International Journal of Jaina Studies
Current issue
The Anthropological Study of the Jains: Two Essays.
Author: Lawrence A. Babb & John E. Cort
Year: 2025
ISSN: 1748-1074
Lawrence A. “Alan” Babb (1941-2023) was a leading anthropologist of South Asian religions, whose extensive scholarship on the Jains played a pivotal role in bringing the study of the Jains into the mainstream of South Asian Studies. His writings consistently were theoretically astute, but he rarely wrote articles devoted solely to questions of method and theory.
The two short essays presented here are an exception. He wrote them for audiences of Jains who were interested in scholarly approaches to their tradition. They therefore provide an excellent overview of Babb’s anthropological methods, and indicate how the anthropological study of the rituals and lived experience of the Jains is an essential component to textual studies of doctrine for a larger, more complete understanding of the Jains.
These articles are difficult to access, and neither is found in standard academic indices and bibliographies. IJJS therefore reprints them here as a service to the field of Jain Studies.
Past issues
The Terāpanth's work on the Jain Āgamas
Author: Nalini Balbir
Year: 2024
ISSN: 1748-1074
This paper is an attempt to show how strong and diverse the presence of the Āgamas has always been and remains in Terāpanthin scholarship. It starts with the earliest phases of its history, exploring the writings of the founder Ācārya Bhikṣu and then those of Jayācārya, in periods when access to the scriptures was done through memorization and manuscripts, the search of which was a work in itself, and when the language of mediation was the vernacular (forms of Rajasthani).
These works, which make use of vernacular literary forms, contain a number of precise references to Āgamic books and their sections, include occasional quotations, are retellings of canonical stories or form extensive vernacular commentaries (the joṛs). The Ācārya Tulsī - Ācārya Mahāprajña era, which is the focus of the remaining parts of the article, marks a new departure in the area of Śvetāmbara Āgamas with the decision and plan, started in 1954, to achieve a critical edition of the texts. Paratexts such as Āgam sampādan kī samasyāeṃ (1993) by Ācārya Mahāprajña, the 'Editorial' of Navasuttāṇi (2000), or Āgam sampādan kī yātrā by Muni Dulharāj (2011), one of the most active Terāpanthin monks in the area under investigation, provides a basis for the exploration, as they delineate problems, principles and guidelines for the project.
It led to systematic achievements: critical editions of the 32 Āgamas regarded as authoritative by the Terāpanthin, but also of works going beyond this boundary, including for instance Prakrit exegetical literature (the niryuktis and bhāṣyas), numerous Hindi translations, elaboration of tools in the form of word-indexes (e.g., Āgamaśabdakośa) or of special dictionaries gleaning material from the Āgamas (e.g., dictionary of etymologies and synonyms, dictionaries of plants, animals and musical instruments). It is significant that the Āgamic work achieved by the Terāpanth is multi-handed. Ācārya Tulsī's inspiration had an immense impact on Muni Nathmal/Āc. Mahāprajña. But it has also stimulated other members of the order, including a number of nuns and samaṇīs whose contributions to the field are fundamental.
Chandonuśāsana of Vāgbhaṭa: An Unpublished Jain Text on Prosody
Author: Amogh Prabhudesai
Year: 2024
ISSN: 1748-1074
The article aims to introduce the unpublished text Chandonuśāsana by Vāgbhaṭa, accompanied by his own commentary titled vivaraṇa. Two manuscripts of this text are available. The main points covered in this article include an overview of the manuscripts, a thorough examination of the text, and information about its author, Vāgbhaṭa. Additionally, the article delves into the complexities surrounding the identity of four different individuals who share the same name, Vāgbhaṭa.
Metaphors of Kingship in Ancient Jain Literature and Art
Author: Patrick Felix Krüger
Year: 2024
ISSN: 1748-1074
Religion has no vocabulary to address its ultimate subject, the transcendent. Instead, religions draw on their immediate environment to address the subject metaphorically. In a metaphor, meaning is transferred from a tangible environment (source domain) to a subject that is beyond describability (target domain) to make this subject accessible. One of the predominant areas from which religions take their metaphors is that of kingship and military conquest. This article will explore how Jain literature as well as visual representations employ metaphors related to these fields to express and shape the perception of the Jina. A particular focus will be on the changing visual representation of the Jina. The article demonstrates how visual metaphors of kingship are incorporated and become essential instruments in the process of gradual deification of the Jina.
Emotion as Karmic Mode: Rasa in Ajitasena's Alaṅkāra-Cintāmaṇi (15th Century)
Author: Aleksandra Restifo
Year: 2024
ISSN: 1748-1074
In his Alaṅkāra-cintāmaṇi (“Wish-Granting Jewel of Ornament”), Ajitasena, a fifteenth-century Jain monk from the Digambara Senagaṇa lineage, connects the rise of sthāyi-bhāva (stable emotion) with different types of material karmas. This paper investigates connections between Ajitasena’s interpretation of the production of rasa and Jain metaphysics and, in doing so, argues that the category of emotion ought to be understood as a cognitive, embodied, and karmic concept. I examine the role of deluding karma (mohanīya-karma) that Ajitasena identifies as the source of stable emotion, further revealing rasa, and emphasize the importance of conduct-deluding karma (cāritra-mohanīya-karma), which manifests through passional states (kaṣāya and no-kaṣāya). I conclude that Ajitasena’s introduction of karmic processes in the Alaṅkāra-cintāmaṇi highlights the complex nature of aesthetic emotion as both a mental and embodied state that, even if temporarily, transforms the self in conformity with Jain metaphysics.
Paul Dundas: Bibliography
Author: John E. Cort
Year: 2024
ISSN: 1748-1074
Paul Dundas (1952-2023) was one of the leading scholars of the Jains in recent decades. His scholarship also encompassed Prakrit language and literature, Sanskrit literature, and South Asian Buddhism. Presented here is a comprehensive list of his works - books, translations, articles, chapters in edited volumes, encyclopedia articles and entries and book reviews - as well as a list of reviews of his books.
Estimates of Buddhist and Jain Populations in India, 1871-72
Author: Prakash C. Jain
Year: 2023
ISSN: 1748-1074
In the 1871-72 Census of India the combined population of Buddhists and Jains was enumerated at 385,020. This article attempts to estimate the Buddhist and the Jain populations separately at the aggregate levels for the year 1871-72. It looks first at the British Indian provinces and then at Indian states and agencies, where the census enumerations of the same period provide select, somewhat dated and/or no data at all.
Moreover, in 1871-72 the Buddhist and the Jain population data were clubbed together, perhaps under the impression that Jainism was a sister sect of Buddhism and an offshoot of Hinduism. The 1881 Census provided separate enumerations of Buddhist and Jain populations, on which we attempted to draw the relative numerical strength of the two communities for the census year 1871-72.
The evidence assembled here suggests that the Jain population of British India stood at around one million in 1871-72 and that of the Buddhists at less than 100,000.
Who is a Yogi? Depictions of the Yogi in Classical and Medieval Digambara Jain Literature
Author: John E Cort
Year: 2022
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Volume 18, Number 1 (2022) 1–61
The four classical and medieval Digambara Prakrit and Sanskrit texts known collectively as the Yogī-Bhaktis contain four depictions of the ideal Jain yogi. These texts depict him as a:
- Digambara mendicant following the many rules of Jain mendicant conduct, whose practice is firmly within the constitutive elements of Jain cosmology and soteriology
- renouncer living in the open in all seasons in the forests and atop mountains and practicing fierce asceticism
- practitioner of postures (āsana) and other yogic techniques
- possessor of supranormal powers (ṛddhi).
This article explains these four portraits in detail. It then contrasts these with a fifth depiction, found
primarily in the Apabhramsha texts of the Digambara mystical tradition, of the ideal yogi
as a seeker of spiritual knowledge (jñāna) who rejects the formal practices found in the
other four depictions.
Taken together, these five depictions make an important contribution to the study of the history of yoga and yogis in South Asia.
Joyful Celestials: Jain Murals Of Ellora
Author: Olle Qvarnström & Niels Hammer
Year: 2021
ISSN: 1748-1074
This article is the outcome of two research trips to the Jain caves at Ellora, the purpose of which was to photograph the best preserved murals found there, works of art that were largely undocumented in any available literature. The article documents and portrays the best preserved paintings in detail found on the walls and ceiling of one of the smaller caves belonging to the largest Jain cave complex, the Indra Sabhā.
Disentangling Poetry from Profit in Jain Monks’ Literary Works
Author: Aleksandra Restifo
Year: 2020
ISSN: 1748-1074
Greed (lobha) is one of the four passions (kaṣāya) that are the primary causes for the soul’s bondage by karmic matter. Medieval Jain literature is brimful with stories and accounts where greed is condemned and ridiculed. This article looks at some of these literary instances, in which court poets attempt to uncouple the production of poetry from the monetary reward of a patron.
