The Anuvrat Movement: Theory and Practice: Conclusion

Initially, I started the research with some deeply held assumptions regarding the Anuvrat Movement. I was personally inspired by the past success of the movement under Tulsi's administration. Therefore, I was hoping that by analyzing the spread of the Anuvrat Movement within India, I could explore the potential for the movement to be influential in the Jain Diaspora, in ways similar to how the yoga movement was able to spread from India to the West. As I progressed with my interviews though, I came to see the topic in a new light. In choosing to write about the Anuvrat Movement, I had known I was exploring a fresh area of inquiry within Jainism. At the conclusion of my analysis, I have come to realize that although the evidence collected from my interviews does not support my initial premise, I have gained other valuable insight into the relevance of Jain traditions in addressing post-modern social issues.

Acharya Tulsi explored the use of vows as a vehicle for individual regeneration of character and also incorporated a number of reformative concepts on issues ranging from orthodox social customs to environmentalism. "Self-restraint is life." This three-worded slogan formed the philosophical ideal behind his movement.

From my historical research and from my interviews about the present state of the movement, I observed that under the personal leadership of Tulsi, the movement was successful in touching the lives of individuals from a wide variety of religious and political backgrounds and from different socio-economic classes. From this I came to think that, it was Tulsi's charismatic personality, and the example he gave to others through his own actions, which influenced his followers and earned him the respect of many Indians. I am making such a claim because a majority of my interviewees remembered Tulsi's personality and his courage with great reverence, but lacked the ability to express specific ways on how accepting the vows had personally transformed their lives or made them better human beings. I was confused by some of the responses, in that it seemed to me that my interviewees were not giving specific answers to my questions about how the vows were relevant to them, but expressing general views on how Tulsian vows were very good. Their views lead me to say that the vows are good but for others to practice.

Here I feel it might be helpful to explain how I arrived at my conclusions if I grouped my Indian respondents into three categories. The first category is of those Anuvratis who were associated with the movement when it was under Tulsi's leadership, but are not as active today as they once were. Their responses were clouded with pain and agony towards the present state of affairs, and the deviation of the movement's activities. The second category is those Anuvratis who are still very active today, and may or may not have begun their practice under Tulsi. They still feel personally inspired to action, but often expressed to me their frustration at their inability to inspire their own children and family members. The third category is of those who are well aware of the movement, profusely praised the movement, but lack self-motivation to practice it themselves. From these categories, I was able to observe an historical progression that suggests that the movement in India has reverted from an action that effect social change to a concept of bringing awareness. I feel this was a very important issue, in that it led me to contemplate the importance of an action as a philosophical concept in Jainism and the role of the exemplar within the Jain tradition, which I will explore further in the remainder of the chapter.

In the fourth category I will include all of the diasporic responses in that there were almost no practicing Anuvrati and overall much less awareness of the Anuvrat Movement. Here I observed that what awareness there was centered on two things. First was the symbolic attention that the movement had garnered from internationally acclaimed peace-building bodies. Hereby implies the effectiveness of the movement in transcending global boundaries. The second was a greater appreciation of the movement as being free from strong sectarian influences. In fact, in many of the Jain meetings I attended, the members were singing the Anuvrat song composed by Tulsi even though they themselves were not Terapanthi. I attributed such an outcome to the periodic visits of the Samanis from India to the United States, who travel to almost every center in North America and sometimes give reference to Tulsi's movement. Thus also ties into my thoughts about the role of the exemplar.

Another observation from my interviews that I found of interest was the rhetorical nature of some of my respondents' answers. Earlier I referenced Tulsi's remark that he was not interested merely in the increasing number of Anuvratis but on the quality of the Anuvratis. However, during my interviews and conversations in India, my respondents often resorted to hyperbole, describing the numbers of modern Anuvratis as being in the "millions." While I do not have an accurate figure to dispute this, the opposite is also true. They do not have an accurate figure to support it. Throughout my interviews, I also heard the following statement parroted: "The Anuvrat Movement is more significant and relevant today." It seems to me that these respondents judged the movement as significant in light of the popularity of such contemporary world issues as social justice, environmentalism and world sustainability without actually questioning the effectiveness of the method it employs. I found that there was a general lack of depth of awareness regarding the utmost value of the vow as action, the meaning of why Tulsi chose to structure his vows the way he did and the relationship of the methods he employed in formulating his movement to his goal of facilitating the growth of healthy societies.

