GENDER AND RELIGION: GENDER AND JAINISM

The birth act for the study of gender concerns in Jainism is undoubtedly the publication of Padmanabh S. Jaini's Gender and Salvation : Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women (1991). Jaini's monograph goes to the heart of the Jain tradition by dealing with a gender-based issue that is crucial to it and that marks one of the clearest differences between its two main ideological currents, the Śvetāmbara and the Digambara Jains (born from a split that probably took place in the beginning of the common era). Some of the other factors that encouraged reflecting on the place of women in the Jain tradition in the last 15 to 20 years, which run parallel to the general trend of developing reflection on the role of women in all traditions, are the following: an increasing interest in Jainism among female scholars (e.g., anthropologists, philologists) who, in the Indian context, have easier access to nuns or laywomen than their male colleagues; an interest for Jainism explicitly motivated by a gender-based approach; a growing consciousness of the immense wealth of tradition and issues represented by women in Jainism; and an increasing number of publications, especially in the United States, on the broad topic of women and religion. Before this, many of those who studied Jainism had noticed the numerical potential represented by women, especially in the monastic orders of the Śvetāmbara Jains, without really exploring the topic.

Women and Salvation

The Jain religious discourse shares universal prejudices against women, who are viewed as temptresses and symbols of attachment, fickleness, and, above all, treacherousness. Acts of deception (māyā ) are considered a woman's main characteristic, to the extent that deceitfulness comes to be adduced as an explanation for sex-differentiation: "As a result of manifesting deception a man in this world becomes a woman. As for a woman, if her heart is pure, she becomes a man in this world" (Maheśvarasūri, Nānapancamīkahā 3.17, tenth century).

However, the main question is whether the basic inequality between man and woman as such can be neutralized. The most original contribution of the Jains to world religions undoubtedly concerns the theological consequences of their image of woman and their vivid debates about women's ability to gain salvation. The position on this radically separates the Digambaras and the Śvetāmbara and is linked to the correlated question of nudity viewed, or not, as a prerequisite. For the former, whose name means "sky-clad," acceptance of nudity by the mendicants is a symbol of their perfect detachment from everything, whether material possession or any moral defilement.

Because the underlying idea is that a woman can by no means go naked because of her specific physiology and innate impurity due to the presence of numerous subtle microscopic beings in her body, she is not considered to be able to reach emancipation as a woman. She has to be reborn as a man first. This perspective may be one reason why nuns are less numerous than monks among the Digambaras. The "white-clads," on the other hand, focus on a more internal approach: Provided an individual is able to fulfill the right faith, right knowledge and right behavior, which are the only necessary conditions for attaining the ultimate goal, gender does not matter. From the beginning of the common era up to the twenty-first century, this debate about female religiosity has been continuously sustained in many texts—all written by male ascetics. Authors from the two groups have done their best to provide logical arguments and closely conducted discussions in favor of their respective opinions, trying to go beyond mere postulates. Some, for instance, have devised a fine analysis of the notion of gender, which they see as different from sex, through a Sanskrit term (veda ) meaning, in fact, libido, thus transcending the physiological sex distinction.

Women and Mythological Categories: The Jinas

Theological debates on women and emancipation are mirrored in the construction of gender in myth. Basically atheistic, the mythology of the Jain tradition centers around the lives of its Ford-makers (Tīrthaṃkaras, or Jinas), who number twenty-four. Like other humans, the Jinas are beings who have gone through the world of transmigration and have been born under different shapes among gods, animals, or human beings. In their last incarnation, they are human beings who soon leave the worldly life and become religious mendicants to entirely devote themselves to the practice of asceticism, which results in perfect knowledge (kevala-jñāna ) and finally emancipation. Accounts of the Jinas' biographies are an important part of the literary tradition. Both Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras agree that twenty-three out of these twenty-four Jinas are men, but they disagree about number nineteen, named Malli (linguistically an ambivalent form because i nominal stems can be masculine and/or feminine). The Digambaras unanimously tell that Malli (or Mallinātha) was a boy who lived the ordinary career of a Jina and occasionally consider the absence of any feminine image as a proof that Malli is masculine. The Śvetāmbaras, on the other hand, state that Malli became a Jina during her last birth as a woman. The Śvetāmbara narrative enhances the ambivalence of the woman status as seen by this religious group: Malli had to be a woman as a kind of atonement for some act of deception committed in a former existence, but, at the same time, she had earned a type of karman leading to become a Jina. The fact that the Śvetāmbaras include in their canon a specific text narrating the life of Malli, whereas all Jinas are not provided with a full-fledged individual biography, indicates their desire to stress their sectarian specificity regarding this point. However, there are linguistic and stylistic features that show that even Śvetāmbaras may not have wished to insist too much on Malli's femininity as such. Once she has decided to renounce the world because she was considered only as a sexual object by several young men who all wanted to marry her, she follows the same path as other Jinas and is given the same masculine titles (e.g., Mallijina, Mallinātha, bhagavant, arahant, svāmin ). In other words, a woman can gain emancipation, but the nonemphasis on femininity is the way to reach it. This could explain that (except for a dubious case) no visual representation of Malli with any feminine sexual characteristic is available. This fact is, to some extent, in accordance with the idea that Jinas are pure emancipated souls who cannot be shown as human beings, but is in contradiction with the sexually marked sculptural representations of naked Jinas.

