Absent Lord: An Ascetic's Life

Chogmal (his original name) was born on Mahavir Jayanti^[1] in 1839 C.E. in the town of Phalodi in what was then Jodhpur State (Marwar). His father belonged to the Golecha clan (gotra) of the Osval caste. Our biographer reports that Chogmal's birth was preceded by an augury. One night his mother was awakened by a remarkable dream of the sun. In the morning his father asked his guru to interpret the dream. The guru said that a son as lustrous as the sun would be born in his house, one whose brightness would light up samsar.

Our author tells us little of Chogmal's childhood, and his narrative hits its real stride only with his young adulthood. We learn that Chogmal married the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and that after his father's death he entered business with his two brothers and began the life of a householder. Unfortunately, business went badly and the brothers fell out and separated. Chogmal then decided to depart Phalodi and seek his fortune elsewhere. He left his wife behind, and, after many difficulties on the road, he found his way to a village named Barsi. For three years he worked there in the shop of a man named Rangaji. He then returned to Phalodi, where he stayed for a year and begot a son. After this he made his way back to Barsi, and later - how much later is not clear - he again returned to Phalodi. After his wife bore him a second son, he took to the road once again, this time to Hyderabad. I suspect that these comings and goings were typical of men of his class and background.

It was in Hyderabad, our biographer tells us, that his life began to change. Here he began to associate with pious individuals with whom he engaged in a variety of ascetic exercises and ritual activities. His biographer tells us that during this period his spiritual life flourished along with his financial affairs, and that his life became a "model" of religion (dharm) and prosperity (dhan). Later, he again returned to Phalodi, and during this stay he came under the influence of a leading Khartar Gacch ascetic named Sukhsagar, who held the rank of ganadhisvar (group leader).^[7] This is, of course, the selfsame Sukhsagar who founded the samuday that bears his name (Chapter One). Chogmal asked him for initiation. Sukhsagar was encouraging but counseled delay because, as he put it, Chogmal still had some "enjoyment (bhog) karmas" remaining. Chogmal then had another son. After the birth of this son he and his wife took a vow of celibacy. He also arranged the marriages of his two older sons and his daughter.

His initiation was finally precipitated by hearing a sermon delivered by a well-known Khartar Gacch nun of those days. Inspired by what he heard, he asked his wife for permission to leave the householder's state and begged her pardon for any hardships he might have caused her, In response she expressed the wish to become a nun. On the tenth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Vaisakh (April/May) in the year 1885 C.E., Chogmal received initiation from Sukhsagar.^[2] As a monk, his name became Chagansagar, and he became a member of Sukhsagar's samuday. At the same time his wife became a nun with the name Candsriji.

At the direction of Sukhsagar, Chagansagar became the companion of a senior monk named Bhagvansagar. Their first journey together was to the village of Khicand near Phalodi where Chagansagar began his period of studies prior to final initiation (bari diksa). Although Chagansagar's officially designated guru was an ascetic named Sthansagar, this individual is hardly mentioned in our account; Bhagvansagar seems to have played the actual role of his teacher and senior mentor. Many laymen begged to have the final initiation performed in their own villages; to sponsor an initiation is, of course, highly meritorious. In the end, it was performed by Sukhsagar in the village of Lohavat (about 16 miles from Phalodi) on the eighth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Jeth (May/June) in the year 1885. Bhagvansagar and Chagansagar then set out together on their ascetic wanderings; they would continue to travel as a pair until Bhagvansagar's death in 1900.

The biography now becomes an account of their travels. This record need not be summarized in detail; it is enough to say that they visited villages, towns, temples, and pilgrimage centers, and they took the darsan of many important images. They also participated in important pilgrimage parties organized by laymen, and they undertook notable fasts. Chagansagar achieved particular fame for his ascetic practices, and as a result became generally known as Mahatapasviji (practitioner of great austerities). As the author puts it, they "obtained labh (benefit)" by means of these activities, and they "gave labh " to the people as well. Their travels were punctuated by their rainy season sojourns, which our biographer clearly sees as defining episodes in their careers. He puts great stress on the role of laymen's entreaties in bringing them to a given locale for the rainy season retreat and on the benefits their presence bestowed on the communities in which they stayed.

Lying below the particular details in this account are certain recurrent themes. Perhaps the most important of these is the biographer's constant emphasis on the role played by the two ascetics as instigators of lay piety. As the author puts it, the two constantly engage in the pracar (promulgation) of religion. This they accomplish by means of their discourses and also by the powerful example of their learning and asceticism. We are told how they inspire laymen and laywomen to take the twelve vows of the sravak dharm (or grhasth dharm)^[3] There were many others, some of whom became quite well known as ascetics. For example, a Mahesvari of Pireu (in Marwar) took initiation from him in 1906; his ascetic name was Navnidhisagarji, and he became quite famous, with many disciples of his own. Many nuns were also drawn to initiation because of Chagansagar.^[4] He had, our author asserts, much "influence" (prabhav, an important word, as we shall see in the next chapter) over Jains and non-Jains alike.]

Another strong theme in this account is that of the powerful ascetic as the protector of Jainism. Examples are abundant in the text. In the town of Medta, Chagansagar successfully debated an erudite Brahman who claimed that Jains were atheists (nastik). In Kolayatji, a Vaisnava pilgrimage center, he debated another distinguished Brahman scholar, and did so in Sanskrit; the Brahman was "influenced" (prabhavit), and declared, or so our biographer says, that in future he would hold Jain teachings in honor and that he regretted his past opinion that Jains were atheists. In Bikaner, Chagansagar debated a famous Terapanthi ascetic named Pholmalji, and defended the practices of charitable giving and dravya puja (the worship of images with material things). He also defended dravya puja in a debate in Desnok. On this occasion he stated that the materials and items used in worship are produced by householders for their "enjoyment" (bhog), and that enjoyment is what makes the world go round (bhog se samsarbarhtahai). Thus, by using these things in devotion to the Lord instead of enjoying them, the householder is in fact engaged in world renunciation. His point, of course, was that worship is properly seen as a form of asceticism, a view that we encountered in the last chapter.

