The study of Jainism as a living religion is still hampered by a lack of reliable sociological an... more The study of Jainism as a living religion is still hampered by a lack of reliable sociological and demographic information both on the Jain laity and Jain mendicants. 1 Most empirical studies to date have been thematically oriented or were of an exploratory nature. They were based on the methods advanced by the classical anthropological village studies or on small surveys of a nonrepresentative nature. 2 In both cases, the units of investigation were defined in terms of observer categories 3 which were often created ad hoc in the field due to the advantages of snowball sampling under conditions of limited resources. In a paper read at the American Oriental Society Meeting in 1978, at a time when comprehensive field studies had yet to be conducted, the late Kendall Folkert (1993: 156) suggested avoiding the inevitable abstractions of 'general accounts of the Jains' by concentrating on 'the smaller divisions within the tradition' which 'have actually been the basic units of the tradition'. What Folkert had in mind was to study the individual 'schools, sects or orders' (gaccha) of the Jain mendicant tradition, 4 rather than 'Jain religious culture' in general. 5 Certainly, not all Jains coalesce around monastic groups, but the majority does so in one way or another. The investigation of categories which are recognised by the Jains themselves promises indeed to yield testable results of greater accuracy and relevance for the Jain community itself. However, the research programme envisaged by Folkert has yet to be implemented. 6 Despite the pioneering studies of Vilas Sangave (1959/1980) on the social divisions of the Jain lay community and of Muni Uttam Kamal Jain (1975) on the pre-modern history of the religious divisions of the Jain mendicants, most students of Jainism, and indeed most Jains, have still no way of knowing how many independent mendicant orders exist today and how they are organised. 7 The aim of this chapter is to fill this gap and to provide a brief overview of the present schools, orders and sects 8 within both the Fvetambaraand the Digambara-denomination 9 and to bring together the available demographic data on the current Jain monastic traditions.
The past ten years have seen the interest in Jainism increasing, with this previously little-know... more The past ten years have seen the interest in Jainism increasing, with this previously little-known Indian religion assuming a significant place in Study of Religious. This timely collection presents original research from a cross-section of eminent scholars on varied aspects of Jaina Studies. The volume crosses disciplinary boundaries with a range of empirical and textual studies on Jainism and the Jains. Topics that are covered include the role of women in Jain society, Jaina law and property, and sectarian Jain traditions. Studies in Jaina History and Culture is a stimulating and representative snapshot of the current state of Jaina Studies that will interest students and academics involved in the study of religion or South Asian cultures.
In the last two and a half millennia the itinerant Jaina mendicant tradition exerted an important... more In the last two and a half millennia the itinerant Jaina mendicant tradition exerted an important influence on Indian culture and society. From its region of origin in modern Bihar it spread across most parts of South Asia and beyond. In the process it segmented into numerous schools, sects, and lineages, which emerged and differentiated in complex interaction with local social and political configurations. The Jaina-Prosopography Database is an open access tool for the reconstruction of the social and literary history of the Jaina tradition, by cross-referencing, statistical mapping and visualising the complex data embedded in the vast corpus of Jaina manuscripts, inscriptions and published works. At the heart of the database is a comprehensive, inductively generated taxonomy reflecting the variation of historical data in the primary sources
The article investigates the relationship between canonical rules (dharma) and customary rules (m... more The article investigates the relationship between canonical rules (dharma) and customary rules (maryādā) in contemporary Jain mendicant life. It focuses on an analysis of the Terāpanth Ś vetāmbara Jain mendicant order and presents translations and analyses of the rules and regulations and initiation rituals for a new category of Jain novices, the sama n order, which was introduced by the Terāpanth in 1981. It is argued that variations and cumulative changes in post-canonical monastic law can be understood in terms of rule specification and secondary canonization and not only in terms of exceptions to the rule. The article contributes both to the anthropology of South Asian asceticism and monasticism and to the exploration of the maryādā and āvaśyaka literatures of the Jains.