Women in the Life of MahĀvĪra

The fundamental theological difference between Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras—the latter having a basically negative view of women—explains their divergence of thought regarding the role of women in the life of their teacher, Mahāvīra, the twenty-fourth Jina. The Digambaras' position suffers no compromise: Mahāvīra cannot be conceived as subjected to women in any way. Albeit the young handsome son of a princely family, he renounces the world as perfectly chaste and never surrenders to the delights of love, thus embodying the perfect ascetic. On the contrary, several features underline the key role of women in this Jina's biography as told by the Śvetāmbaras: (1) although reluctant to do so, Vardhamāna (Mahāvīra) accepts his parents' command to get married; (2) he fathers a daughter; and (3) she becomes the wife of Vardhamāna's elder sister's son (instance of cross-cousin marriage documented in western India) and her husband is responsible for an important schism in the community. This probably intentional stress on feminine lineage may be a part of a strategy meant to underline sectarian identity against the Digambaras (and perhaps also against the Buddhists because Gotama is said to have fathered a son). The desire to describe Mahāvīra as a perfect householder before he renounces the world is perhaps a way to make the ideal he represents closer to the ordinary man and is a less extremist view more in accordance with the accepted current social patterns.

Women in Worship: Mythical Figures

In worship, female mythical figures, connected with grammatically feminine concepts, occupy a central place. Iconography testifies to a fairly ancient cult rendered to the mothers of the Jinas, and especially to Marudevī, the mother of the First One, who is said to have been the first emancipated soul. Knowledge, a cardinal concept in Jain doctrine, takes shape in figures that are all feminine. This applies to the goddess Sarasvatī, who is as important for the Jains as she is for other Indians, to the vidyādevīs, who are representations of various sciences (vidyā, a feminine noun), and to the "eight mothers" (mātṛkās ; a group of eight basic notions of Jain ethics). The main feminine deities of the Jain tradition, however, are the female attendants (Yakṣiṇīs ) attached to the main Jinas. Among them, Cakreśvarī, Padmāvatī and Ambikā (respectively connected with the twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth Jina) have gradually become independent figures and occupy an outstanding place, being invoked by devotees who seek their protection on specific occasions of their daily lives. While the Jinas appear as distant spiritual ideals, these female deities are nearer to the human world and its difficulties and could have a role more prominent than their male counterparts (the Yakṣas ).

Heroines

Storytelling, an important pedagogical means of Jainism that takes various forms in various languages, functions significantly in the construction of gender. The lives of female legendary protagonists inform the minds of Jain women by providing identification patterns to be followed or avoided. In the virtually inexhaustible gallery of portraits, the Jinas' mothers and the sixteen Mahāsatīs are prominent. In short, the following key roles are illustrated by female characters: (1) willing or unwilling donor of alms (to be viewed in the light of the importance of food); (2) strong and faithful adherents to the basic principles of Jainism and propagators of the Jain faith to adverse members of the family; (3) virtuous and faithful wives despite dangerous situations putting life-safety at risk; and (4) renouncers of domestic life (e.g., the famous Rājimatī, dear to all Jain hearts; as her future husband renounced worldly life on the day of his marriage, she overcame her suffering, decided to become a nun, and later resisted the seductive attempts of her husband's elder brother).