At this juncture, I began to question if the Anuvrat Movement was able to be effective under Tulsi's leadership not as much because of what he said, or told others to do, but of what he himself did through his actions. Action is important, as in Jainism; the central concept of ahimsa is viewed not as something passive. Jain karma theory states that to stop the influx of negative karma, one should avoid harming any living beings, but once the karma is affixed to the soul, there is no way to remove it besides manifesting it. One can only speed up the process by which it is manifested through nonviolent action. Subsequently, the action is most often like prayer or fasting, but Tulsi's pilgrimage on foot to spread his movement was also a means of cleansing his own soul. Tulsi was a charismatic Acharya, but he was also a renunciate and although his example was so well known throughout India, he was not the only example of nonviolent action. Every monk or nun in Jainism serves this purpose within the Jain community and often beyond, to some degree or another.

While I was disappointed to discover that many of my respondents felt that Tulsi's original vows were no longer as accepted as they once were, I was also hopeful to discover that three other initiatives, conceived by Tulsi and carried out by his followers, are still expanding. One is Preksha Meditation, which begun as a secular, non-religious way of helping the Anuvrati to cultivate self discipline and develop mental control in order to practice the vows. The second is the Science of Living, which was designed to provide a secular, non-religious curriculum to teach children about nonviolence, self-discipline and moral character. The third is the Samani order, which was instituted specifically to allow some monks and nuns, who have not taken the full Mahavrata, to travel and teach.

During my research work in India, I saw many daily discourses of Acharya Mahashraman^[135] broadcast on the Sansakar^[136] channel in television on various topics related to Jain doctrine, meditation, morality etc. The discourse is viewed by millions of Indians daily. Moreover, for the past several years, the title song before the discourse begins has been the Anuvrat Song.^[137] Even though monks and nuns have composed over a thousand songs on various themes, the Anuvrat Song is the one I have heard the most in secular programs.

What I have concluded from my analysis then is that, although Tulsi's Anuvrat Movement may no longer effectively be serving its original specific purpose to bring about social change to combat certain negative influences of modernization in post-Independence India, Tulsi's general underlying belief that some of the core concepts in Jainism could be applied to create forms of actions that could have a positive influence on the improvement of secular society is still very relevant. Both within India and in the Jain Diaspora, I observed that Preksha Meditation and the Science of Living are increasing in popularity. Within India, I observed that the monks and nuns are still playing an important role as exemplars. While there may not be any one individual monk or nun who is gaining such widespread devotion as Tulsi, they are still having significant influence on the local level by modeling good practices, and from following the example of Tulsi, they are working to formulate their teachings to be applicable not just to the Jain community but to a secular audience as well.

What is even more interesting is what I discovered occurring in the Jain Diaspora. In the United States, Jains do not have monks and nuns to hold up as exemplars. Even though, the numbers of Samanis are few relative to the Jain population here, they are quite popular among all Jain sects in the United States, not just the Terapanthis. Instead, there is a feeling here, especially among second-generation Jains as described in the earlier quotation by Anne Vallely, that there is an opportunity to become their own kind of exemplar in American society by emphasizing Jain practices. Maybe the children born here will not aspire to become monks and nuns, but they do aspire instead to incorporate Jain values by becoming lawyers for social justice, or ethical business owners, or engineers of new environmentally friendly products.

There is a positive association between the exemplary charismatic role of a leader and the popularity and longevity of social movements in India. In my interviews, the Terapnathis have emphatically glorified the past success of the movement and presumably anticipated the current Acharya's role in reviving Tulsi's movement - the Anuvrat Movement. Even though the spirit of Tulsian movement is continuing, the current set of vows may no longer be very effective. Tulsi gave a concept applicable to all to cultivate their own garden of self-development through the seeds of simplified small vows. The spirituality embedded in Tulsi's theory needs to be interpreted accurately and sympathetically through a wider kaleidoscopic lens.

I conclude my study with the following observations: Acharya Tulsi, though a Jain Acharya, was viewed by the majority as a "jan acharya," that is, a "leader of the masses," and his movement was meant to be a "jan" movement, a movement of the masses; however, it remained largely a Terapanth based Jain movement. My survey data also support that the majority of respondents who considered the movement to be "religious" were Jains. Such a concern would apparently need to be addressed in any future application of Tulsi's theories.

My research was limited to a small and concentrated group in north and western India as compared to the widespread presence of Anuvratis in various regions throughout India. However, Acharya Tulsi's movement could be further examined in the future with larger sample groups employing ethnographic fieldwork and other methodologies. I hope this is done because; I regard Tulsi's idea of a radical change in individual imperative for social change, as nested in the Anuvrat Movement, a viable basis for positive action that will have the potential to continue for as long as the concept of ahimsa perseveres.