The paper presents a comparative analysis of the divination rituals performed to the yakṣīs Kūṣmā... more The paper presents a comparative analysis of the divination rituals performed to the yakṣīs Kūṣmāṇḍīnī, Jvālāmālinī and Padmāvatī at pilgrimage shrines related to the maṭhas of the Digambara bhaṭṭārakas at Mūḍabidarī, Narasiṃharājapura and Hūmchā in Coastal Karnataka and similar Hindu rituals in Central Karnataka to discern the specific features of jainisation of regional divinatory practice.
The book offers twenty indexes unlocking the wealth of data on the history of the Jaina tradition... more The book offers twenty indexes unlocking the wealth of data on the history of the Jaina tradition embedded in Johannes Klatt's Jaina-Onomasticon. The indexes were created by the authors by cross-referencing the bio-bibliographical information collated Klatt with the help of the Jaina-Prosopography Database, focusing on the structure of roles and the social, religious and geographical affiliations of more than five-thousand-and-five-hundred named Jaina authors, scribes and patrons. The introduction describes the method of prosopographical analysis and highlights key statistical correlations
The name of Johannes Emil Otto Klatt (1852-1903), classical and oriental philologist, first Libra... more The name of Johannes Emil Otto Klatt (1852-1903), classical and oriental philologist, first Librarian for Oriental Manuscripts at the Königliche Bibliothek in Berlin, and pioneer of Jaina Studies, has almost entirely disappeared from the records of 19 th century intellectual history; despite the fact that, between 1873 and 1892, as librarian and bibliographer, he became one of the pivotal figures in oriental studies. Klatt was one of a handful of scholars, coalescing around his teacher Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, who together with Georg Bühler (1837-1898) in Surat and Vienna, effectively established Jaina studies as an academic field. Not only is Klatt 'not recognised as standing among the major German Indologists of the nineteenth century', 2 he is not mentioned in any of the many recent studies on the history of oriental research, not even in those dedicated to the history of Indology in Germany, few of which touch on Jaina Studies at all. 3 Histories of the Royal Library 1 During the period of intermittent research for this contribution, between 2012 and 2016, Siegfried Schmitt, Eef Overgaauw, Nicolé Fürtig and colleagues of the Handschriftenabteilung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz offered generous support, including practical help and advice in locating relevant documents. I would like to thank all of them. I am particularly grateful to the co-editors Christoph Rauch and Siegfried Schmitt for their meticulous proof reading and supplementary information on the history and structure of the catalogues of the KBB and successor institutions. 2
mentions only KLATT's (1873) dissertation on Sanskrit gnomic literature, 1. Johannes Klatt's fami... more mentions only KLATT's (1873) dissertation on Sanskrit gnomic literature, 1. Johannes Klatt's family and life at a glance Johannes Klatt was born on 31 January in the small town of Filehne (Wieleń), in the western part of the administrative region Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) of the Prussian province of Posen (Poznań). His father Friedrich Michael Klatt (1803-1880) 10 was a postmaster, a Prussian civil servant, of Protestant-Lutheran faith. 11 On 8 January 1842 he married Caroline Wilhelmine (née Fiedler), who survived him, and spent the final years of her life with her stepsister in Braunschweig. 12 They had two children: Dr. phil. Johannes Klatt, and one younger brother, the Gymnasium teacher Dr. phil. Ludwig Klatt (c. 1859-1924), who died in Berlin as a 65-year-old childless widower. 13 In 1887, Johannes Klatt married the Berlin-born Margarete Patzig (1861-1928), the daughter of Heinrich Albert Rudolf Patzig (b. 1814 in Berlin) and Johanna Auguste Patzig (née Sprenger, later Baumann) (b. 1822 in Altenburg). They had two sons, the pedagogue and war invalid Dr. Fritz Klatt (1888-1945), a leading member of the Youth Movement, writer on literature and art, and pioneer of adult education in the Weimar Republic, who in 1930 became Professor at the Pädagogische Akademie in Hamburg, 14 and the expressionist freelance landscape painter Albert Klatt (1892-1970), 15 who, like his brother, was branded 'politically undesirable' after 1933, yet from 1948-57 worked as Professor for Watercolour Painting at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, Berlin-Charlottenburg. 16 Margarete Klatt had two older brothers, Bernhard Patzig (c. 1850-1917) and Hermann Patzig (c. 1860-1931). Bernhard Patzig never married, and lived with the family of his sister Margarete from 1892. Hermann Patzig had at least one son, Dr. med. Bernhard Patzig Jr. (1890-1958), a leading researcher at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung in the 1930-40s. Another of Margarete Klatt's nephews, Rudolf Patzig, died in WW I. 17 Evidently, almost all members of the inner circle of Johannes Klatt's nuclear family, both in
