Jains in India and Abroad

Author(s): Prakash C Jain
Publisher: International Summer School for Jain Studies

Page 52

central to Jainism. The moksh-marg ideology exhibits all the characteristic features of a religious orthodoxy which can be defined as the way of life involving regular interaction with ascetics, observance of rituals, “recitation of prayers and mantras, full acceptance of the authority of Mahavir and his teachings, and a concern with correct practice and sectarian exclusivity, all typically associated with women and old-people" (Dundas 1992: 233). It was therefore quite appropriate for Max Weber and many other scholars to characterize Jainism as soteriological religion (Jaini 1979; Sangave 1980; Weber 1958).
Recent fieldwork-based studies of Shvetambar Jains in Gujarat and Rajasthan however do not entirely support this view (e.g. Banks 1992; Cort 2001; Laidlaw 1995). Thus, in his ethnographical study of Shvetambar Murtipujak Jains in Jamnagar, Marcus Banks (1992) points out "the lack of knowledge about doctrines and also the lack of modeling of the lay behaviour after ascetic ideals” (cited in Jain, R.K. 1999: 51). According to Banks, “Jainism in practice therefore is a collaborative project undertaken by both lay and ascetic (rather than the graduated project implied by P. S. Jaini's (1979) account of lay and ascetic paths, where the former is seen as wholly subordinate to the latter” (Banks 1992: 3).
In his study of Shvetambar Jains in Jaipur, Laidlaw also examines the practicality of Jain asceticism, and argues that the “asceticism which lay Jainism exudes comes not from uniform adherence to a set of socially enforced rules” (1995: 170) "There is no single view expressed either in ancient sacred texts or in religious debate and practice today" (p. 191). The numerous vows including those of fasting and dietary practices that Jain laity undertakes are often voluntary and based on personal decisions "which Jain teachers have charted out, and around which contemporary asceticism tends to move" (p. 191). Laidlaw further argues that "the self that Jainism proposes for its followers to make of themselves is fragmented and incomplete, torn between conflicting ideals and focused ultimately on an impossible one" (1995: 20-21).
Similarly, John Cort (2001: 186) in his study of Shvetambar Murtipujak Jain community of Patan, Gujarat argues that the
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