It focuses on the three Jain authors - Bālacandra (thirteenth century), Hemacandra (1089-1172), and Rāmacandra (1093-1174) - who, I argue, set themselves apart from some other non-Jain poets, who engaged in what they implied was the foul practice of writing poetry for personal enrichment.
While these monks, as well as Jains more generally, valorized wealth and riches for the purpose of spreading the Jain dharma, building temples, and worshipping the Jina, they denounced the reduction of the poetic skill to the fiscal benefits it can produce.
The Gold of Gods: Stories of Temple Financing from Jain Prabandhas
Author: Basile Leclère
Year: 2020
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 16, No. 2 (2020) 1-25
Since they are intended to recall to their audience the pious actions of illustrious members of the Jain community from a more or less remote past, the medieval Prabandhas devote an important space to the activity of temple building as it is probably one of the most expensive donations that could be made to the community. Thus, biographies of prominent Śvetāmbara laymen such as the Caulukya king Kumārapāla or the ministers Vastupāla and Tejaḥpāla include lists of religious edifices erected or renovated at their behest. As regards the sums spent on these constructions, however, it appears that they have not received the same attention from the authors.
While there is only sparse information about funding issues in the chronicles dating back to the fourteenth century, later sources from the fifteenth century record precise amounts of money as well as other details unknown otherwise. Moreover, none of them clearly states where the money exactly came from. It might be assumed that laymen financed religious foundations with their personal wealth, but positive evidence is lacking to prove it.
On the contrary, it is said in several stories of temple construction that the funds were miraculously obtained through the intercession of a deity. What can account for this supernatural motif seems to be the need of a divine sanction for the Jain sanctuaries dealt with, either because they rose to prominence at a comparatively late date or because they were located at a site claimed by other creeds.
Another motivation would be to extoll the merit of the human founders of the temples inasmuch as the deities choose them on account of their good fortune and pious conduct.
The Gold of Gods: Stories of Temple Financing from Jain Prabandhas (pdf)
Salvaging the Plagiarist: Digambara Jain Text Production in Early Modernity
Author: Gregory M. Clines
Year: 2020
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 16, No. 3 (2020) 1-23
Abstract
In 1991 Padmanabh S. Jaini published an article highlighting the similarity between two early modern Sanskrit Pāṇḍavapurāṇas, the first by the Mūlasaṅgha author Śubhacandra and the second, composed about fifty years later, by the Kāṣṭhāsaṅgha author Śrībhūṣaṇa. Jaini demonstrates that Śrībhūṣaṇa must have copied his sectarian rival’s earlier work and subsequently labels Śrībhūṣaṇa a plagiarist. While not contesting the fact that Śrībhūṣaṇa copied Śubhacandra, the goal of this article is to reconsider the specific label of plagiarist levelled against the Kāṣṭhāsaṅgha author. By examining the history of both premodern South Asian and contemporary western definitions of plagiarism and by introducing another example of Digambara Jain textual copying during the early modern period, the article argues that labelling Śrībhūṣaṇa a plagiarist inappropriately reads back modern ideas of personal intellectual property onto a premodern literary landscape in which textual copying was, in actuality, a valid form of intersectarian argumentation.
Salvaging the Plagiarist: Digambara Jain Text Production in Early Modernity (pdf)
On the Medical Doctrines in the Tandulaveyāliya: 2. Teachings of Anatomy
Author: Colette Caillat. Translated from the French by Brianne Donaldson
Year: 2019
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 15, No. 1 (2019) 1-12
In this translated essay, originally published in French, Colette Caillat examines the teachings of anatomy in the Tandulaveyāliya, one of the Prakīrṇaka-sūtras in the Svetāmbara Jain canon. Caillat explores similarities and discrepancies between the accounts of physiology described in the Tandulaveyāliya and other classical medical treatises of the time, such as Caraka- and Suśruta-saṃhitās, as well as the Viṣṇu-smṛti, Yājñavalkya-smṛti, and Garbha-upaniṣad. Alongside these comparisons, Caillat also highlights singular contributions found in the Tandulaveyāliya, namely the unique anatomical accounts of women and "third-sex"/"neuter" individuals (paṇḍaga [Skt. paṇḍaka]).
On the Medical Doctrines in the Tandulaveyāliya: 2. Teachings of Anatomy (pdf)
The Influence of Jainism on Early Kannada Literature: Sheldon Pollock’s Work Language of Gods
Author: Hampa Nagarajaiah (Hampana)
Year: 2019
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 15, No. 2 (2019) 1-24
The credit of establishing Kannada as one of the foremost literary languages of far greater significance and dimension goes to Sheldon Pollock. In his book, Language of the Gods in the World of Men, he has narrated the history and described the core characteristics of Kannada literature, and accomplished the task that was long due. About 50 pages in chapter 9, and some pages in chapter 10, are devoted to the historical development of Kannada. Befitting references to the antiquity, density, historicity, sociology, literary production and other accomplishments are presented. However, Pollock’s statement ‘Jainism has little or nothing to do with Early Kannada literature’ is unjustified. A vast corpus of literature produced by Jain litterateurs is either ignored or diluted. For instance, the Vaḍḍārādhane, the earliest extant major work of Kannada literature, singular for its poetic prose, does not figure in the book. References to Śrīvijaya's two kāvyas, the Raghuvaṃśapurāṇa and the Candraprabhapurāṇa are missing. The Yāpanīya-saṃgha, a prominent sect, mentioned in many medieval inscriptions and enjoying royal donations, does not even figure for its name sake. Jinavallabha, the younger brother of poet Pampa, was adroit in Telugu, adept in Kannada and proficient in Sanskrit. He is the earliest poet in Telugu and wrote a famous inscription in three languages. The paper is a critique of Sheldon Pollock's book Language of the Gods in the World of Men with special reference to the treatment of Kannada, which awaits serious analysis and an extensive debate.
The Influence of Jainism on Early Kannada Literature: Sheldon Pollock’s Work Language of Gods (pdf)
On Word-Numerals in Nāgavarma’s Canarese Prosody
Author: Dipak Jadhav
Year: 2019
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 15, No. 3 (2019) 1-21
This paper studies eighty word-numerals referred to in the Canarese prosody of the Jain writer Nāgavarma of the late 10th century. Almost all of them are in Sanskrit. This paper also shows why they represent the corresponding numbers. Every word-numeral is the bearer of thought, deeply rooted in ancient Indian society, whether it is from the Vedic culture or the Paurāṇika culture or the epic culture or the Jaina culture.
On the Medical Doctrines in the Tandulaveyāliya: 1. Teachings of Embryology
Author: Colette Caillat. Translated from the French by Brianne Donaldson
Year: 2018
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 14, No. 1 (2018) 1-14
In this translated essay, originally published in French, Colette Caillat offers an analysis of the Tandulaveyāliya, one of the diverse Prakīrṇaka-sūtras in the Svetāmbara Jain canon. This unique medical treatise fuses ancient Jain teachings found in the Bhagavatī-sūtra (Pkt. Viyāhapannatti) andSūtrakṛtānga-sūtra (Pkt. Sūyagaḍaṅga) with more contemporary Indian medical treatises such as the Caraka- and Suśruta-saṃhitās, offering greater detail on the formation of embryos—including maternal/paternal contributions, gender, nutrition, and stages of development, as well as the difficulty of pregnancy.
On the Medical Doctrines in the Tandulaveyāliya: 1. Teachings of Embryology (pdf)
Water Clock and Steelyard in the Jyotiṣkaraṇḍaka
Author: Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma
Year: 2018
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 14, No. 2 (2018) 1-49
Saṃkhyā-jñāna, the science of numbers, plays an important role in Jainism which seeks to comprehend the universe numerically. Kāla-jñāna or kāla-vibhāga is an important part of saṃkhyā-jñāna, for time too has to be comprehended in numbers. The Jainas measured time conceptually in microscopic units and in macroscopic units, but for practical purposes, early Jain texts like the Sūrya-prajñapti employ a five-year cycle and provide diverse kinds of astronomical parameters for this period.
A related Jain text Jyotiṣkaraṇḍaka introduces an interesting variation into the time measurement and speaks of the “volume” and “weight” of the time. In this context, the text describes two tools of measurement, a water clock and a steelyard, i.e. a balance with a single pan. Descriptions of such instruments are rare in Indian literature; this paper presents a cultural study of these two measuring instruments.
Nāth and Dādūpanthī Critique of Jains
Author: Monika Horstmann
Year: 2017
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 13, No. 1 (2017) 1-72
In sixteenth- und seventeenth-century Rajasthan, Nāth and Sant authors of vernacular compositions were ardent critics of beliefs and practices that did not share their form of monism averring the interior unity of Self and self and consequently rejecting iconic worship. Amongst many others, invariably Jains qualified as their target. Their critique focused particularly on the figure of the yati, the Śvetāmbara ascetic. Underlying this were ancient clichés that kept being updated so that it is to be cautioned against attempting to extrapolate from these to reality. Nonetheless it can be argued the particularly the Sant critique of the Jains was bitter because Jain ascetics relied on merchant-caste patrons whose attention was also courted by Sant monks. Two critiques are analyzed in this essay, one by the Nāth Siddha Prithīnāth (second half of the 16th cent.) and the other by the Dādupanthī Rajab (17th cent.).