In this book, the author presents recent, somewhat unexpected, findings on the thriving cult of b... more In this book, the author presents recent, somewhat unexpected, findings on the thriving cult of bone relic stupas and the ritual role of the materiality of the dead amongst contemporary Jains. Based on extensive fieldwork in India, clear evidence is offered for the ubiquity of bone relic stupas and relic veneration across the Jain sectarian spectrum, although classical Jain doctrine rejects the worship of material objects. The unique analysis applied in this book juxtaposes field-based ethnographic materials with textual analysis. Additionally, the author adds a broad comparative scope by systematically comparing Jain textual sources with the relevant sources from the Brahmanical and Buddhist traditions. This groundbreaking work will significantly reshape the field of Jain studies and its relationship with other South Asian religious traditions. It also offers is a major contribution to the history of religions.
While 'individuality' is regarded as a cultural construct, this article argues that its trans-cul... more While 'individuality' is regarded as a cultural construct, this article argues that its trans-cultural investigation has hardly begun, both empirically and theoretically. Comparative work to date has been confined to euro-centric approaches. South Asian models of the individual, though amongst the earliest on record, have not been taken seriously as credible alternatives to European models, other than under the label of 'ethnosociology'. The present article seeks to redress the balance, by offering a sociological reconstruction of the classical concept of the individual in Jaina philosophy and of its social implications. It argues that previously opaque aspects of the dualistic conception of individuality of the Jainas can be freshly understood, and analysed, with the help of the sociological concepts of G. Simmel and N. Luhmann, which in turn are interpreted as variations of broader transcultural themes.
, born 21.8.1915 in Buckland, East Tilbury, Essex, deceased at an unknown location in 1975. His s... more , born 21.8.1915 in Buckland, East Tilbury, Essex, deceased at an unknown location in 1975. His second book Jaina Yoga: A Survey of the Medieval Śrāvakācāras became highly influential, particularly after the advent of field studies of the religious culture of Jaina laity in the 1980s, and is now widely used in research and teaching. In two brief obituary notes published by The Times in 1975, which are now virtually inaccessible, even the dates and places of his birth and death are not recorded. Regrettably, no details of his biography are traceable as yet which could elucidate the personal motives which informed his own or his academic teachers' interest in the Jaina tradition, the study of which preoccupied him throughout his brief career at SOAS. Some of the few biographical traces that are preserved in the archives of SOAS 1 and the British Library 2 are presented in the following through his own and the voices of his contemporaries. Robert H.B. Williams's life story is remarkable in many respects. Not least, because he was the only ever 'Teacher of Indo-Aryan and Jaina Studies' at the
Third printed volume of the International Journal of Jaina Studies (IJJS) of the Centre of Jaina ... more Third printed volume of the International Journal of Jaina Studies (IJJS) of the Centre of Jaina Studies at SOAS. Contributions to the journal are first published in the IJJS (Online) with a different pagination and later in book format
The study of Jainism as a living religion is still hampered by a lack of reliable sociological an... more The study of Jainism as a living religion is still hampered by a lack of reliable sociological and demographic information both on the Jain laity and Jain mendicants. 1 Most empirical studies to date have been thematically oriented or were of an exploratory nature. They were based on the methods advanced by the classical anthropological village studies or on small surveys of a nonrepresentative nature. 