Women and Society: Religious Orders

Gender does not seem to have ever been an issue as far as the creation of a female order is concerned. When the community was structured by Mahāvīra, the main expounder of the doctrine (around the fifth century bce), it was right away described as fourfold, including women as two of its components: laywomen (śrāvikā ) and nuns (sādhvī ), beside laymen and monks. This is recognized by all Jains, whether Śvetāmbara or Digambaras, and has not given rise to any discussion or embarrassment whatsoever (contrary to what happened in the beginnings of the Buddhist tradition).

Whether in ancient scriptures or in modern times (at least among Śvetāmbaras), statistics are clear: Nuns largely outnumber monks. However, higher number does not mean higher rank. In the specific texts devoted to the exposition of the monastic code developed by the Śvetāmbaras as a part of their canon, no explicit inequality between monks and nuns is recognized, but the patterns of redaction rest on the underlying thought that a woman, being unsteady by nature, needs more control. General rules applying to monks and nuns are largely similar, but there are additional and stricter rules that are meant to restrict options open to nuns in activities connected with their daily routine—especially food regulations. On the other hand, their independence and freedom are limited by a general subordination to the monks: (1) Even when having a long religious life, they may be under the authority of junior monks; (2) they need more years than their male colleagues to reach high positions in the religious hierarchy; and (3) nuns have their own religious titles that imply an inferior rank than those of monks.

Nuns and Leadership

This last point is best exemplified in the organization of the Terāpantha movement, a modern subsect of the Śvetāmbaras mostly active in Rajasthan. When it originated in the eighteenth century, a single teacher (ācārya ) was the head of both monks and nuns. The regular increase of nuns resulted in the institution of a female head (pramukhā ) who commands smaller units. However, her role is that of a coordinator; she is not considered as the female counterpart of the ācārya, who is the decisional authority, and she remains subordinate to him. In fact, Jainism does not know of any female as a leader of a religious group of some significance. The only exception to this is very recent, rather marginal and locally based in Gujarat. It is represented by the case of Campābahen Mātājī (1918–1993) who became the leader of the Kānji Svāmī Panth, a twentieth century neo-Digambara movement, after the death of its founder in 1980 and who is credited with quasi-divine powers and knowledge of previous births.

Nuns and Society

To some extent, monastic tasks are gender-based and tend to reproduce the distribution of domestic tasks in the secular world (e.g., sewing, mending of robes and other objects). Still, the fact that "religion serves as both a creative and conservative force in women's lives" (Vallely, 2002, pp. 21, 215.) accounts for the appeal that monastic life does have for young Jain women. In addition, "the value of chastity is one way concepts about women and renunciation combined in a manner favorable to female renunciation in Jainism. This connection between Jain wives and renouncers is strong enough, when combined with various other factors, to encourage more women than men to renounce in the Jain tradition" (Fohr, 2001, p. 1). The assymetries between nuns and monks in the communatarian hierarchy and the domestic roles assigned to nuns are not enough to alter this tendency.

In the modern context, the educational level of Jain nuns is a prominent issue. Theoretically, there is no avowed distinction between nuns and monks as regards access to sacred scriptures. Jainism (as well as Buddhism) basically admits access for all and differs, in this respect, from the orthodox Hindu tradition, in which women were traditionally refused access to the Vedas. However, in practice, all the orders within Jainism do not have the same position. Although some of them (e.g., Terāpanthins and Sthānakvāsins) claim that monks and nuns can study all texts, others (e.g., part of the Mūrtipūjaks) state that the nuns' abilities are less and prevent them from being in a position to study certain difficult or controversial canonical texts, especially those connected with the monastic code.

The efforts of some prominent nuns, who try to make use of their prestige and influence to promote women's education, must however be underlined. They profess that before getting religious initiation, the young girls must undergo a probational period during which they will be given at least basic knowledge not only in Jainism but also in grammar or literature. Promoting women's education is moreover an important point of the Terāpanthin subsect. It is being implemented through a special category of nuns who are officially free from certain rules restricting their movements and can visit distant institutions in India or abroad to pursue academic research. Although nuns are allowed to hold public sermons, not many of them do so. More often, they are seen surrounding the preaching monk and carefully listening to him: "Sadhvis are regarded first and foremost as 'devotees.' … The sadhvi is still evaluated according to the pativrata virtues of devotion, surrender, and self-sacrifice. These traditional virtues prescribed for women are not substituted for but rather supplemented with values more accordant with those of the ascetic ideal" (Vallely, 2002, pp. 215, 218).