The persistence of the polemic stance against Jains as it forms a literary convention may obfuscate that a more conciliatory stance prevailed in reality. This is illustrated by the fact that from the Sant spectrum Dādūpanthīs and Nirañjanīs engaged with the writings of the Jain merchant-caste intellectual Banārsīdās. This is testified to by manuscripts from the turn of the 18th century on. A social trajectory of Sant interest in Banārsīdās may have been formed by the merchant-caste patrons of both these groups.
Nāth and Dādūpanthī Critique of Jains (pdf)
On Corresponding Sanskrit Words For The Prakrit Term Posaha: With Special Reference To Śrāvakācāra Texts
Author: Kazuyoshi Hotta
Year: 2017
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 13, No. 2 (2017) 1-17
In Brahmanism the purification rite called upavasatha has been practiced on the day before the Vedic ritual is performed. For example, we can see the description about such purification rite in Taittirīyasaṃhitā 1.6.7.3, Śatapathabrāhmaṇa 1.1.1.7, etc. Jainism and Buddhism have borrowed the rite in different ways and called it posaha or uposatha, etc. in Prakrit and Pāli. Buddhism mainly has developed the rite as a ritual of the mendicant group. On the other hand, Jainism mainly has developed the rite as a practice of the layperson.
The article surveys the corresponding Sanskrit words of Prakrit posaha and its etymological meaning seen in the Śrāvakācāra texts. In this field, the study of Robert Williams (Jaina Yoga 1963.) is the most excellent work which has to be referred to initially. However, it has been over fifty years since its publication, so it should be corrected in some respects. Firstly, his two opinions will be examined as follows. One is that there have come into existence a number of false sanskritizations pauṣadha, proṣadha, poṣadha for the Prakrit posaha. The second point is that the word form poṣadha seems to have attained the most general currency. On the first point, his opinion is mostly right. But we can add that the word form upoṣadha is seen in the printed text of Vratodyotanaśrāvakācāra as the only exception. The word form upoṣadha can be seen in the Buddhist texts like Divyāvadāna too. As to the second point, his assumption is not sufficient. Nevertheless, many modern scholars (for example, P. S. Jaini, Willem Bollée, Kristi Wiley etc.) seem to consider that the word form poṣadha have attained the most general currency. By investigating about sixty kinds of Śrāvakācāra texts, it can be said that the word form proṣadha has attained the most currency. Furthermore, we can precisely point out the tendency according to the sect. That is to say, Śvetāmbara uses poṣadha or pauṣadha and Digambara uses proṣadha.
The article also investigates the etymological interpretations of the respective word forms seen in Śrāvakācāra texts, especially focusing on texts which Robert Williams did not deal with. In Jainism, the original word form upavasatha has been re-sanskritized via the Prakrit form posaha, so they have lost the sight of the preverb upa and assumed that √puṣ etc. are the etymological origin. Here, the article examines the etymological meaning included in the respective word forms, comparing it with the etymological interpretation seen in Brahmanical texts and Buddhist texts.
The Treatment Of Series In The Gaṇitasārasaṃgraha Of Mahāvīrācārya And Its Connections To Jaina Cosmology
Author: Catherine Morice-Singh
Year: 2017
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 13, No. 3 (2017) 1-39
The Gaṇitasārasaṃgraha (850 A.D.) is a well-known and significant mathematical text in Sanskrit, composed by Mahāvīrācārya, a Digambara Jaina ācārya. It has been edited and translated into English in 1912, by M. Rangacharya, and since then, different aspects of its rich content (more than thousand verses) have been studied by various scholars.
This work certainly belongs to the category of pāṭīgaṇita works (board mathematics), however, it presents some unexplained peculiarities regarding issues of classification of topics and structure. For instance, the usual distinction between the parikarman (operations) and the vyavahāra (procedures) sections is not retained here. But, more importantly, the basic addition and subtraction of numbers have been removed from the list of fundamental operations, to be replaced by two more sophisticated operations, the addition and subtraction with respect to arithmetical and geometrical series. Mahāvīrācārya is the only author to have proceeded in this way, and we do not know why.
After presenting some excerpts of the Gaṇitasārasaṃgraha to show how the rules on progressions and series were applied, I will argue that an exploration of the mathematical content of a cosmological work such as the Tiloyapaṇṇaṭṭī can help us shed more light on the subject and bring some answers to explain these peculiarities.
Architectural Science in Jain Poetry: The Descriptions of Kumārapāla's Temples
Author: Basile Leclère
Year: 2017
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 13, No. 4 (2017) 1-30
After his conversion to Jain faith due to the influence of his spiritual teacher the famous Śvetāmbara monk Hemacandra, the Caulukya king Kumārapāla (r. 1143-1173) ordered Jain sanctuaries to be erected throughout his dominion. This ambitious monumental programme was duly praised by Hemacandra in the concluding section of the Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra. Indeed, in that work, he made Mahāvīra himself predict that Kumārapāla, “with unlimited power, will make this earth adorned with temples of the Jinas in almost every village” (translation Helen Johnson).
Many other Jain writers from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries extolled Kumārapāla as a great builder, and some of them, in order to insist on his lavish patronage, even described in detail the most impressive temples set up on his order, beginning with the great religious complexes of his capital city Aṇahillapāṭaka.
Trained as they were in the subtleties of Sanskrit and Prakrit poetics, these authors undoubtedly unleashed their imagination and pictured the temples with many conventional embellishments for the sake of their glorification. However, as shown in this paper, they also made use of technical terms which hint at a genuine knowledge about architecture and make their descriptions reliable to some extent and possibly more accurate than the theoritical ones which can be found in slightly later treatises. In sum, these poems give us an insight into the features of the Jain temples from the middle of the twelfth century all the more precious since, according to the Jain chronicles, most of them were destroyed within the years following Kumārapāla’s death.
Architectural Science in Jain Poetry: The Descriptions of Kumārapāla's Temples (pdf)
Haribhadra on Property Ownership of Buddhist Monks
Author: Yutaka Kawasaki
Year: 2017
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 13, No. 5 (2017) 1-12
Past studies have revealed that the eminent Śvetāmbara monk Haribhadra Yākinīputra (8th or 9th century) had a good knowledge about various kinds of the Buddhist philosophical and epistemological concepts, and that he inveighed against such as the theory of momentariness, the concept of consciousness-only (vijñaptimātratā), Dharmakīrti’s epistemology, and so on. Besides, it is also well known that Haribhadra was a bitter critic on the daily practices of Buddhist mendicants in their monastic life. We can find one such criticism in the Prakrit treatise Dhammasaṃgahaṇi which was reportedly composed by him. According to Dhammasaṃgahaṇi verse 986, an opponent is said to assert that the Buddhist monks can possess various types of property in villages and so on because their owning of such property leads to the growth of the “three jewels (buddha, dharma, and sangha),” that is, Buddhism. After this assertion, Haribhadra starts disputing with his opponent over the legitimacy of the property ownership of Buddhist monks till verse 1015. This paper, after briefly touching upon the concept of ‘non-possession (aparigraha)’ in Jainism, will explore how Haribhadra criticizes his opponent’s claims and how his opponent argues back against Haribhadra in order to legitimate the property ownership of Buddhist monks. Through a careful reading of this dispute which probably reflects some historical facts, this paper will reveal the different understandings on the concept of possession (parigraha) and that of non-attachment between Jainism and Buddhism. It will also shed new light on the actual conditions of the management of Buddhist monastery in the medieval period.
Jaina Versus Brahmanical Mathematicians
Author: Johannes Bronkhorst
Year: 2016
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 12, No. 1 (2016) 1-10
Unlike the Buddhists, Jaina authors have contributed in an important manner to the history of mathematics in India. Unfortunately many of their texts have not survived, but what has survived allows us to form a good impression. The present paper concentrates on the way in which Jaina and Brahmanical mathematicians related to each other. About this there is very little explicit evidence, but a passage in Bhāskara‟s (Bhāskara I) Āryabhaṭīya-bhāṣya (7th century CE) provides interesting information. Bhāskara here criticizes (though implicitly) a Jaina mathematician by showing that the latter‟s theorem has unacceptable results. This can be contrasted with Bhāskara‟s uncritical attitude toward Āryabhaṭa, the inspired teacher of his own school. The conclusion to be drawn is that mathematics in India never cultivated the critical attitude that characterizes much of Indian philosophy. In mathematics it appears that criticism was exclusively directed at authors and texts belonging to different traditions than one‟s own.
