Prof. Dr. Lawrence A. Babb
Jainism is Buddhism's lesser-known cousin; although their belief systems are in some ways radically different, they are together the only surviving examples of India's ancient non-Vedic religious traditions. Jainism is above all, and justly, celebrated for its systematic practice of nonviolence (ahimsa) and for the rigor of the asceticism it promotes. Jainism is Sometimes said to have been founded by Mahavira in the sixth century B.C.E. In reality, however, Jain traditions are much older than this, dating back in all probability to the teachings of Parsvanath, who lived in the ninth century B.C.E. Unlike Buddhism, Jainism never (until quite recently) spread beyond India; but also unlike Buddhism, it did not die out in India, and it continues to be an important element in India's contemporary religious life. Although the Jains are relatively few (currently they probably number around four million), many among them enjoy positions of great power and influence in modern Indian society. In northern India the Jains are concentrated mainly in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan; farther south they are found mainly in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Jains, however, live everywhere in India, and significant numbers of Jains also live in Europe and North America.
Jains have a strong and conspicuous religious identity in India. Their monks and nuns are frequently seen in India's urban centers, and are readily identifiable as Jain mendicants. The rigor of both monastic and lay Jain ascetic praxis is widely known and admired. This asceticism is manifested in many ways, but emblematic of its uncompromising se-verity - in the public eye and in reality - is the fact that death by self-starvation (sallekhana) is enshrined as one of Jainism's highest ideals. Jains are also widely known to place great emphasis on the principle of nonviolence. For non-Jain observers this is dramatized by the brooms carried by Jain mendicants for the purpose of removing small forms of life before sitting or lying down, and by the practice of some Jain mendicants of donning masks to prevent the wearer's breath from harming microscopic forms of life in the atmosphere. The commitment to non-violence is also publicly manifested in the generous support lay Jains give to animal welfare organizations and to organizations promoting vegetarianism. Few visitors to Delhi fail to notice the Jain Birds' Hospital, conspicuously located at Chandi Chawk in one of the busiest concourses of the city.
Lay Jains also bear a stereotypical social identity as wealthy traders.
However, this element of Jain identity requires qualification. It is not true that all Jains are traders; Jains are found in diverse occupations, and in fact in the south some Jains are farmers. Nor is it the case that all Jains are wealthy, although many undeniably are. Nonetheless, for centuries the Jains have been strongly identified with trade, and in the north Indian region - which is the cultural locale of this study - they are predominantly a merchant community. It should also be said that business in general tends to be the most admired occupation among the Jains of this region. Jains are renowned for the munificence of the monetary donations they provide for the upkeep of their temples and other religious institutions. Their temples are famous for their lavish-ness and also for their cleanliness.
In North India the general social category to which Jains are assigned by others carries the label Baniya, which is an all-purpose term for traders and moneylenders. It is not a term that applies specifically to Jains, for various Hindu groups belong to this category as well. Most groups belonging to the Baniya category - Jains or not - share a generally similar lifestyle and social persona. Probably the most important of their shared characteristics is a strict vegetarianism, which in fact is a strong social marker of Baniya status. The term Baniya is also a word with definite negative connotations of miserliness and shady dealing. To note this is, of course, not to endorse such a judgment. Most non-Jains refer to Jains more or less automatically as Baniyas, but because of the unfortunate associations of the term, many Jains (and non-Jain Baniyas as well) do not use this term in self-reference (on these points, see Ellis 1991 and Laidlaw 1995:Ch. 5). The preferred term is Mahajan, which literally means "great person." This word lacks the negative connotations of Baniya, and is generally seen as referring to the category of merchants and traders, both Jain and non-Jain.
To what degree do the Jains see themselves as an actual community of co-religionists? The question of Jain identity in relation to other religious identities is a complicated matter. For present purposes let it suffice to say that this remains an ambiguous issue and that Jains are continuing to negotiate their identities - religious and social - to the present day. A heightening of Jain self-identification as a discrete religious community seems to be a relatively recent development. As Paul Dundas points out (1992: 3-6), Jains often reported themselves as "Hindu" in the early British censuses, and even today Jains see this question in more than one way. Some Jains accept the label Hindu, understanding the term in its most inclusive sense, while others are more adamant in the claim to a completely separate Jain identity. Many Jains worship at Hindu temples and participate in Hindu festivals. These issues are, of course, greatly complicated by the fact that the status of "Hinduism" as a unified religious tradition is itself doubtful and contested, and that "Hindu identity" is a historically recent phenomenon. The modern tendency is probably in the direction of a Jain identity separate from that of Hindus, but this transformation is far from complete and will probably never be completed. There appear to be, moreover, countervailing forces. For example, my own general observation is that, as religious politics has become increasingly important in India, large numbers of Jains have identified with the Hindu nationalist viewpoint with hardly a second thought.
Within the Jain community - if it is a community - there are many fissures and cleavages. The most important division is the sectarian divide (and rivalry) between the Svetambars and the Digambars. The term Svetambar means "white clad" in reference to the fact that mendicants of this branch of Jainism wear white garments. Digambar means "space clad," which is to say unclad, and the term refers to the fact that male mendicants of this branch wear nothing. These two great branches of Jainism possess different bodies of sacred writings and are also radically distinct socially. Even when they live in the same locality, their adherents are drawn from totally different castes. In Jaipur - one of the principal sources of material for this book - most Digambar Jains (sometimes collectively called Saravgis)[1] belong to either the Khandelval or the Agraval caste, with the former predominating. The Svetambars mostly belong to the Osval and Srimal castes, a point to which we shall return later.[2] These caste differences mean that there are few social fields, such as marriage, within which sustained and intimate interaction can take place. The only occasion in which I ever saw significant interaction between Digambar and Svetambar Jains was in connection with the pan-Jain festival (and Indian national holiday) of Mahavir Jayanti (Lord Mahavira's birthday). For all practical purposes, they exist in totally different worlds.
This book is mainly concerned with a subbranch of the Svetambar Jains. The Svetambar branch of Jainism is (as is the Digambar branch as well) divided into sects and subsects. The principal division is between those who worship images in temples and those who do not. Image-worshipers are known as Murtipujak (image-worshiping) or Mandirmargi (temple-going). The practice of image-worship is opposed by two reformist sects, the Sthanakvasis and the Terapanthis. I am concerned here entirely with the image-worshiping group. The image-worshipers are further subdivided by caste and by affiliation with differing ascetic orders. These divisions will be discussed in greater detail later.