Study of history also shows that in the past scriptural sources are essentially authored by or ascribed to male renouncers or are male-oriented. The few female religious figures whose names have come to us are sources of inspiration for men (e.g., Yākinī-mahattarā for Haribhadra, c. eighth century). In recent times, a few highly charismatic nuns have been able to express themselves through their autobiographies (e.g., Āryikā Jñānamati, 1990) or through the redaction of religious pamphlets, but no really breaking-through dogmatical treatise is known to have been composed by any woman of the tradition. A further dissymmetry appears in the field of worship. Worship of female deities or deified concepts is one thing; worship of human female teachers another one. Whereas images of male renouncers of some importance are common, at least in some groups, this is still an exceptional fact in the case of nuns.

Roles for Laywomen

As for Jain laywomen, their roles are mostly oriented toward the two areas in which the otherwise prevalent gender hierarchy is at least partly reversed: preparation of food and performance of rituals, for which the men are completely dependent on them. In a tradition such as Jainism, food is far from being a minor question. The observation of specific dietary rules is one of the clearest means to ensure sectarian identity. Thus the woman at home functions as a guardian or a modifier of the tradition through the various roles ascribed to her. She is the one who offers alms to the begging Jain mendicants who come at her door, which implies that she masters a minute sequence of actions and rules. She is also the one who prepares the meals for the family and decides whether a rule like the one that forbids eating after sunset will be observed or not, and she knows which type of food has to be cooked depending on the day (i.e., festival, ordinary). Finally, the woman is also the one who has a full command on the complicated calendar and typology of fasts that regulate the Jains' lives. Fasting is actually the true women's penance and a way for them to gain a high reputation of religiosity.

Reproduction of the community is in their hands through the handling of marriages and the imparting of basic teachings to young generations. This latter task is mainly done through the telling of Jain legends and stories, the old stock of which is continuously kept alive thanks to new versions, which the women mainly come to know in translations or rephrasing in modern languages, or by interaction with the religious order (e.g., sermons or personal conversations). Religious hymns form another category of literature in which women are quite proficient.

Creating such hymns, chanting, and reciting are manifestations of feminine religiosity at work in domestic as well as in temple rituals. Again, the risk of oversimplifying the situation is to be avoided: Differences exist among subsects as to whether women are to be allotted the same rights as men in worshiping the images. Fundamentalists hold that they should never be allowed to enter the innermost sanctuary and to touch the idols because they can never reach the indispensable degree of purity to do so, whereas others restrict direct contact to certain circumstances or temporary impurity only. The groups among the Jains who do not worship images, however, lay more stress on internal worship. Hence, their conceptions are more egalitarian. Recent studies have underlined that women have the real authority as far as conduct and performance of ritual itself are concerned, an area of religiosity in which they assess their power against the male sponsors.

Thus gender issues are indeed prominent both in Jain history and its contemporary realization. The construction of gender appears as a complicated process. In mythology and soteriology there is a clear and apparently irreconcilable divergence between the two main sects, although the woman-favoring tendency of Śvetāmbara Jainism should not be emphasized too much. Moreover, there is a true conception of gender that goes beyond physiological characteristics. At an institutional level, Jainism is basically man-centered, but there are signs to show that the numerical pressure of female renouncers may lead to an interesting evolution. Jain laywomen also have a key role both as reproducers of traditional values and as dynamic factors in Indian society in general.

See Also

Asceticism; Jainism; Mahāvīra; Nuns, overview article; Sādhus and Sādhvīs; Sarasvatī; Soteriology.

Bibliography

Please see the following works on Jainism in English: Walther Schubring, The Doctrine of the Jains, translated from the German, 2d ed., rev. (Delhi, 2000) and Helmuth von Glasenapp, Jainism: An Indian Religion of Salvation, translated from the German (Delhi, 1999), have a traditional approach which may not appeal to some but are extremely useful and should not be forgotten. Padmanabh S. Jaini's The Jaina Path of Purification (Delhi, 1979), with emphasis on the Digambara point of view, and Paul Dundas's The Jains, 2d ed. (London, 2002), with a vast bibliography, are indispensable.

