Prof. Dr. Lawrence A. Babb
Perhaps the first thing that should be said about Jain sadhu's and sadhvi's, monks and nuns respectively, is that they are not hermits. Indeed, in some ways the very opposite is true. Jain ascetics - particularly ascetics of consequence with lay followings - are public persons, and to be in their presence is to be in the center of a more or less constant hubbub. In the midst of the coming and going it is sometimes hard for the inquiring field researcher to get a word in edgewise. This life is not reclusive, and in fact it cannot be. Jain ascetics are totally dependent on the laity for every physical need; they cannot even prepare their own food. Among many other things, this means that ascetics and laity must come into constant contact among the Jains. Nor does the tradition define the ascetic's role as socially exterior. Readers will recall that every Tirthankar reestablishes the fourfold order of Jain society - the caturvidh sangh - which consists of monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen. Ascetics are obviously not householders, but they are nonetheless included in a wider social order.[1]
Although the primary focus of my research was the religious life of lay Jains, I was constantly being urged to consult ascetics. The reason for this is that ascetics are regarded by the laity as the sole true experts on Jain matters, a confidence not always well placed. While I was in Ahmedabad it was easy to meet both monks and nuns. It was the caturmas season, which meant that ascetics were in permanent residence, and the Tapa Gacch, the ascetic lineage dominant in Ahmedabad, is large. It was more difficult to meet monks in Jaipur, even during caturmas, for the simple reason that there are very few monks belonging to the Khartar Gacch, the image-worshiping ascetic lineage dominant in that city. As a result, monks were usually not present at all, although I encountered them from time to time. I did have the privilege of meeting many Khartar Gacch nuns in Jaipur, who were almost always present in the city. During the course of the year in Jaipur I had also had numerous conversations with monks belonging to the flourishing, nonimage-worshiping Terapanthi sect. Most of my image-worship-ing friends held the Terapanthi ascetics in high esteem and saw nothing untoward about my contact with them. A well-known Digambar muni was also kind enough to allow me to spend a lot of time in his presence. This was a valuable source of comparative data on lay-ascetic interactions, especially in the crucial area of food.
The cultural personae presented by Jain ascetics is an amalgam. At one level they are personal exemplars. Here, their very existence suggests, is the kind of life one ought to want to lead. At another level they are the tradition's teachers. They give discourses, sometimes learnedly and sometimes not. Many lay Jains develop intensified relationships with a particular ascetic whom they regard as their guru (religious preceptor).[2] Jain ascetics frequently admonish and scold lay Jains for laxity in their behavior. I have been told that some lay Jains avoid contact with ascetics for fear of being asked awkward questions about their diet. They also instigate fasting and other religious/ritual behavior. Indeed, a layperson must make a vow before an ascetic (or in front of a Tirthankar-image if no ascetic is available) before undertaking ascetic practices such as fasts; without such a vow the exercise will be without results.
Ascetics are also, in their persons, objects of worship. This cannot surprise us, for Jains, as we know, worship ascetics. Although the namaskar mantra, the all-important formula with which this chapter began, singles out the Tirthankars as foremost among the worship-worthy, it also includes living ascetics, sadhu's (and by extension sadhvi s).When Jain friends urged me to take my questions to ascetics, the content of what they might say was, perhaps, less important than the fact that they were the ones who would be saying it. After all, living ascetics participate in the sacredness of the Tirthankar, though at a great remove, and any interaction with them necessarily falls in the paradigm of worship.