Jaina Versus Brahmanical Mathematicians (pdf)
Review of Early Asceticism in India: Ājīvikism and Jainism
Author: Willem B. Bollée
Year: 2016
ISSN: 1748-1074
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 12, No. 2 (2016) 1-2
The article is a review of Piotr Balcerowicz's work Early Asceticism in India: Ājīvikism and Jainism (2015), taking into account Joy Manné’s book Was the Buddha a Shaman? (2012).
Review of Early Asceticism in India: Ājīvikism and Jainism (pdf)
The Taste of the Mango: A Jaina-Buddhist Controversy on Evidence
Author: Marie-Hélène Gorisse
Year: 2015
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 11, No. 3 (2015) 1-19
In the classical framework of Indian philosophy, the different schools of thought agree on the fact that the correctness of an inference relies on a special necessary relation standing between the evidence-property and the target-property. In this framework, there is a controversy between Buddhist and Jain philosophers concerning the marks of this necessary relation, named the “invariable concomitance”. More precisely, whereas the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti holds that only two types of inferential evidence, namely natural property and effect, can ensure that inferential reasoning relies upon an invariable concomitance, the Jain Māṇikyanandi claims that there are no less than six situations in which the presence of an invariable concomitance is unquestionable, namely when the evidence-property is pervaded by the target-property, or when it is its effect, its cause, its predecessor, its successor or its co-existent. In this line, the typical answer from the Buddhist side is to show that any evidence other than natural property and effect can in fact be traceable to one of them. Contrarily, the Jain strategy is to show that natural property and effect are not sufficient in order to give a correct account of the diversity of correct inferences. The aim of this paper is to give a presentation of these discrepancies between the Jain and the Buddhist theories of inference, as they are found in Māṇikyanandi’s Parīkṣāmukham, the Introduction to Philosophical Investigation, a digest of Akalaṅka’s mature philosophy on one side, and in Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti, his Auto-commentary on the Essay on Knowledge on the other side.
The Taste of the Mango: A Jaina-Buddhist Controversy on Evidence (pdf)
A Specific Rule in India for Common Difference as Found in the Gommaṭasāra of Nemicandra (c. 981)
Author: Dipak Jadhav
Year: 2015
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 11, No. 2 (2015) 1-21
This paper brings the formula d = S ÷ n²k into light and discusses its various aspects including its context in Jaina philosophy. It was set forth and utilized by Nemicandra (c. 981) in the Gommaṭasāra (Karmakāṇḍa) in order to demonstrate the lower-thought-activity (adhaḥ pravṛtta karaṇa). The lower-thought-activity is conceived as a special process of thought-concentration which causes destruction (kṣapaṇa) or suppression (upaśamana) of the sub-classes of conduct-deluding karma. The paper also offers a rationale for this specific formula. The relevance of the formula lies in the fact that it can be used for generating various arithmetic progressions by finding the common differences, d , in accordance with various values of an arbitrary number, k , while their sums, S , and the numbers of their terms, n , remain fixed. This way he used it. It can also be used for generating various arithmetic progressions by finding in accordance with various values of k while n and d remain fixed and by finding n in accordance with various appropriate values of k while S and d remain fixed.
What can the lifespans of Ṛṣabha, Bharata, Śreyāṃsa, and Ara tell us about the History of the concept of Mount Meru?
Author: Ruth Satinsky
Year: 2015
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 11, No. 1 (2015) 1-24
Willibald Kirfel (1920/1990), in his major study of Indian cosmology, Die Kosmographie der Inder nach den Quellen dargestellt, compares the Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jaina cosmological systems, and concludes that the early Brahmanical cosmology forms the basis of the later cosmology found in the epics and Purāṇas, and that of the Buddhist and Jaina systems, as well. Contrary to Kirfel, this paper will present some provisional ideas which suggest that the concept of Mount Meru entered Brahmanical literature under the influence of the culture out of which Jainism and Buddhism arose, the culture of Greater Magadha. This hypothesis is based on three observations: 1) the concept of Mount Meru ("the golden mountain at the center of the earth and the universe, around which the heavenly bodies revolve") is prominent in the Jaina and Buddhist canons, but strikingly absent from Brahmanical literature prior to the Mahābhārata; 2) its late introduction into Brahmanical literature marks the shift from Vedic to epic and Purāṇic cosmology at a time when Brahmanical contacts with Buddhism, Jainism, and their region of origin, Greater Magadha, were possible and presumably established; and 3) a special group of numbers, "the number eighty-four and its multiples," is also prominent in the Jaina and Buddhist canons, and in Ājīvikism, but likewise absent from Brahmanical literature prior to the Mahābhārata. The lifespans of Ṛṣabha, Bharata, Śreyāṃsa, and Ara, and the height of Mount Meru are linked to this special group of numbers, and will serve, amongst others, as examples.
Jain Perceptions of Nāth and Haṭha Yogīs in Pre-Colonial North India
Author: John E. Cort
Year: 2015
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 11, No. 4 (2015) 1-22
Toward the end of the Banārsī Vilās, the “collected works” of Banārsīdās (1586-1643) that was compiled by his colleague Jagjīvanrām in 1644, there is a curious seven-caupāī composition entitled Gorakhnāth ke Vacan, or “The Sayings of Gorakhnāth.” The text, which may or may not have been authored by Banārsīdās, but at the very least provides us with a Jain reception of Gorakhnāth’s teachings, gives a very favorable short summary of them. To the best of my knowledge, no scholarly attention has been focused on this text. Scholars of Banārsīdās at best simply mention it in passing. Scholars of Gorakhnāth, and the Nāths seem largely to be ignorant of the text. A century later, in his Mokṣa-mārg Prakāśak, the Jaipur-based Terāpanth ideologue Ṭoḍarmal (ca. 1719/20-1766/67) included a discussion of the practices of Haṭha Yogīs, who most likely were Rāmānandīs. His comments were harshly critical of these false practices. Neither account of these “Hindu” Yogic practitioners of early modern north India is sufficiently extensive or detailed to provide useful contemporary evidence of the details of the practices of these Yogic groups. They do, however, show us two very different responses to the problem of religious diversity. While Banārsīdās affirms the superiority of the Jain teachings in other texts, the inclusion of Gorakhnāth ke Vacan in his Banārsī Vilās shows that he was a curious spiritual seeker, who could find value in non-Jain practices and ideas. Ṭoḍarmal, on the other hand, was a staunch ideologue, who exalted the Jain doctrines and denigrated all others.
Jain Perceptions of Nāth and Haṭha Yogīs in Pre-Colonial North India (pdf)
Jaina Modes of Dying in Ārādhanā Texts
Author: Luitgard Soni
Year: 2014
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 10, No. 2 (2014) 1-14
Abstract
The article focuses on two modes of dying described in the Mūlārādhanā and illustrated by respective stories in the Bṛhat-Kathākośa: the death by renouncing food and drink and the death by killing oneself. Special reference is given to the telling of the stories in the process of 'assisted death' where the supportive and persuasive function of story telling is explicit. The stories about condoned self-killing, on the other hand, are of special interest since this act connotes violence and is usually not associated with Jaina principles. As exemplary stories these precedents point, however, to particular circumstances where killing oneself in an abrupt way is seen as the right action.
Jaina Modes of Dying in Ārādhanā Texts (pdf)
Understanding the Archaeological Contexts and Iconic Details of Jaina Antiquities from Rakṣatpura and Śaṅkā, District Puruliā, West Bengal
Author: Shubha Majumder
Year: 2014
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 10, No. 1 (2014) 1-32
Abstract
Rāḍha, an important geo-cultural unit of ancient Bengal, was closely associated with the development of different religious traditions. Jainism, which is one of the ancient religions of India, has strong associations with the settlement parameters of this geo-cultural unit from a very early time. The present article focuses on some newly discovered Jaina antiquities from the villages of Rakṣatpura and Śaṅkā, situated along the Dāmodar river valley in the Puruliā district of West Bengal. Along this river valley there are several archaeological sites yielding old habitational remains as well as sculptural and architectural fragments. Most of these sites are associated with historical Jaina relics. Several scholars have already studied these archaeological remains from different perspectives. However, our recent discoveries have made us rethink our understanding of the nature of Jaina heritage in this region and also the iconographic development of its Jaina art.
Anekāntavāda, The Central Philosophy of Ājīvikism
Author: Johannes Bronkhorst
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 1 (2013) 1-11
Abstract
Ājīvikism, a vanished Indian religion, has been admirably studied by A. L. Basham in his 1951 monograph. Since then, a renewed study of the existing evidence has led to an improved understanding of this religion. New evidence, moreover, has shown that this religion remained intellectually active and influential at least until the end of the first millennium CE. This paper will discuss other evidence again, also from the end of the first millennium, which appears to show that Ājīvikism shared the anekāntavāda with Jainism, but not only that. Like Jainism, it used the anekāntavāda to solve a problem that did not arise until many centuries after the time of Mahāvīra. It follows that Jainism and Ājīvikism remained closely in close contact with each other for at least half a millennium since their beginning, perhaps longer, and shared some crucial intellectual developments.