2 In both cases, the units of investigation were defined in terms of observer categories 3 which were often created ad hoc in the field due to the advantages of snowball sampling under conditions of limited resources. In a paper read at the American Oriental Society Meeting in 1978, at a time when comprehensive field studies had yet to be conducted, the late Kendall Folkert (1993: 156) suggested avoiding the inevitable abstractions of 'general accounts of the Jains' by concentrating on 'the smaller divisions within the tradition' which 'have actually been the basic units of the tradition'. What Folkert had in mind was to study the individual 'schools, sects or orders' (gaccha) of the Jain mendicant tradition, 4 rather than 'Jain religious culture' in general. 5 Certainly, not all Jains coalesce around monastic groups, but the majority does so in one way or another. The investigation of categories which are recognised by the Jains themselves promises indeed to yield testable results of greater accuracy and relevance for the Jain community itself. However, the research programme envisaged by Folkert has yet to be implemented. 6 Despite the pioneering studies of Vilas Sangave (1959/1980) on the social divisions of the Jain lay community and of Muni Uttam Kamal Jain (1975) on the pre-modern history of the religious divisions of the Jain mendicants, most students of Jainism, and indeed most Jains, have still no way of knowing how many independent mendicant orders exist today and how they are organised. 7 The aim of this chapter is to fill this gap and to provide a brief overview of the present schools, orders and sects 8 within both the Fvetambaraand the Digambara-denomination 9 and to bring together the available demographic data on the current Jain monastic traditions.
The past ten years have seen the interest in Jainism increasing, with this previously little-know... more The past ten years have seen the interest in Jainism increasing, with this previously little-known Indian religion assuming a significant place in Study of Religious. This timely collection presents original research from a cross-section of eminent scholars on varied aspects of Jaina Studies. The volume crosses disciplinary boundaries with a range of empirical and textual studies on Jainism and the Jains. Topics that are covered include the role of women in Jain society, Jaina law and property, and sectarian Jain traditions. Studies in Jaina History and Culture is a stimulating and representative snapshot of the current state of Jaina Studies that will interest students and academics involved in the study of religion or South Asian cultures.
In the last two and a half millennia the itinerant Jaina mendicant tradition exerted an important... more In the last two and a half millennia the itinerant Jaina mendicant tradition exerted an important influence on Indian culture and society. From its region of origin in modern Bihar it spread across most parts of South Asia and beyond. In the process it segmented into numerous schools, sects, and lineages, which emerged and differentiated in complex interaction with local social and political configurations. The Jaina-Prosopography Database is an open access tool for the reconstruction of the social and literary history of the Jaina tradition, by cross-referencing, statistical mapping and visualising the complex data embedded in the vast corpus of Jaina manuscripts, inscriptions and published works. At the heart of the database is a comprehensive, inductively generated taxonomy reflecting the variation of historical data in the primary sources
The article investigates the relationship between canonical rules (dharma) and customary rules (m... more The article investigates the relationship between canonical rules (dharma) and customary rules (maryādā) in contemporary Jain mendicant life. It focuses on an analysis of the Terāpanth Ś vetāmbara Jain mendicant order and presents translations and analyses of the rules and regulations and initiation rituals for a new category of Jain novices, the sama n order, which was introduced by the Terāpanth in 1981. It is argued that variations and cumulative changes in post-canonical monastic law can be understood in terms of rule specification and secondary canonization and not only in terms of exceptions to the rule. The article contributes both to the anthropology of South Asian asceticism and monasticism and to the exploration of the maryādā and āvaśyaka literatures of the Jains.
The paper presents a comparative analysis of the divination rituals performed to the yakṣīs Kūṣmā... more The paper presents a comparative analysis of the divination rituals performed to the yakṣīs Kūṣmāṇḍīnī, Jvālāmālinī and Padmāvatī at pilgrimage shrines related to the maṭhas of the Digambara bhaṭṭārakas at Mūḍabidarī, Narasiṃharājapura and Hūmchā in Coastal Karnataka and similar Hindu rituals in Central Karnataka to discern the specific features of jainisation of regional divinatory practice.
