most significant change in the later twentieth century has been the emigration of Jains from India. While medieval narratives are full of accounts of Jain merchants travelling to south-east Asia, and during the British empire period Jain merchants went to Burma, Malaya and Africa to pursue business opportunities, in almost all cases the men went alone, and considered their natal village or town as home. In the early years of this century Jains in eastern and southern Africa began to bring their families to settle with them, but the flow of emigrants did not swell until the 1965 liberalization of US immigration laws allowed South Asians more easily to settle permanently in America [16]. In recent years the number of Jains in North America has grown dramatically, from some 1,900 families in 1979 to over 5,000 families in 1992. The Jain community is relatively affluent, with over half being in professions such as engineering and medicine, and the rest being businessmen. The number of Jain centres has grown accordingly, from the first centre in 1966, to nine in 1979, to sixty-eight in 1992 [10]. Several dozen of these centres have temples, some housed in converted churches, some in structures shared with local Hindu communities, but increasingly built from the ground up as temples. A significant Jain population also resides in England. Most English Jains live in London, but the major English temple is in Leicester. The majority of the English Jains came not directly from India but via East Africa, many being forced out of Uganda by Idi Amin [2]. Other centres of diaspora Jains are Antwerp, Belgium, with a small but wealthy population of diamond traders; Kobe, Japan, where a community of pearl merchants has built a temple; and Nairobi, Kenya, which also has a temple.
The strictures of the monastic code make it impossible for a monk to follow the monastic rules fully and travel abroad. As a result, the diaspora Jain community, for perhaps the first time in Jain history, is almost exclusively a lay community. In 1971 the Shvetambara Murtipujaka monk Chandraprabhsagar (b. 1922), better known by his pen-name Chitrabhanu, broke with tradition and travelled to New York. He was joined three years later by the late Sthanakavasi monk Sushilkumar (1926–94). For many years their followers were largely young Americans, but in recent years their American following has fallen off and they have become the leading ascetics of the diaspora community. Chitrabhanu formally renounced his monastic status, but Sushilkumar did not, which has caused some controversy among the Jains both in India and abroad. In recent years they have been joined by several other Murtipujaka and Sthanakavasi monks. In addition, Digambara bhattaraks from south India, and Shvetambara Terapanthi samans and samanis, whose vows do permit them to travel, have filled an important role as occasional travelling preachers in Europe and North America.
Most of the diaspora Jains are Shvetambara Murtipujakas from Gujarat, but there are also many Sthanakavasis, Terapanthis, Kanjisvami Panthis and Digambaras from throughout north and western India. As a result of this cultural and sectarian diversity, coupled with the small size of the Jain population in any one city, the Jain centres in North America are consciously non-sectarian, and have worked to harmonize differences in temple ritual and the annual calendar. This downplaying of sectarian differences has been championed by the Federation of Jain Associations in North America (JAINA), the umbrella organization founded in 1981. Through its quarterly magazine and biennial conventions JAINA has worked to create a single Jain identity in North America. Almost 10,000 Jains attended the eighth JAINA Biennial in Chicago in July 1995.
The question of Jain identity has been at issue throughout the history of the tradition, and never more so than today among diaspora Jains. To a significant extent Jain self-identity has been tied to the monks, and the very terms of sectarian identification are drawn from matters of monastic praxis. In the absence of any significant monastic community, the diaspora Jains have had to seek new emblems of self-identity. A further problem faced by the diaspora community is the lack of its traditional intellectual resources, the monks, so that the laity have to fill new roles in the propagation and passing on of the religious teachings. In India, Jain identity is a matter of monastic affiliation on the one hand, and familial and cultural milieu on the other. Without either of these, the Jains in the West could easily blend into the larger Hindu diaspora community. In recent years Jains have come to identify their tradition as being centred on three basic expressions of the cardinal principle of ahimsa: non-violence, vegetarianism and ecological harmony. Non-violence is expressed through support for animal rights and similar causes; but the Jains to date have not entered into dialogue with the Western pacifist tradition of socially engaged non-violence. Vegetarianism is expressed through support for organizations that publicly espouse vegetarianism, but is more of an emblem of personal identity and religiosity. Ecological harmony is a new expression of the Jain principle of ahimsa, largely dating from 1990, when Jains from throughout the world presented ‘The Jain Declaration on Nature’ to Britain’s Prince Philip, the president of the World Wildlife Fund, as part of the Jains’ entry into WWF’s Network on Conservation and Religion. This declaration reviews the Jain teachings of ahimsa, anekantavada, meditative equanimity, karmic compassion, cosmography and the twelve lay vows to show how they represent a proto-ecological ethic of interdependence and harmony. This rhetoric of ecological Jainism has been accorded a prominent place in Jain newsletters and at the recent JAINA conventions. While it remains to be seen whether ecology becomes an enduring and meaningful part of the self-identity of diaspora Jains, the vibrancy and creativity of the Jain encounter with ecology indicate the resources the tradition can bring to bear in its encounter with the pervasive forces of change and modernity.
