Anuvrat Movements Theory and Practical

Author(s): Shivani Bothra
Publisher: USA Florida International University

Page 11

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY
Having reached the limits of the materialistic vision of the scientific and industrial era ushered in by the Copernican revolution, we are now on the threshold of an ecological era called into being by an Ecological Revolution grounded in a more holistic view of the spiritual and material aspects of our nature. This revolution now calls to each of us to reclaim our political power and rediscover our spirituality to create societies that nurture our ability and desire to embrace the joyful experience of living to the fullest.
David Korten
Introduction
In the lines above David Korten, an economist, author and a prominent critic of
globalization, describes the need for a new vision in the emerging global society. The
present thesis is the study of the Anuvrat Movement, whose advocates conceive of the
movement as a practical form of spirituality and one of the possible solutions that Korten
is calling for. The movement arose as a response to the challenges of modernity emerging
in the context of the post-independence India.
The founder of the movement was the late Acharya Tulsi, a celebrated monk
within the Jain tradition. Accepting the monkhood at the age of 11, he was accredited to
be the Acharya (His Holiness) of the Jain Svetambar Terapanth' tradition at the age of 22.
Along the lines of Korten's view as expressed above, Tulsi perceived that modernization
contributed to the deterioration of the moral character and value system in the pluralist
Indian society. He also observed that there were aspects of his Jain tradition that could be
Terapanth sect is a sub-branch within the Svetambara Jain tradition.