The book offers twenty indexes unlocking the wealth of data on the history of the Jaina tradition... more The book offers twenty indexes unlocking the wealth of data on the history of the Jaina tradition embedded in Johannes Klatt's Jaina-Onomasticon. The indexes were created by the authors by cross-referencing the bio-bibliographical information collated Klatt with the help of the Jaina-Prosopography Database, focusing on the structure of roles and the social, religious and geographical affiliations of more than five-thousand-and-five-hundred named Jaina authors, scribes and patrons. The introduction describes the method of prosopographical analysis and highlights key statistical correlations
The name of Johannes Emil Otto Klatt (1852-1903), classical and oriental philologist, first Libra... more The name of Johannes Emil Otto Klatt (1852-1903), classical and oriental philologist, first Librarian for Oriental Manuscripts at the Königliche Bibliothek in Berlin, and pioneer of Jaina Studies, has almost entirely disappeared from the records of 19 th century intellectual history; despite the fact that, between 1873 and 1892, as librarian and bibliographer, he became one of the pivotal figures in oriental studies. Klatt was one of a handful of scholars, coalescing around his teacher Albrecht Weber (1825-1901) of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin, who together with Georg Bühler (1837-1898) in Surat and Vienna, effectively established Jaina studies as an academic field. Not only is Klatt 'not recognised as standing among the major German Indologists of the nineteenth century', 2 he is not mentioned in any of the many recent studies on the history of oriental research, not even in those dedicated to the history of Indology in Germany, few of which touch on Jaina Studies at all. 3 Histories of the Royal Library 1 During the period of intermittent research for this contribution, between 2012 and 2016, Siegfried Schmitt, Eef Overgaauw, Nicolé Fürtig and colleagues of the Handschriftenabteilung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz offered generous support, including practical help and advice in locating relevant documents. I would like to thank all of them. I am particularly grateful to the co-editors Christoph Rauch and Siegfried Schmitt for their meticulous proof reading and supplementary information on the history and structure of the catalogues of the KBB and successor institutions. 2
mentions only KLATT's (1873) dissertation on Sanskrit gnomic literature, 1. Johannes Klatt's fami... more mentions only KLATT's (1873) dissertation on Sanskrit gnomic literature, 1. Johannes Klatt's family and life at a glance Johannes Klatt was born on 31 January in the small town of Filehne (Wieleń), in the western part of the administrative region Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) of the Prussian province of Posen (Poznań). His father Friedrich Michael Klatt (1803-1880) 10 was a postmaster, a Prussian civil servant, of Protestant-Lutheran faith. 11 On 8 January 1842 he married Caroline Wilhelmine (née Fiedler), who survived him, and spent the final years of her life with her stepsister in Braunschweig. 12 They had two children: Dr. phil. Johannes Klatt, and one younger brother, the Gymnasium teacher Dr. phil. Ludwig Klatt (c. 1859-1924), who died in Berlin as a 65-year-old childless widower. 13 In 1887, Johannes Klatt married the Berlin-born Margarete Patzig (1861-1928), the daughter of Heinrich Albert Rudolf Patzig (b. 1814 in Berlin) and Johanna Auguste Patzig (née Sprenger, later Baumann) (b. 1822 in Altenburg). They had two sons, the pedagogue and war invalid Dr. Fritz Klatt (1888-1945), a leading member of the Youth Movement, writer on literature and art, and pioneer of adult education in the Weimar Republic, who in 1930 became Professor at the Pädagogische Akademie in Hamburg, 14 and the expressionist freelance landscape painter Albert Klatt (1892-1970), 15 who, like his brother, was branded 'politically undesirable' after 1933, yet from 1948-57 worked as Professor for Watercolour Painting at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, Berlin-Charlottenburg. 16 Margarete Klatt had two older brothers, Bernhard Patzig (c. 1850-1917) and Hermann Patzig (c. 1860-1931). Bernhard Patzig never married, and lived with the family of his sister Margarete from 1892. Hermann Patzig had at least one son, Dr. med. Bernhard Patzig Jr. (1890-1958), a leading researcher at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Hirnforschung in the 1930-40s. Another of Margarete Klatt's nephews, Rudolf Patzig, died in WW I. 17 Evidently, almost all members of the inner circle of Johannes Klatt's nuclear family, both in
