Jainism Parity And Patriarchy

Author(s): Anand Shah
Publisher: Anand Shah

Page 12

Anand Shah | Prof. Ulrike Stark | 6.8.18
When conducting field interviews, however, Sethi noticed that not a single woman gave Mallinath as a source of inspiration -- a fact that appears initially confusing, given Mallinath's unique place as the only female to achieve the highest spiritual designation given to an agent in Jainism. The question now is how to account for this. Sethi does so by arguing that Mallinath's liberation was ashcharya -- an unrepeatable wonder likely never to occur again. As a result, the story of Mallinath as a moral guide isn't as useful to Jain women (especially laywomen) as the stories of jinamatas and mahasatis." This works well in conjunction with Balbir's argument that Mallinath's woman-status is ambivalent, even in Shvetambar stories. Mallinath chooses the ascetic life-style shortly after teaching her tutors the true nature of the body and soul -- as such, she enters asceticism without ever engaging with the actions that typically construct womanhood (marriage, child-rearing, etc.).18 As a result, Mallinath as a spiritual idol is not distinct from the the other Thirthankars and doesn't maintain uniquely feminine characteristics.
On a theoretical basis, this understanding of Mallinath as non-distinct from other Thirthankars also appears supported by the Jain conception of gender. Briefly, Jainism rejects Brahmanical and Buddhist conceptions of gender by making a distinction between dravyalinga (biological sex, marked by sex characteristics) and bhavalinga (psychic characteristics of gender, including sexual preference). And, these conceptions of sex and gender are completely distinct, they are said to be brought on by two different types of karma. As a result, it is insufficient to observe simply biological markers as a basis for gender." Because a person's acted psychic
17 Ibid., 11.
18 "Women and Jainism in India." Women in Indian Religions, by Nalini Balbir and Arvind Sharma, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 70-107.
19 Zwilling, Leonard, and Michael J. Sweet. "Like a City Ablaze: The Third Sex and the Creation of Sexuality in Jain Religious Literature." Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 6, no. 3, Jan. 1996, pp. 359-384.