Anekāntavāda, The Central Philosophy of Ājīvikism (pdf)
A Neglected Śvetāmbara Narrative Collection, Hemacandrasūri Maladhārin's Upadeśamālāsvopajñavṛtti Part 1 (With an Appendix on the Funeral of Abhayadevasūri Maladhārin)
Author: Paul Dundas
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 2 (2013) 1-47
Abstract
The Śvetāmbara teacher Hemacandra Maladhārin (eleventh-twelfth century) is often confused with his near contemporary Hemacandra Kalikālasarvajña. This paper analyses the sources describing his life and works and goes on to focus upon his Prakrit verse collection, the Upadeśamālā, and his autocommentary, the Puṣpamālā. Seventy narratives from the Puṣpamālā are discussed (fifty-eight with identifiable sources, twelve with unidentified sources). An appendix provides text and annotated translation of Śrīcandrasūri's account of the cremation of Hemacandra Maladhārin's teacher Abhayadevasūri Maladhārin, possibly the first eye-witness account of a renunciant funeral in pre-modern India.
Localized Literary History: Sub-text and Cultural Heritage in the Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍār, A Digambara Manuscript Repository in Jaipur
Author: Ulrich Timme Kragh
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 3 (2013) 1-53
Abstract
The article critically discusses the underlying principles for the writing of literary history. It rejects a universalized model and proposes a new approach of "localized literary history" that is theoretically rooted in metahistorical concepts of "textory" and "sub-text". The method takes its starting point in local text-collections rather than national literature. With the Jain Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍhār repository in Jaipur as a point of departure, it is demonstrated how a study of a local manuscript collection reveals a literary history, which cannot be encountered by the universalized approach.
A One-Valued Logic for Non-One-Sidedness
Author: Fabien Schang
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 4 (2013) 1-25
Abstract
The Jain saptabhaṅgī is well-known for its general stance of non-one-sidedness. After a number of debates about the occurrence of contradictory sentences inside the so-called "Jain logic", three main theses are presented in the following: the saptabhaṅgī is a theory of judgment giving an exhaustive list of possible statements; it is not a "logic" in the modern sense of the word, given that no consequence relation appears in it; the Jain saptabhaṅgī can be viewed as a dual of the Madhyamaka catuṣkoṭi, where four possible statements are equally denied. A formal semantics is proposed to account for these theses, namely: a Question-Answer Semantics, in which a basic question-answer game makes sense of every statement with the help of structured logical values. Some new light will be also thrown upon the controversial notion of avaktavyam: instead of being taken as a case of true contradiction, our semantics will justify a reduction of the Jain theory of non-one-sidedness to a one-valued system of question-answer games.
A One-Valued Logic for Non-One-Sidedness (pdf)
The Perfect Body of the Jina and His Imperfect Image
Author: Phyllis Granoff
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 5 (2013) 1-21
Abstract
The Yuktiprabodha of the Śvetāmbara monk Meghavijaya engages the views of Bāṇārasīdās and the adhyātma movement on a number of issues. This paper explores their debate about whether or not it was appropriate to adorn images of the Jina. Bāṇārasīdās argued emphatically that adorning the image did violence to the Jina, who as a renunciant had abandoned all forms of adornment. Meghavijaya argued that it was only by adorning the Jina image that a sense of the Jina’s extraordinary beauty and radiance could be conveyed. In the course of the debate Meghavijaya raises far-reaching questions about how images function and how they are actually “seen” by worshippers.
The Perfect Body of the Jina and His Imperfect Image (pdf)
Muni Ratnacandra’s Nine Jain Questions for Christians
Author: Peter Friedlander
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 6 (2013) 1-30
Abstract
This article examines a rare, and possibly unique, manuscript which describes an encounter between Jain monks and Christian’s from an unknown denomination of Padres which took place in 1854 at an unidentified location either in Rājasthān or the Pañjāb or possibly in Agra. What makes this work so interesting is that whilst there has been considerable scholarship on the early stages of Buddhist-Christian and Hindu-Christian debates there has been little work on encounters between Jains and Christians. The work takes the form of nine questions posed by Muni Ratnacandra (1793-1864) disciple of Muni Harjīmal (1783-1832) of the Manohardās order of the anti-iconic Sthānakavāsī tradition. The questions which Christians should be asked reveal unique features in how Jain tradition responded to encounters with Christians. I argue that the main arguments deployed against Christianity in the text are all adapted from earlier Jain arguments deployed against other teachings. The importance of this text then is that it allows us to have a unique insight into how Jain vernacular tradition responded to Christianity during the mid 19th century.
Muni Ratnacandra’s Nine Jain Questions for Christians (pdf)
“Today I Play Holī in My City” Digambar Jain Holī Songs From Jaipur
Author: John E. Cort
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 7 (2013) 1-50
Abstract
The springtime festival of Holī has long posed a problem for Jains. Jain ideologues have criticized the celebration of Holī as contravening several key Jain ethical virtues. In response, Digambar Jain poets developed a genre of Holī songs that transformed the elements of Holī into a complex spiritual allegory, and thereby “tamed” the transgressive festival. This essay analyzes the six Holī songs (pad) by the poet Budhjan (fl. CE 1778-1838) of Jaipur. An investigation of this Digambar genre of Holī songs encourages us to see that many of the “Hindu” Holī songs from this same period were also engaged in a process of reframing and taming Holī. Both Hindu and Jain songs translated its antinomian and transgressive elements into softer, less threatening sets of metaphors specific to their spiritual traditions.
“Today I Play Holī in My City” Digambar Jain Holī Songs From Jaipur (pdf)
Prabhācandra’s Status In The History Of Jaina Philosophy
Author: Jayandra Soni
Year: 2013
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 9, No. 8 (2013) 1-13
Abstract
In dealing with the history of Jaina philosophical speculation after the age of the Āgamas, K. K. Dixit in his now well-known 1971 work Jaina Ontology (pp. 88–164) conveniently divides the speculations into three stages which he calls the “Ages of Logic”. It is Prabhācandra, one of the thinkers of the third stage (apart from Abhayadeva, Vādideva and Yaśovijaya) which concerns the content of this paper, because Dixit makes contrary statements about him. On the one hand, he says that “the range of Prabhācandra’s enquiry was less comprehensive than that of Vidyānanda and his treatment of topics less advanced than that of the latter” (p. 103). And, on the other hand, on p. 156, he says that Prabhācandra “had made it a point to introduce in his commentaries an exhaustive and systematic discussion of the major philosophical issues of his times” (even including aspects not found in his predecessors, e.g. theories of error).
Prabhācandra’s Status In The History Of Jaina Philosophy (pdf)
Shades of Enlightenment: A Jain Tantric Diagram and the Colours of the Tīrthaṅkaras
Author: Ellen Gough
Year: 2012
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 8, No. 1 (2012) 1-47
Abstract
While scholarship has paid little attention to Śaiva/Śākta and Jain interactions in the medieval period, Śaivas seem to have exerted great influence on Jain ritual culture, bringing lasting changes to Jain worship practices. This article discusses the historical development of two aspects of Jain ritual that may have been influenced by Śākta understandings – a tantric diagram called the Ṛṣimaṇḍala, and the different colours in which the twenty-four tīrthaṅkaras are portrayed. Today, members of the two main sects of Jainism, Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras, disagree on the colours of twotīrthaṅkaras, Malli and Supārśva. As this article shows, the origins of this dispute seem to be related to medieval Śākta influence on the Śvetāmbara positioning of Malli in the multi-coloured seed-syllable hrīṃ at the center of the Ṛṣimaṇḍala.
Shades of Enlightenment: A Jain Tantric Diagram and the Colours of the Tīrthaṅkaras (pdf)
The Temple of Saṅghī Jhūṅthārāmjī "Jain on the Outside – Hindu Inside"
Author: Elena Karatchkova
Year: 2012
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 8, No. 2 (2012) 1-25
Abstract
This paper analyzes an oral tradition (recorded during field research), which explains the circumstances of religious conversion of a temple in Āmber – the former capital of Jaipur kingdom in Rājasthān. The Śaiva temple, today referred to locally as “Saṅghī Jhūṅthārāmjī kā mandir”, was originally the Jain temple of Vimalnāth. It was built in 1657 A.D. by Mohan Dās – the Jain Chief Minister at the court of the Rājpūt ruler of Āmber Rājā Jai Singh I (1621—1667). In this paper I compare the content of the recorded narrative about the temple with historical circumstances of its conversion. Although the contemporary oral tradition contradicts historical facts, it reveals important social and cultural meanings, characteristic of Rājasthān.
The Temple of Saṅghī Jhūṅthārāmjī "Jain on the Outside – Hindu Inside"
Pūrṇabhadra’s Pañcatantra: Jaina Tales Or Brahmanical Outsourcing?
