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Anand Shah | Prof. Ulrike Stark 6.8.18
conditions are all met. Chandanbala's shackles fall off and her hair miraculously grows back.
Shortly after, upon listening to one of Mahavir Swami's sermons, she is moved to become a nun
and renounces her worldly life to become Mahavir Swami's first sadhvi. She goes to lead a
congregation of more than 36,000 sadhvis under Mahavir Swami.
Chandanbala's story is recited at most major Jain festivals and is one of the most
widely-known in the Jain community. It is a frequently shared not only because it features
Mahavir Swami at a pivotal part of his spiritual career, but also because the sacrifice and faith
displayed by Chandanbala is touching for many. Her story might be most striking to an orthodox
Hindu community that doesn't recognize the capacity of women to be legitimate soteriological
agents; the sadhvi has left her worldly life in the pursuit of personal spiritual progress. Even in
the case of stories like Chandanbala's, where the heroine doesn't have a home or husband to
leave behind the very celebration of women pursuing a self-determined path erodes a patriarchy
that has a single vision for what women can be. And, this is true because of the acknowledged
capacity of women to renounce laity, so this argument can be generalized to all stories of
sadhvis, because all of them renounce worldly life. Indeed, popular stories of the mahasatis (and
really all sadhvis) can map the spiritual agency that Jainism affords women. This analysis is
corroborated anecdotally by field interviews of sixty-five sadhvis conducted by Sethi: of the
reasons they gave for renunciation, some of the most frequent were that renunciation was
honorable and that renunciation offered autonomy and education.3
As was the case with the shravika case, we can also observe more notional and scriptural
inequality written in for sadhvis. The theme from before is echoed, but more subtly. The most
12 Kelting, M. Whitney. "Candanbālā." Jainpedia, Institute of Jainology 13 Sethi, Manisha. Escaping the World: Women Renouncers among Jains. Routledge, 2016.
