ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 01

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 200

are honoured. The mother's devotion and commitment are linked to the well-being of her family and a whole set of rituals developed around it, making her the central figure within the domestic setting, and crucially, curtailing her interaction in the public sphere. The other women who are revered in the Jain tradition are the mahāsatīs, and the yaksis or goddesses that stand for certain qualities, representing at the human and the superhuman levels the power of the woman to give of and even sacrifice herself for the larger good of the home, community and religion. These stories in fact work to arrogate and re-modulate women's stories too to bolster the patriarchy: from women it is not independence or insurrection but conformity and capitulation that are ultimately required.
What seems clear here is a denial of the capacities and capabilities of woman, arising from a deep-rooted fear and mistrust of women. At the physical level, all the woman needs of the man is his sperm: she is an independent being in everything else, and both adept and flexible. Also, when with child, the woman enters a world of her own that the man can never attain or expect to understand: her body during this time is hers, yet houses another too; something within her that is separate from her, yet of her at the same time. The woman grows, and visibly. She produces a new being from her own body, nurtures it, independent of the male of the species. The (pro) creative woman is in fact not granted recognition for who she is, but for what she can do. The Svetāmbara canon says that the first liberated being in this cycle of time was Marudevī, the mother of Rișabdeva. However, she is not worshipped even by the Svetāmbaras, but her grandson Bāhubali, who was the first man to achieve liberation, is held up as a larger than life symbol of the possibility of liberation for a layman - no thought is spared for the laywoman! The brothers Bharat and Bāhubali who fought each other over a kingdom are remembered, while the sisters Brāhmi and Sundarī who spread knowledge and wisdom in the world are mostly forgotten. Similarly, the Tirthamkara Mallikumārī is posited not as an ideal for women to follow, but enveloped in hagiography that brings up the story of Mahābala every time her name comes up, and her womanhood is wiped out as she becomes Mallinātha. In fact, throughout Jain narratives, one finds that stories of Jain women are for the most part heard only through and in relation to the stories of men, embedded within them. We find Rājīmati's story embedded in the story of the Tirthamkara Neminātha: the monk Rathanemi's arousal at the sight of the nun Rājīmati's naked body is made out to be her responsibility, and she is blamed for his passion, the nimitta or the express cause, the impediment to his spiritual quest, as if he had no role to play. Thus stand revealed, first, an anxiety and fear of the female in the male from which
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