In this book, the author presents recent, somewhat unexpected, findings on the thriving cult of b... more In this book, the author presents recent, somewhat unexpected, findings on the thriving cult of bone relic stupas and the ritual role of the materiality of the dead amongst contemporary Jains. Based on extensive fieldwork in India, clear evidence is offered for the ubiquity of bone relic stupas and relic veneration across the Jain sectarian spectrum, although classical Jain doctrine rejects the worship of material objects. The unique analysis applied in this book juxtaposes field-based ethnographic materials with textual analysis. Additionally, the author adds a broad comparative scope by systematically comparing Jain textual sources with the relevant sources from the Brahmanical and Buddhist traditions. This groundbreaking work will significantly reshape the field of Jain studies and its relationship with other South Asian religious traditions. It also offers is a major contribution to the history of religions.
While 'individuality' is regarded as a cultural construct, this article argues that its trans-cul... more While 'individuality' is regarded as a cultural construct, this article argues that its trans-cultural investigation has hardly begun, both empirically and theoretically. Comparative work to date has been confined to euro-centric approaches. South Asian models of the individual, though amongst the earliest on record, have not been taken seriously as credible alternatives to European models, other than under the label of 'ethnosociology'. The present article seeks to redress the balance, by offering a sociological reconstruction of the classical concept of the individual in Jaina philosophy and of its social implications. It argues that previously opaque aspects of the dualistic conception of individuality of the Jainas can be freshly understood, and analysed, with the help of the sociological concepts of G. Simmel and N. Luhmann, which in turn are interpreted as variations of broader transcultural themes.
, born 21.8.1915 in Buckland, East Tilbury, Essex, deceased at an unknown location in 1975. His s... more , born 21.8.1915 in Buckland, East Tilbury, Essex, deceased at an unknown location in 1975. His second book Jaina Yoga: A Survey of the Medieval Śrāvakācāras became highly influential, particularly after the advent of field studies of the religious culture of Jaina laity in the 1980s, and is now widely used in research and teaching. In two brief obituary notes published by The Times in 1975, which are now virtually inaccessible, even the dates and places of his birth and death are not recorded. Regrettably, no details of his biography are traceable as yet which could elucidate the personal motives which informed his own or his academic teachers' interest in the Jaina tradition, the study of which preoccupied him throughout his brief career at SOAS. Some of the few biographical traces that are preserved in the archives of SOAS 1 and the British Library 2 are presented in the following through his own and the voices of his contemporaries. Robert H.B. Williams's life story is remarkable in many respects. Not least, because he was the only ever 'Teacher of Indo-Aryan and Jaina Studies' at the
Third printed volume of the International Journal of Jaina Studies (IJJS) of the Centre of Jaina ... more Third printed volume of the International Journal of Jaina Studies (IJJS) of the Centre of Jaina Studies at SOAS. Contributions to the journal are first published in the IJJS (Online) with a different pagination and later in book format
Article 51A(f) of the Indian Constitution recognises what many politicians and anthropologists st... more Article 51A(f) of the Indian Constitution recognises what many politicians and anthropologists still fail to do: India does not represent a civilisational whole but has a "composite culture". That this statement does not merely reflect the wishful thinking of the constituent assembly but historical fact is no more evident than in the continued presence of the ancient traditions of Buddhism and Jainism in India, which contemporary religious nationalists have for decades unsuccessfully tried to incorporate into the indefinable 'Hindu' mould; not to speak of the presence of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and diverse tribal communities. The article tries to demonstrate through the analysis of the unique conversion ritual of the Akram Vijñān Mārg, a new religious movement in the Gujarātī-speaking world, that the supposition of a civilisational unity of India or of South Asia is a theoretical abstraction which obstructs rather than illuminates the understanding of the cultural and religious history of the Indian subcontinent. Heterogeneity and processes of bricolage, mixture, syncretism or hybridisation are not merely the consequence of external cultural interaction, migration and travel, that is the advance or retreat of a welldefined cultural frontier, but situated at the very heart of religious and cultural life beyond the homogenising cultural politics of the state and organised religion. The article is based on intermittent fieldwork between 1997-2004 in Amadāvād/Ahmedabad, London, Mumbaī/Bombay, Surat, and Vaḍodarā/Baroda.
