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Anand Shah | Prof. Ulrike Stark 6.8.18
are just as likely as young servant girls to be reduced to objects of sexual danger. While this
example is somewhat extreme, it does not seem abnormal. The story of Jambuswami, the last
kevali (omniscient), involves his parents begging him to delay renunciation until marrying eight
beautiful girls, they are convinced the wives will convince him of the power of worldly
pleasures. The story of Illachikumar involves a high-born son who becomes distracted off the
course of his life by a beautiful acrobat. He joins the circus with the sole purpose of marrying
her, and only realizes his transgressions when he notices a monk receiving alms, unperturbed by
the beauty of the donor.' In this story, the women is a temptress without intending to be;
temptation is made a natural function of the woman. Finally, in the Sutrakritanga Sutra, we see a
parallel between these stories and scripture. The scripture dedicates an entire chapter to
warning monks of the dangers a woman embodies, and describes monks as lions and women as
wily trappers who use flesh to bait their game. Sethi's analysis shows that, once again, we see the
woman as a fickle-minded temptress. The motivation for all this seems clear: Jainism is a
religion intensely focused on foregoing worldly pleasures, explicit about viewing sexual pleasure
as spiritual transgressions. From this, the existing patriarchal narrative of the woman as the
seductress is magnified to also serve a religious purpose.
In Jain literature, we've seen the laywoman fall largely into two roles -- the religious and
dutiful caretaker and the seductress. As a result, it may appear as though Jain literature does not
make space for women to occupy non-traditional tropes. However, a closer analysis of the
dharmapatni reminds us that this is not entirely true; the abnormal emphasis placed on a
9 Ibid., 1. 10 The Sutrakritanga Sutra is the second of twelve agams, or canonical scriptures in the Shvetamber tradition. 11 Sethi, Manisha. "Chastity and Desire: Representing Women in Jainism." South Asian History and Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, 2009, pp. 42-59.