Appendix A: Major Texts of the Shvetambara Agama
The texts listed below were all written in Prakrit, but, following the common practice, the Sanskritized forms for their tides are given here. An asterisk indicates that the work is available in translation in a European language (see bibliography below).
| Aṅgas | Other important texts |
| *Ācārāṅga | *Ācāradaśāḥ |
| *Sūtrakrtāṅga | *Bṛhatkalpa |
| Sthānāṅga | *Vyavahāra |
| Samavāya | Niśītha |
| *Vyākhyāprajñapti (Bhagavatī) | *Mahāniśītha |
| *Jñātṛdharmakathāḥ | *Daśavaikālika |
| *Upāsakadaśāḥ | *Uttarādhyayana |
| *Antakṛddaśāḥ | Āvaśyaka |
| *Anuttaraupapatikadasah | Nandi |
| Praśnavyākaraṇa | *Anuyogadvāra |
| Vipākaśruta | |
| Dṛṣṭivāda (extinct) |
Appendix B: Major Prakrit and Sanskrit Works
What follows is a highly limited selection of works by major authors, divided according to subject-matter. An asterisk indicates that the work is available in translation into European languages (see bibliography). The most comprehensive account of this literature in general is contained in Maurice Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, vol. 2, Buddhist Literature and Jaina Literature [20]. The literature concerning lay disciplines is best surveyed in R. Williams, Jaina Yoga [19]. See also the bibliographies to P. Dundas, The Jains [7], and K. W. Folkert, Scripture and Community [8].
Narrative literature, including Jain Puranas
Paümacariya, Vimalasūri (claimed by both Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras), c. fifth century CE
Ādipurāṇa, Jinasena (Digambara), eighth century CE
Uttarapurāṇa, Guṇabhadra (Digambara), ninth century CE
*Triṣaṣṭ
śalākāpuruṣacaritra, Hemacandra (Śvetāmbara), twelfth century CE
Writings on lay discipline
Ratnakaraṇḍa, Samantabhadra (Digambara), fifth century CE
Yaśastilaka, Somadeva (Digambara), tenth century CE
Srāvakācāra, Amitagati (Digambara), eleventh century CE
Yogaśāstra, Hemacandra (Śvetāmbara), twelfth century CE
Sāgāradharmāmṛta, Āśādhara (Digambara), thirteenth century CE
Commentary on Mānavijaya’s Dharmasaṁgraha, Yaśovijaya (Śvetāmbara), seventeenth century CE
Didactic and philosophical writings
*Tattvārthādhigamasūtra, Umāsvāti (claimed by both Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras), second century CE(?)
Mūlācāra of Vaṭṭtakera (Digambara), c. second century CE
*Pravacanasāra of Kundakunda (Digambara), second – third century CE
Āptamīmāṃsā, Samantabhadra (Digambara), fifth century CE
*Nyāyāvatāra, Siddhasena (claimed by both Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras), fifth century CE
*Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya, Haribhadra (Śvetāmbara), eighth century CE
*Pramāṇamīmāṃsā, Hemacandra (Śvetāmbara), twelfth century CE
*Anyayogavyavacchedikā, Hemacandra (Śvetāmbara), twelfth century CE
*Syādvādamañjarī (a commentary on the foregoing), by Malliṣeṇa (Śvetāmbara), thirteenth century CE
*Jaina Tarka Bhāṣā, Yaśovijaya (Svetāmbara), seventeenth century CE
Bibliography
Works cited in the text
1 BABB, L. A., Absent Lord: Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996
2 BANKS, M., Organizing Jainism in India and England, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992
3 CARRITHERS, M., and HUMPHREY, C., (eds), The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991
4 CORT, J. E., ‘Liberation and Wellbeing: A Study of the Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains of North Gujarat’, PhD thesis, Harvard University, 1989
5 CORT, J. E., ‘The Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jain Mendicant’, Man, n. s. vol. 26, 1991, pp. 549–69
6 DEO, S. B., History of Jaina Monachism, Poona, Deccan College, 1956
7 DUNDAS, P., The Jains, London, Routledge, 1992
8 FOLKERT, K. W., Scripture and Community: Collected Essays on the Jains (ed. J. E. Cort), Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1993
9 JACOBI, H., Jaina Sūtras, vol. 1, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1884 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 22)
10 Jain Directory of North America, 1992, Norwood, MA, Jain Center of Greater Boston, 1992
11 JAINI, P. S., Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1991
12 JAINI, P. S., The Jaina Path of Purification, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1979