Author: McComas Taylor
Year: 2011
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 7, No. 1 (2011) 1-17
Abstract
For over a hundred years, it has been assumed that the collection of Sanskrit narrative fables known as Pūrṇabhadra’s Pañcatantra was a Jaina text. For the last thirty years or so, one could assume that because the redactor inhabited a specific epistemic community, the Jaina ‘thought-world’, that this was not only obvious, but inevitable. This paper challenges both these assumptions, and will set out to demonstrate that the Pūrṇabhadra’s Pañcatantra is a product of a Brahminical, Hindu, episteme, and that the redactor, rather than being a trapped in the imaginary of Jaina society draw on the epistemic traditions of his choice. This will contribute to our understanding of pre-modern literary production, the Jaina thought-world and the workings of epistemic communities more generally. This article demonstrates that a Jaina is capable of producing a non-Jaina text. This might seem obvious, but it challenges our assumptions about the production of discourse in a given epistemic community.
Pūrṇabhadra’s Pañcatantra: Jaina Tales Or Brahmanical Outsourcing? (pdf)
Temples And Patrons The Nineteenth-Century Temple Of Motīśāh At Śatruñjaya
Author: Hawon Ku
Year: 2011
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 7, No. 2 (2011) 1-22
Abstract
Śatruñjaya, located in Gujarat, India, is one of the most significant pilgrimage sites for Śvetāmbara Jains, who comprise the majority of Jains in western India. However, only during the 19th century the site acquired its current form, with more than 150 temples remaining on the site. The concentrated patronage during this period was due to a rise in wealth and the conditions of the Jain merchant patrons, in which the harvest of merit was the most important cause. However, following a series of legal cases surrounding the ownership of the site, the forms of patronage as well as the architectural styles of the temples reverted to a more rigid style based on traditional manuals and 13th-century Jain temple architecture. In this article I argue that these changes of Śatruñjaya, into an exceptional symbol of the Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjāka community, were brought by a rise of a modern Jain identity, stemming from several reasons, including the series of legal cases and Western writings on the site.
Temples And Patrons The Nineteenth-Century Temple Of Motīśāh At Śatruñjaya (pdf)
The Significance Of Adhyavasāya In Jain Karma Theory
Author: Kristi L. Wiley
Year: 2011
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 7, No. 3 (2011) 1-26
Abstract
Various technical terms associated with the binding of karmic matter found in the Tattvārthasūtra have been incorporated into discussions of karma theory in survey texts on Jainism. According to these texts, the influx (āsrava) of karma is brought about by activity (yoga). It is bound with the soul for a certain period of time when the soul is under the influence of passions (kaṣāya). The variety (prakṛti) and the quantity (pradeśa) of karmic matter are determined by yoga while its duration (sthiti) and intensity (anubhāga/anubhāva) are determined by kaṣāyas. However, in some sources, another term, adhyavasāya, is used in association with karmic bondage. This paper examines the use of adhyavasāya in various karma texts of the Śvetāmbara and Digambara sectarian traditions, including the Karmagranthas, Gommaṭasāra, and Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama, and discusses its significance in karmic bondage.
The Significance Of Adhyavasāya In Jain Karma Theory (pdf)
Burial Ad Sanctos at Jaina Sites in India
Author: Peter Flügel
Year: 2011
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 7, No. 4 (2011) 1-37
Abstract
The analysis of the process of gradual integration of religious artefacts into the originally anti-iconic protestant Jaina traditions, starting with relics of renowned saints, and the evolution of pilgrimage centres from the early nineteenth century onwards shows that it followed the same logic as proposed by the theory of aniconism for the development of anthropomorphic images in ancient India: relics, stūpas, aniconic representations, anthropomorphic iconoplastic representations. It is argued in this article that it is unlikely that extant aniconic Jaina religious art from ancient India evolved along similar lines for at least four reasons: The absence of (1) doctrinal aniconism in early Jainism, (2) of a notable cult of the relics of the Jina, (3) of evidence for Jaina stūpas antedating anthropomorphic miniature reliefs, and (4) of sharply demarcated Jaina sectarian traditions before the Digambara-Śvetambara split. The reputedly oldest iconographic evidence from Mathurā rather suggests a parallel evolution of iconic and aniconic representations; with footprint/foot-images (caraṇa-pādukā) as a relatively late addition to the vocabulary of aniconic Jaina art. The apocryphal development of aniconic iconography in protestant Jaina traditions with progressive emphasis on the individual identity of renowned gurus and gurunīs of particular monastic traditions seems to replicate earlier developments in the iconic traditions which must have started in the early medieval period. The particular evolutionary sequence and selectivity of aniconic Jaina iconography with its characteristic exegetical impediments against the worship of Jina images and increasing emphasis on the practice of burial ad sanctos and cities of the dead however represents a genuine novelty not only in the history of Jainism but in Indian religious culture as a whole.
Visual and Conceptual Links Between Jaina Cosmological, Mythological and Ritual instruments
Author: Julia A. B. Hegewald
Year: 2010
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 6, No. 1 (2010) 1-20
Visual and Conceptual Links Between Jaina Cosmological, Mythological and Ritual instruments (pdf)
In Defence of Icons in Three Languages - The Iconophilic Writings of Yaśovijaya
Author: John E. Cort
Year: 2010
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 6, No. 2 (2010) 1-45
Abstract
The seventeenth century was a time of great sectarian change and controversy among the Śvetāmbara Jains of western India. Among the most widely-disputed subjects was the status and orthodoxy of Jina icons and their worship. During this period the great Mūrtipūjaka Tapā Gaccha monk and intellectual Yaśovijaya (1624-1688) wrote a number of texts in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Gujarati that in whole or in part advanced a defense of icons. This article summarizes eight texts (two in Sanskrit, one in Prakrit, and five in Gujarati) devoted solely to this subject, and then analyzes major themes that emerge in the texts. Yaśovijaya employed four arguments in defense of icons. (1) Icons are legitimated by the canonical hermeneutic of nikṣepa, or applying multiple viewpoints to any topic under investigation. (2) The worship of icons does not contravene the central Jain ethic of ahiṃsā or non-harm. (3) The worship of icons is supported by a careful reading of both the Śvetāmbara scriptures and their commentaries. (4) Finally, the study of Jain history shows clear evidence of the long-standing use of Jina icons. Yaśovijaya combined his deep knowledge of Jain literature with his skill as a logician and debater to articulate this “theology of the icon” that has remained an important element in Tapā Gaccha ideology until the present. This investigation of Yaśovijaya’s iconophilic writings demonstrates the centrality of icons to Jain ritual, devotional and intellectual culture.
In Defence of Icons in Three Languages - The Iconophilic Writings of Yaśovijaya (pdf)
Review of Die Erlösunglehre der Jainas
Author: Willem B. Bollée
Year: 2010
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 6, No. 3 (2010) 1-4
Abstract
The article is a review of Adelheid Mette’s second, substantially enlarged, edition of her work on the doctrine of the Jains, Durch Entsagung zum Heil (1991), on the basis of German translations from the main texts and commentaries.
Review of Die Erlösunglehre der Jainas (pdf)
Demarcating Sacred Space: The Jina Images at Kalugumalai
Author: Lisa N. Owen
Year: 2010
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 6, No. 4 (2010) 1-28
Abstract
In the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, there are a number of medieval Jain sites that feature large boulders or outcrops of stone that are carved with images of Jinas and Jain deities. The relief carvings that constitute these sites typically span the entire surface of the boulder and are often accompanied by donative inscriptions. Given the large number of these reliefs and the fact that they are independent donations, most art historians examine them in an effort to track changes in Jain iconography and style. This approach, however, tends to deny the efficacy of these images when viewed collectively. More importantly, it denies the ways that these images demarcate Jain notions of sacred space. In this paper, I examine the 9th-10th century site of Kalugumalai primarily as an expression of sacred space rather than as a repository of individual carvings or inscriptions. These images clearly function collectively to identify the boulder and its surrounding environs as a place sacred to Jains and as a place worthy of worship. By examining the nature of the "site" rather than examining individual sculptures we can come to a better understanding of how such places functioned in their medieval context.
Demarcating Sacred Space: The Jina Images at Kalugumalai (pdf)
Links Between Sanskrit and Muslim Science in Jaina Astronomical Works
Author: Kim Plofker
Year: 2010
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 6, No. 5 (2010) 1-13
Abstract
In the cross-fertilization between Islamic and traditional Indian exact sciences that took place in the courts of Hindu and Muslim rulers in second-millennium India, Jaina intermediaries played a significant part. Some important scientific ideas, such as the principles of the Islamic astrolabe and conversion calculations for the Islamic calendar, were first explained to Indian audiences in the works of Jaina authors. Muslim audiences, in their turn, received Indian astrological ideas attributed to an authority known only as "Jina". What factors placed the small minority of Jaina scholars at the center of these early efforts at scientific transmission? And what role did they play in the more familiar, and often more dramatic, encounters between Hindu and Muslim scientific views in subsequent centuries? The article argues that compared to its Hindu-majority counterpart, the Jaina scientific tradition was in some ways more receptive to, and simultaneously more insulated from, the new and foreign ideas of early modern Indo-Islamic science.
