Absent Lord: Virtue and Power

Jinharisagarsuri's biography of Chagansagar teaches us an important lesson about Jain ascetics. A distinguished ascetic is certainly an exemplar of virtues. But he may also be a wielder of great magical power.^[1] Indeed, in Chagansagar's career these two things seem to blend nearly seamlessly.

We note first that his career, as portrayed in our biography, echoes themes found in the lives of the Tirthankars. This important idea is signaled early in the account when we learn that before his birth his mother had a dream of the sun, a dream that was interpreted - or so we are told - as an augury of his future greatness. The parallel with the fourteen dreams of the mother of the Tirthankar-to-be is obvious.^[2] We know, too, that just as the Tirthankar develops equanimity toward the pleasures of the world - indeed toward the pleasures of heaven - prior to his renunciation, Chagansagar likewise became detached from the world. His biographer is eager to show us that, for Chagansagar, world renunciation was never a virtue made of necessity. He had everything that truly matters to the worldly - progeny and wealth. His life as a layman was a perfect blend of wealth and piety (dhan and dharm), but in the end he gave up everything. His career as an ascetic was likewise a model career. He was scholarly, influential, a protector of Jainism, a teacher, and an able custodian of the virtue and piety of the lay community. He was also a great master of ascetic practices.

All this provides an important context for the fact that Chagansagar also possessed and exercised great magical power. In his biography this power has been completely embedded in Jain values and aspirations, and in this way has been legitimized in Jain terms. To begin with, the power is clearly associated with his virtuosity in Jain ascetic praxis. Furthermore, his use of the power is connected always with two linked goals: to protect Jainism and Jains, and also to increase the glorification (prabhavna) of Jainism. Finally, our biographer reminds us at the very end of his account that Chagansagar was connected, by disciplic succession, to the ultimate source of all legitimacy in the Jain world, namely, the Tirthankar himself. Chagansagar's power was a Jain power, legitimately employed to help Jains and Jainism.

When Chagansagar dies, this power crystallizes into a ritual effect. The legitimacy of the power is guaranteed by the original paradigm of its application: to help Jains and Jainism, to glorify the Jain creed. Its efficacy is guaranteed by its association with a recurrent time (the lunar day of Chagansagar's death) and permanent place (the site of his death rites). In fact, to this day the anniversary of his death continues to be noted in Khartar Gacch almanacs. In this way, hagiography is refocused into a charter for a mortuary cult. The relationship between Chagansagar and his followers is preserved in the form of a pair of permanently available ritual roles: powerful monk and lay follower in need of assistance. The Tirthankars are, of course, departed ascetics too. But a crucial difference in the case of the Tirthankars is the fact that, because of the fifth kalyanak (liberation), this relationship cannot truly be preserved; thus, as we have seen, the core of worship must be emulation, not connection. With Chagansagar, however, connection remains a postmortem possibility.

Jinharisagarsuri's biography thus discloses an alternative possibility for ritual action in Svetambar Jainism - the veneration of ascetics who wield power on behalf of devotees in need of assistance, and whose power becomes posthumously available in the form of an institutionalized pattern of worship. This is the general principle underlying the ritual subculture of the Dadagurus.