13 LAIDLAW, J., Riches and Renunciation: Religion, Economy, and Society among the Jains, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995
14 MAHIAS, M. -C., Délivrance et Convivialité: Le Système Culinaire des Jaina, Paris, Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1985
15 SCHUBRING, W., The Doctrine of the Jainas (tr. W. Beurlen), Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1962
16 SEELING, H., ‘The Jain Tradition in America: Centers, Organizations, and Temples’, paper prepared for The Pluralism Project, Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University, 1992
17 SHÂNTÂ, N., La Voie Jaina: Histoire, Spiritualité, Vie des Ascètes Pèlerines de l’Inde, Paris, OEIL, 1985
18 TATIA, N., Studies in Jaina Philosophy, Banaras, Jain Cultural Research Society, 1951
19 WILLIAMS, R., Jaina Yoga: A Study of the Mediaeval Śrāvakācāras, London, Oxford University Press, 1963
20 WINTERNITZ, M., A History of Indian Literature, vol. 2, Buddhist Literature and Jaina Literature (tr. S. Ketkar and H. Kohn), Calcutta, University of Calcutta Press, 1933
Translations of Jain texts listed in the appendices
21 Ācāradaśāh: JACOBI, H., Jaina Sūtras, vol. 2, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 45)
22 Acaranga: JACOBI, H., Jaina Sutras, vol. 1, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1884 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 22)
23 Antakṛddaśāḥ: BARNETT, L. D., The Antagadadasāo and Anuttarovavāiyadasāo, London, Royal Asiatic Society, 1907
24 Anuttaraupapātikaadśāh: BARNETT, L. D., The Antagaḍadasāo and Anuttarovavāiyadasāo, London, Royal Asiatic Society, 1907
25 Anuyogadvāra: HANAKI, T., Anuogaddārāiṃ, Vaishali, Research Institute of Prakrit, Jainology, and Ahimsa, 1970
26 Anyayogavyavacchedikā: THOMAS, F. W., The Flower-Spray of the Quodammodo Doctrine, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1960
27 Bṛhatkalpa: SCHUBRING, W., Das Kalpa-sūtra, die alte Sammlung jinistischer Monchsvorschriften, Leipzig, G. Kreysing, 1905; Eng. tr. M. S. Burgess, ‘The Kalpa-Sutra: An Old Collection of Disciplinary Rules for Jaina Monks’, Indian Antiquary, vol. 39, 1910, pp. 257–67
28 Daśavaikālika: LALWANI, K. C., Daśavaikālika-sutra, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1973
29 Jaina Tarka Bhāṣā: BHARGAVA, DAYANAND, Jaina Tarka Bhāṣā, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1973
30 Jñātṛdharmakathāh: VAIDYA, N. V., Nāyādhammakahāo, 2 vols, Poona, author, n.d.
31 Mahāniśītha: DELEU, J., and SCHUBRING. W., Studien zum Mahānisīha, Hamburg, Cram, de Gruyter & Co., 1963, chs 1–5
32 Nyāyāvatāra: UPADHYE, A. N., Siddhasena’s Nyāyāvatāra and Other Works, Bombay, Jain Sahitya Vikasa Mandala, 1971
33 Pramāṅamīmāṃsā: MOOKERJEE, S., and TATIA, N., Pramāṅaṃīmāṃsā of Hemacandra, Varanasi, Tara Publications, 1970
34 Pravacanasāra: UPADHYE, A. N., Śrī Kundakundācārya’s Pravacanasāra (Pavayanasāra), a Pro-Canonical Text of the Jainas, Bombay, Shetha Manilal Revashankar Jhaveri, 1935
35 ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya: SATCHIDANANDA MURTY, K., Shad-Darsana Samuccaya (A Compendium of Six Philosophies), Tenali, Tagore Publishing House, 1957
36 Sutrakrtanga: JACOBI, H., Jaina Sutras, vol. 2, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 45)
37 Syādvādamañjarī: THOMAS, F. W., The Flower-Spray of the Quodammodo Doctrine, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1960
38 Tattvārthādhigamasūtra: JAINI, J. L., Tattvārtha-sūtra of Umāsvāti, Arrah, Central Jaina Publishing House, 1920
39 Triṣaṣṭśalākapurusacaritra: JOHNSON, H. M., The Lives of Sixty-Three Illustrious Persons, 6 vols, Baroda, Oriental Institute, 1930–62
40 Upāsakadaśāḥ: HOERNLE, A. F. R., The Uvāsagadasāo, or The Religious Profession of an Uvasaga, 2 vols, Calcutta, Bibliotheca Indica, 1888–90
41 Uttarādhyayana: JACOBI, H., Jaina Sūtras, vol. 1, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1884 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 22)
42 Vyākhyāprajñapti (Bhagavatī): LALWANI, K. C., Bhagavatī Sutra, 4 vols, Calcutta, Jain Bhawan, 1973–85
43 Vyavahāra: French and German tr. C. Caillat in W. Schubring (ed.), Drei Chedasūtras des Jaina-Kanons, Hamburg, Cram, de Gruyter & Co., 1966, pp. 49–89