Links Between Sanskrit and Muslim Science in Jaina Astronomical Works (pdf)
God, The Soul And The Creatrix: Haribhadra Sūri On Nyāya And Sāṃkhya
Author: Frank Van Den Bossche
Year: 2010
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 6, No. 6 (2010) 1-49
God, The Soul And The Creatrix: Haribhadra Sūri On Nyāya And Sāṃkhya (pdf)
IJJS 5.1 Cort, An Epitome of Medieval Śvetāmbara Literary Culture: A Review and Study of Jinaratnasūri’s Līlāvatīsāra
Author: John E. Cort
Year: 2009
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 5, No. 1 (2009) 1-33
Abstract
The Līlāvatīsāra was composed in 1285 C.E. by the Kharatara Gaccha monk and author Jinaratnasūri. It presents a nested set of tales that trace the effects of karma over multiple lifetimes. Each set of tales ends with the fictive hearer of the tales realizing the evanescence of material life, and as a result renouncing the world to become a Jain monk. On the basis of the single extant manuscript copied in ca. 1350, and now in Jaisalmer, Richard C. C. Fynes re-edited and translated the text for the Clay Sanskrit Library. After reviewing Fynes’s translation, this article details the Khartara Gaccha “writer’s workshop” of which Jinaratnasūri was an important participant. The article argues that the extensive production of literature by these Kharatara Gaccha monks, as well as the medieval monks of the Tapā Gaccha, played a major role in the rise of these lineages to prominence in medieval Śvetāmbara Jain society in western India.
Indian Influence on Mani Reconsidered: The Case of Jainism
Authors: Max Deeg & Iain Gardner
Year: 2009
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 5, No. 2 (2009) 1-30
Indian Influence on Mani Reconsidered: The Case of Jainism (pdf)
How Not to Install an Image of the Jina: An Early Anti-Paurṇamīyaka Diatribe
Author: Paul Dundas
Year: 2009
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 5, No. 3 (2009) 1-23
Abstract
Image installation (pratiṣṭhā), a central ritual of Jainism, of necessity requires the cooperative participation of monk and layman. The twelfth century Śvetāmbara teacher Candraprabhasūri, credited with initiating the Paurṇamīyaka Gaccha, apparently criticised the role of the monk in empowering an image of a Jina, apparently on the grounds that monks cannot engage in physical worship (dravyapūjā) of any iconic representation. This paper analyses the systematic riposte to this position by Ajitadevasūri of the Bṛhad Gaccha in his Mohonmūlanavādasthānaka of 1128.
How Not to Install an Image of the Jina: An Early Anti-Paurṇamīyaka Diatribe (pdf)
Worlds in Conflict. The Cosmopolitan Vision of Yaśovijaya Gaṇi
Author: Jonardon Ganeri
Year: 2008
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 4, No. 1 (2008) 1-11
Abstract
The Jaina philosopher Yaśovijaya Gaṇi (c.1608-1688 CE) lived during a period of exceptional socio-philosophical interest, one in which the world of traditional Sanskrit discourse found itself in an encounter with the new intellectual world of the Mughal empire. One might well imagine how these circumstances would provide a Jaina philosopher of the period with a distinctive range of challenges. Certainly, we find in Yaśovijaya an attempt to continue the tradition of Jaina philosophical scholarship in the new scholarly language of Navya Nyāya. But do we find in his large corpus of works a responsiveness to newly emerging intellectual horizons? The article attends primarily to a little known but fascinating text of his, the Nyāya Jainakhaṇḍakhādya. In this text we find among other things a return to one of the strongest of the classical themes, the debate between Buddhists and Naiyāyikas over the existence of self or soul. Why, we might well ask, at a time when the Buddhists have long since ceased to be present in the Sanskrit philosophical debate, does Yaśovijaya choose to revisit this debate once again?
Worlds in Conflict. The Cosmopolitan Vision of Yaśovijaya Gaṇi (pdf)
On The Unintended Influence Of Jainism On The Development Of Caste In Post-Classical Tamil Society
Author: Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan
Year: 2008
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 4, No. 2 (2008) 1-65
Abstract
Tamil nationalist scholars have held that the early Tamil society was casteless. But, they have not been able to explain away the occurrence of words such as pulaiyaṉ, iḻipiṟappiṉōṉ, iḻipiṟappāḷaṉ, and iḻiciṉaṉ, which are traditionally interpreted as low-born persons in classical Tamil literature. On the other hand, these words have led scholars like K. K. Pillay and George Hart to state that the concept of untouchability - and hence the notion of caste - has been present from the time of Classical Tamil literature. All these scholars have failed to consider the influence of Jaina worldview reflected in the classical Tamil literature. When the classical Tamil texts are analyzed using information from the field of Jainism along with philology, Dravidian linguistics, and South Indian epigraphy, one could see that neither untouchability nor caste was indigenous to Tamil society. In fact, the word pulaiyaṉ, which later came to mean ‘a polluted man’, originally meant ‘a man who causes auspiciousness/prosperity’. Ironically, the non-violence principle of Jainism was an inadvertent catalyst in the development of violence-ridden untouchability among the speakers of Dravidian languages in post-classical Tamil times.
Glossary of Robert Williams, Jaina Yoga
Author: Willem B. Bollée
Year: 2008
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 4, No. 3 (2008) 1-53
Abstract
Robert H.B. Williams (1915-1975) to whom we owe the standard manual for the study of conduct of Jain laypeople had an eye problem which may have prevented him from preparing the necessary subject index to his Jain Yoga. As the three-hundred page book is often consulted it was thought fit to fill the gap in the hope that the result will be added to a future reprint.
Subject Index of the Inventory of the Stories in N. Balbir's Āvaśyaka Studien
Author: Willem B. Bollée
Year: 2007
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 3, No. 1 (2007) 1-23
Abstract
Balbir’s Āvaśyaka-Studien, Introduction Générale et Traduction is a valuable manual on a most important text of the Śvetāmbara Jains. In order to make this book usable a necessary subject index was made of it.
Subject Index of the Inventory of the Stories in N. Balbir's Āvaśyaka Studien (pdf)
A Note on the Pāsa Traditions in the Universal History of the Digambaras and Śvetâmbaras
Author: Willem B. Bollée
Year: 2007
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 3, No. 2 (2007) 1-60
Abstract
Jain studies have so far concentrated on Śvetāmbara texts because those of the Digambaras were hardly available. The late professor Upadhye, to whom this contribution is dedicated, has done much to change this disparity which enabled the present author to edit, translate and comment from an important 9th century text, Guṇabhadra’s Mahāpurāṇa, a Universal History, the life of the Jina Pāsa who is popular in both Jain churches.
A Note on the Pāsa Traditions in the Universal History of the Digambaras and Śvetâmbaras (pdf)
Blind Faith according to the Jainas: The Yama Case
Author: Jean-Pierre Osier
Year: 2007
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 3, No. 3 (2007) 1-12
Blind Faith according to the Jainas: The Yama Case (pdf)
A Short History of Jaina Law
Author: Peter Flügel
Year: 2007
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 3, No. 4 (2007) 1-15
Abstract
The nineteenth century English neologism ‘Jaina law’ is a product of colonial legal intervention in India from 1772 onwards. 'Jaina law' suggests uniformity where in reality there is a plurality of scriptures, ethical and legal codes, and customs of sect, caste, family and region. The contested semantics of the term reflect alternative attempts by the agents of the modern Indian legal system and by Jain reformers to restate traditional Jain concepts. Four interpretations of the modern term 'Jaina law' can be distinguished: (i) 'Jaina law' in the widest sense signifies the doctrine and practice of jaina dharma, or Jaina ‘religion’. (ii) In a more specific sense it points to the totality of conventions (vyavahāra) and law codes (vyavasthā) in Jaina monastic and lay traditions. Sanskrit vyavasthā and its Arabic and Urdu equivalent qānūn both designate a specific code of law or legal opinion/decision, whereas Sanskrit dharma can mean religion, morality, custom and law. (iii) The modern Indian legal system is primarily concerned with the 'personal law' of the Jaina laity. In Anglo-Indian case law, the term 'Jaina law' was used both as a designation for 'Jain scriptures' (śāstra) on personal law, and for the unwritten 'customary laws' of the Jains, that is the social norms of Jain castes (jāti) and clans (gotra). (iv) In 1955/6 Jaina personal law was submerged under the statutory 'Hindu Code', and is now only indirectly recognised by the legal system in the form of residual Jain 'customs' to be proved in court. The article traces the process in modern Indian legal history of narrowing the semantic range of the modern term 'Jaina law' from 'Jain scriptures' down to 'Jain personal law' and finally 'Jain custom', which may lead not only in the official obliteration of Jaina legal culture, which continues to thrive outside the formal legal system in monastic law, ethics and custom, but also of Jaina 'religion'.