Contributions to Jaina Studies: Jaina Schools and Sects., 2020
Most textbooks present Jainism as a religion which survives in a pristine state virtually unchang... more Most textbooks present Jainism as a religion which survives in a pristine state virtually unchanged from the time of its last prophet, Mahāvīra, some 2500 years ago. Walther Schubring, for instance, wrote in his classical work The Doctrine Of The Jainas: Described After The Old Sources that the "teaching proper" of Jainism, which propagates monastic asceticism as the principal means of salvation, was "scarcely affected" by exterior changes: "The new formations which developed to remain", he writes, "are nearly exclusively concerned with formalities." This view was reiterated by Robert Williams, in his book Jaina Yoga, which describes the textual prescriptions for the traditional rituals of lay Jainism, though he emphasized that the "changelessness of Jainism is no more than a myth": "Admittedly there have been no spectacular changes in basic assumptions such as there were, for example, in Mahāyāna Buddhism. At most there have been variations in emphasis. Had Jainism, as at one time must have seemed possible, become a majority religion in southern India something akin to a Digambara Mahāyāna might, with continuing favourable circumstances, have emerged. But all that can be detected today are the traces of aborted developments." In his influential work The Jaina Path of Purification, P. S. Jaini detailed examples of the continual 'erosive' influence of Hindu devotionalism on almost every aspect of popular Jainism from the 5th century onwards, but restated Williams' view: "No movement towards a more catholic viewpoint or liberalized discipline, no "Jaina Mahāyāna," was ever allowed to develop among either the Digambaras or the Śvetāmbaras." In this chapter I will present at least one case not only of a doctrine or isolated features but of a new syncretistic religious movement which, I would argue, can legitimately be called 'Jaina Mahāyāna', i.e. a primarily devotional form of Jainism, visibly different from the ascetic path outlined in the canonical and classical Jain scriptures, which congenially combines Kundakunda's 'Digambara Mahāyāna' soteriology (which is in many ways closer to Śaṅkara's Advaita Vedānta), Sāṃkhya ontology and classical Jain cosmology with a ritual idiom that is largely derived from popular Vaiṣṇava devotionalism and Tantric miracle cults.
Jaina Studies - Newsletter of the Centre of Jaina Studies, 2020
The article introduces the term 'non-tīrtha' as a new analytical category to desi... more The article introduces the term 'non-tīrtha' as a new analytical category to designate Jaina sacred sites that have vanished or do not yet exist, according to the cyclical Jaina conception of history. It presents new evidence on two different Digambara 'non-sites': Māmoṃ (Bhāmauna) and Tumain (Tumbavana). The Digambara temple of Māmoṃ has completely disintegrated, but is still listed as a tīrtha in Jaina pilgrimage guides, while the non-tīrtha of Tumain is not listed, despite its numerous ancient Jaina sculptures, pillars, and other historical remains. The article presents evidence for the long-sought location of a Jaina temple, and a previously unpublished 10th to 11th century Vaiṣṇava copper-plate inscription, featuring one of the oldest known epigraphic records pertaining to the history of yoga.
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Papers by Peter Flügel