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Summary of the Paper Wilderness in the Jaina Śramaņa Ascetic Tradition : Its Contemporary Context
Kate Kragh
The 5th century BCE witnessed the appearance of a new religious movement, whose members' only objective was to obtain liberation through giving up household existence and embracing independent life of wandering mendicants who would exclusively engage in strict celibate discipline free from the shackles of the society and in austere conduct in the wilderness. This type of ascetics became known as Śramaņas. Buddhist and Jains belonged to this tradition and they flourished for over two centuries in modern day Bihar, then known as Magadha before flourishing in other part of India. The unprecedented commitment and intensity of Jaina mendicants to this conduct is evident in Long's comparative definition of ascetics from different parts of the world as: 'One who practices austerities, usually in the form of renunciation, in the form of renunciation, in order to advance spiritually; a relatively mild form of asceticism would be the Christian practice of giving up certain luxuries during the period of Lent; a relatively difficult form of the asceticism would be the practice of constant nudity by a Digambara Jaina monk'. The Sramana movement allowed the person to separate from the Indian householders' values and enter the wilderness within which any claim to worldly possessions, inheritance, social position, family, or male successors was completely uprooted and annihilated. The process of abandoning a householder's existence was extricably connected with wandering away from Human settlements. This practice is expressed as Aranaya Vanavāsa, Vivikta-sayyāsana, Jinakalpi in different Indian philosophical systems.