A Short History of Jaina Law (pdf)
Digambara Attitudes to the Svetambara Canon
Author: Fujinaga Sin
Year: 2007
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 3, No. 5 (2007) 1-11
Abstract
Pūjyapāda is the first Digambara philosopher that wrote a commentary on the Tattvārthasūtra. In that commentary titled as Sarvārthasiddhi he quotes many sentences from many works. Their analysis leads to the conclusion that Pūjyapāda may have had some tendency to harmonize Digambara and Śvetāmbara concepts.
Digambara Attitudes to the Svetambara Canon (pdf)
The Original Panhavayarana Prasnavyakarana Discovered
Author: Diwakar Acharya
Year: 2007
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 3, No. 6 (2007) 1-10
Abstract
This paper reports the author's discovery of the original Paṇhavāyaraṇa/ Praśnavyākaraṇa together with a fairly old Sanskrit commentary. It describes the unique palm-leaf manuscript and its paper transcript both preserved in the National Archives of Nepal. The original text of the Praśnavyākaraṇa was lost at some point in history and another entirely different text was substituted in the place of the original aṅgasūtra. The version of the Praśnavyākaraṇa in circulation deals with the five sins and the consequences corresponding to them but a number of Jaina canonical texts indicate that the original Praśnavyākaraṇa should mostly deal with divination. Exactly this is the content of the Praśnavyākaraṇa discovered in Nepal. This paper discusses all these issues, narrates the description of the Praśnavyākaraṇa found in Jaina canonical texts, presents a list of all sections of the newly found text, and also reflects on the identity of the Sanskrit commentator Devanandi.
Review of Acharya Kundkund: Barasa Anuvekkha
Author: Willem B. Bollée
Year: 2006
2.1: September 2006; International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online), ISSN: 1748-1074
Abstract
The review of Kundkund’s book Barasa Anuvekkha (Twelve Contemplations) deals with a free reprint of a Śaurasenī text which is a rarity. The reviewer’s remarks aim at providing some material for a new edition.
Review of Acharya Kundkund: Barasa Anuvekkha (pdf)
The Sthānāṅgasūtra: An Encyclopaedic Text of the Śvetāmbara Canon
Author: Kornelius Krümpelmann
Year: 2006
2.2: September 2006; International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online), ISSN: 1748-1074
Abstract
Every text which was included into the canon of the Śvetāmbara Jainas during the council at Valabhī in the fifth century AD deserves our attention. The contents of the Sthānāṅga, which comprises 783 sūtras, are distributed over ten chapters. Not only all the main subjects of the Jaina religion in its broader sense are listed, but also many other aspects of the Jaina conception of the world are mentioned. Therefore it is a work of extreme heterogeneity. All topics are subsumed under numbers one to ten, depending on how often they occur in the world. For example: “activity” (kriyā) is given in the first chapter, i. e. under number one. We can find the same term again under number two in the second chapter, because “activity” can refer both to the soul and to the body. Again, kriyā could be of mental, vocal or physical kind, so it goes also with number three. In chapter four we learn that kriyā might be caused by violence, possession, deceit or indiscipline, and so on. Points of discussion are the origin of the Sthānāṅga, its authorship, the earliest commentary on it (composed by Abhayadevasūri in 1120 VS), the underlying motive of its compilation, and its idea and intellectual structure, which are of particular importance for our understanding of the work. As a kind of lexicon to the entire Jaina Āgama, the Sthānāṅga was part of the curriculum of the monks. And without profound knowledge of this text, the attainment of the position of an ācārya was impossible.
The Sthānāṅgasūtra: An Encyclopaedic Text of the Śvetāmbara Canon (pdf)
Jaina Philosophy and Religion
Author: Peter Flügel
Year: 2006
2.3: September 2006; International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online), ISSN: 1748-1074
Abstract
Review article of the work Essays in Jaina Philosophy and Religion, edited by Piotr Balcerowicz of the University of Warsaw, published in 2003 in Delhi by Motilal Banarsidas, containing articles by N. Balbir, P. Balceroxicz, J. Bronkhorst, C. Caillat, J. Cort, C. Emmrich, P. Granoff, Muni Jambuvijaya, A. Mette, J. Soni, L. Soni, K. Watanabe, A. Wezler, and K. Wiley.
Jaina Philosophy and Religion (pdf)
Are Jaina Ethics Really Universal?
Author: W. J. Johnson
Year: 2006
2.4: October 2006; International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online), ISSN: 1748-1074
Abstract
This article argues that the common conviction that Jaina ethical precepts are applicable to all people, in all circumstances, at all times, is based on a confusion. Through a consideration of such common Jaina practices as pūjā (worship), it shows that, in terms of its soteriological consequences, what is regarded as ahiṃsā depends on the identity of the actor (lay person or ascetic), rather than on the absolute quality of the action. The ethical means by which a person attains a particular soteriological effect (destruction of karma) therefore differs in accordance with their status. The argument concludes by suggesting that it is precisely this particularization of ethics that allows lay Jains to live in the world and still make significant soteriological progress.
The Invention of Jainism: A Short History of Jaina Studies
Author: Peter Flügel
Year: 2005
Re-published with minor changes with permission of the editors of The Journal of Jaina Studies (Kyoto) Vol. 11; 1-19. 2005
Abstract
The article provides a short summary of the institutional history of the new field of 'Jain Studies' in its historical and political context. It shows that the Sanskrit term 'Jaina' used as a self-designation (rather than as the designation of a doctrine or in the sense of 'pertaining to the Jina') is based on the vernacular precursor 'Jain' which became prevalent from the early modern period onwards - most likely as an internalised observer category. The words 'Jain' and 'Jainism' became widely used only in the context of 19th communal movements in colonial India. At the same time the Jain scriptures were published to back the identity claims of the Jaina law movement and modern 'Jainism' as a disembodied text-based set of idea-ologies or dogmas from which one can pick and chose was born.
The Invention of Jainism: A Short History of Jaina Studies (pdf)
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The International Journal of Jaina Studies is dedicated to the promotion of scholarly exchange among academics, researchers, and students engaged in the study of the Jainism and Jain culture. It welcomes submissions of research papers, monographs and reviews in all fields of Jaina Studies.
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Book titles and names of journals should be in italic; titles of articles and chapters in edited collections should be in double inverted commas. For example:
| Type | Format |
|---|---|
| Books: | Jaini, Padmanabh S. The Jaina Path of Purification. Berkeley: California University Press, 1979. |
| Edited Volumes: | Jambuvijaya, Muni. "The Jaina Agama Series." Jain Studies in Honour of Jozef Deleu. Ed. Rudy Smet & Kenji Watanabe, 1-12. Tokyo: Hon-no-Tomosha, 1993. |
| Articles: | Folkert, Kendall W. "Jaina Studies: Japan, Europe, India." Sambodhi 5, 2-3 (1976) 138-147. |
| Websites: | International Journal of Jaina Studies |
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Editorial board
Editor
- Peter Flügel
Editorial Board
- Mark Allon
- Nalini Balbir
- Piotr Balcerowicz
- Willem Bollee
- Johannes Bronkhorst
- Frank van den Bossche
- Christine Chojnacki
- John E. Cort
- Eva De Clerq
- Christoph Emmerich
- Anna Aurelia Esposito
- Sin Fujinaga
- Richard C. Fynes
- Phyllis Granoff
- Julia Hegewald
- Padmanabh S. Jaini
- William Johnson
- Whitney M. Kelting
- Kornelius Krümpelmann
- James Laidlaw
- Padmanabaiah Nagarajaiah
- Olle Qvarnström
- Josephine Reynell
- Maria Schetelich
- Renate Söhnen-Thieme
- Jayandra Soni
- Himal Trikha
- Alvappillai Veluppillai
- Royce Wiles
- Kristi L. Wiley
- Clifford R. Wright
- Robert Zydenbos
Contact us
Contact the International Journal of Jaina Studies
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Email: ijjs@soas.ac.uk
Peter Flügel, Editor
About the IJJS
Published by the Centre of Jaina Studies, SOAS
The Centre of Jaina Studies at SOAS established the peer-reviewed International Journal of Jaina Studies (IJJS) to facilitate academic communication. The main objective of the journal is to publish research papers, monographs, and reviews in the field of Jain Studies in a form that makes them quickly and easily accessible to the international academic community, and to the general public.
As an open access online publication the IJJS (Online) can be more flexible and creative than a standard print journal. The texts are in pdf-format and can be published and downloaded at virtually no cost. To increase velocity all contributions are issued individually in numerical order. It is intended to re-publish articles and monographs in book form on demand.
The IJJS is now also available in print from Hindi Granth Karyalay Publishers, Mumbai, India.
The journal draws on the research and the symposia conducted at the Centre of Jaina Studies at the University of London and on the global network of Jaina scholarship.
The opinions expressed in the journal are those of the authors, and do not represent the views of the School of Oriental and African Studies or the Editors, unless otherwise indicated.