An overview of various issues connected with the question of women in the frame of Jainism in history and in the contemporary world can be found in Nalini Balbir's "Women in Jainism," in Women in Indian Religions, edited by Arvind Sharma. (New Delhi, 2002) pp. 70–107; see also "Women in Jainism," in Religion and Women, edited by Arvind Sharma (New York, 1994), pp. 121–138. Padmanabh S. Jaini's Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women (Berkeley, Calif., 1991) is a pioneering work. It is an in-depth study accompanied by translations and detailed discussions. The issue of gender and mythology is discussed in John E. Cort's article "Medieval Jain Goddess Traditions," Numen 34, no. 2 (December 1987): 235–255. As for the biography of the nineteenth Jina, Mallī, who, according to the Śvetāmbaras, was a female, see Mallī-Jñāta. Das achte Kapitel des Nāyādhammakahāo im sechsten Aṅga des Śvetāmbara Jainakanons, edited and translated into German by Gustav Roth (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1983) or Hemacandra's version in his Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacarita, English translation by Helen W. Johnson, vol. 4 (Baroda, India, 1954). For monastic regulations as they are defined by the Śvetāmbara canon, see Kalpasūtra, English translation of Schubring's German translation by May S. Burgess, The Indian Antiquary 39 (1910): 257–267.

First-hand accounts by Jain nuns themselves are not numerous. Hence Āryikā Jñānamati's autobiography written in Hindi under the title Merī smṛtiyāṃ (My memories) (Hastinapur, India, 1990) deserves a mention as containing information about monastic daily life, commitments, and politics. Occasionally nuns' achievements or biographies come to the fore. For example, see the Felicitation Volume Sādhvīratna Puṣpavatījī Abhinandan Granth, edited by Dineś Muni (Udaipur, India, 1987) in honor of a Sthānakvāsī nun, and other such publications (in Hindi or Gujarati) locally available in India.

Four monographs, written by Western women, are valuable sources of information about encounters with Jain women: N. Shanta's The Unknown Pilgrims. The Voices of the Sadhvis. The History, Spirituality, and Life of the Jaina Women Ascetics, translated from the French [La voie jaina ] by Mary Rogers (Delhi, 1997) is based on classical sources and on modern information; Anne Vallely's Guardians of the Transcendent. An Ethnography of a Jain Ascetic Community (Toronto, 2002) is based on fieldwork done in Ladnun (Rajasthan). M. Whitney Kelting's Singing to the Jinas: Jain Laywomen Mandal Singing and the Negotiations of Jain Devotion (Oxford, 2001) is a refreshing analysis of female roles as assumed by those who are not ascetics. Their lively presence is felt throughout the book through their songs of devotion. Sherry Elizabeth Fohr's "Gender and Chastity: Female Jain Renouncers" (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 2001) shows, on the basis of extensive conversations with nuns, how the fundamental value of chastity is instrumental in renunciation and how Jainism provides an appropriate frame for its successful achievement. Josephine Reynell's articles—especially "Women and the Reproduction of the Jain Community," in The Assembly of Listeners, edited by Michael Carrithers and Caroline Humphrey (Oxford, 1991), pp. 41–65—are attempts at defining women's role in contradistinction to their male counterparts, whereas Marie-Claude Mahias's Délivrance et convivialité. Le système culinaire des Jaina (Paris, 1985), whose investigation is based on field-work conducted in Delhi, looks at the role of Jain women in connection with rules relating to food habits, which are so crucial for the definition of a Jain identity. Other valuable insights are found in Josephine Reynell, "Honour, Nurture, and Festivity: Aspects of Female Religiosity amongst Jain Women in Jaipur" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1985).

Scattered but valuable observations on the role of women are found in several ethnographic studies such as Lawrence A. Babb's Absent Lord: Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture (Berkeley, Calif., 1996), Ravindra K. Jain's The Universe as Audience: Metaphor and Community among the Jains of North India (Shimla, India, 1999), and James Laidlaw's Riches and Renunciation: Religion, Economy, and Society among the Jains (Oxford, 1995).

Nalini Balbir (2005)