Another theme is that of the miraculous. Chagansagar possessed great supernatural power and performed a large number of miracles. Our author is careful to state that he performed miracles only for the prabhavna of dharm - that is, for the glorification of Jainism. Early in his career he and Bhagvansagar had gone to Mt. Abu, and there he practiced special kinds of meditation and obtained certain siddhis (accomplishments; in this context, magical powers). After this, he saw a lion on the pathway. "Influenced" (prabhavit) by Chagansagar's new power, the lion bowed humbly and departed. In Pali, where he and Bhagvansagar spent the 1890 rainy season, the people were being tormented by dakinis (malign female supernaturals). Once, while Chagansagar was delivering a discourse there, a woman lost consciousness as a result of possession (praves, literally "entry") by a dakini, and began to dance. He quelled the disturbance by putting vasksep powder on her, and she was never troubled again. Indeed, on numerous other occasions he benefited individuals by means of what our author calls his "miraculous (camatkarik) vasksep. "He relieved many victims of ghost-possession (bhutaves). For example, he once encountered a Rajput and his wife on the road from Nagaur to Khivsar. She had become possessed by a ghost, and the Rajput begged for his assistance. Chagansagar said that if the Rajput would give up meat and liquor, all would be well. The Rajput did so, and his wife recovered completely. In Pipad he quelled a cholera epidemic. He even relieved Nagaur of a drought.^[5]

Because of Bhagvansagar's increasing age and frailty, Chagansagar and he spent the rainy season of 1893 in Lohavat, and in nearby Phalodi in 1894. From this point on they spent the rains in one or the other of these places. In 1900, Bhagvansagar died, and Chagansagar thereupon became his successor. Bhagvansagar had succeeded Sukhsagar upon the latter's death in 1885, and so Chagansagar became the third leader of this samuday.

Chagansagar continued his travels and work as before. Eventually, however, his own advancing age and the entreaties of local Jains persuaded him to spend the rains only in the vicinity of Phalodi and Lohavat. In 1908 and 1909 he spent the rainy season in Lohavat, and, at the beginning of the 1909 retreat, while doing caturmasikpratikraman^[6] with members of the community, he sneezed - highly inauspicious during pratikraman, and an ill omen. That evening in a special vision he became aware of his impending death. When his death came it was directly related to his propensity for austerities. After rigorous fasting during that year's Paryusan, and despite the entreaties of the community, he extended his samvatsari fast (the fast on the final day of Paryusan) for an extra day. Normally this fast occurs on the lunar fourth of the fortnight; he extended it to the fifth, saying that it was only because of Kalkacaryaji that samvatsari is observed on the fourth and that the time-honored date is the fifth.^[7] He died on the day after this; after blessing the community he passed away while meditating on the five paramesthins.^[8] The actual date of his death was the sixth day of the bright fortnight of the "second" lunar month of Sravan (July/August). Normally, Paryusan ends on the fourth day of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Bhadrapad (August/September), which is the month coming after Sravan. As occasionally happens, however, an extra (intercalary) Sravan was added that year in order to bring the lunar and solar years into coordination. Because of this, that year's Paryusan was observed during the second of the two Sravans, and his death thus occurred in that month.^[9]

The community, our author says, felt the pains of separation deeply. Chagansagar's obsequies took place near a local dadabari, and a certain Ray Badridasji Bahadur of Calcutta built a chatri on this spot. The term chatri refers to the umbrella-like memorial cenotaphs with which deceased individuals of distinction are commemorated. The custom of marking the cremation sites of the dead with these structures is associated especially with the Rajput aristocracy, but religious figures of note are also memorialized in this fashion.^[10] In the latter case the deceased individual is symbolized by an image of his or her feet. Chagansagar's feet were duly installed in his cenotaph, and here they are still being worshiped.

Our author ends his narrative with a series of crucial assertions. Local Jains, he says, sponsor an annual ceremony at the chatri on the anniversary of Chagansagar's death. In Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Phalodi, Lohavat, and elsewhere, devotees perform puja (worship), tapasya (austerities), and jagran (all-night singing of devotional songs) on bright sixths (that is, the day of the month on which he died) and on the bright sixth after Paryusan.^[11] Every year, he adds, devotees come to Lohavat to this memorial, which is located just in front of the Campavadi railway bridge. Chagansagar was peripatetic in life - we note - but now his devotees come to him. This great monk, says our biographer, had miraculous powers in life (that is, he was "camatkari "), but now too his miracles occur for the faithful. In times of trouble (sankat), meditation on Chagansagar can help. Happiness, good fortune, health, progeny, and an increase in wealth can be gotten by invoking his name.

Our biographer reiterates the basic facts of Chagansagar's life in his final chapter in accord with a standard formula for texts of this kind. He opens this recapitulation by tracing Chagansagar's lineage of disciplic succession. He begins with Mahavir and his disciple, Sudharma, who is the source of all Svetambar disciplic lineages. He ends with Chagansagar's nominal guru, Sthansagar. Sthansagar was in the seventy-third disciplic generation from Mahavir. "Thus," says our author, "Mahatapasviji Sriman Chagansagarji Maharaj was in the seventy-fourth."