Jains in India and Abroad

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

Page 53

moksha-marg ideology, spelled out some two thousand years ago in such works like Tattvarth Sutra and Uttradhyan Sutra, "has remained remarkably consistent throughout the Jain history.” It is however mainly practiced only by ascetics and a few Jain laypersons, and for the vast majority of laity it is not compelling. For the latter the realm of wellbeing is more important which involves "a mix of health, contentment, peace and prosperity". Furthermore, “the mokshamarg ideology and the value of wellbeing are held in unresolved tension because of the multivocality of the symbols by which the two are expressed. According to the moksh-marg ideology, an individual has to make a choice between wellbeing and the moksh-marg. In practice the two are held in tension, and people act and live on the assumption that one can have it both ways; following practices of the moksh-marg brings wellbeing, and pursuit of wellbeing (within certain boundaries) advances one at least a small way along the moksh-marg” (Cort 2001: 200).
These studies need to be contextualised in terms of the sectarian monastic organisation in that the Shvetambar lay Jains are not generally stratified along the path of moksha-marg unlike their Digambar Jain counterparts. As Cort (1989: 663) himself remarks elsewhere, "The principal hierarchical differentiation among Digambar occurs before full initiation as a muni, in the level of advanced householder ship of brahmachari, ksullak and ailak, while the mendicants consists mainly of the single level of munis, with hierarchy determined by seniority of initiation. The Shvetambars, on the other hand, exhibit uniformity among the laity - they are all just sravaks (men) and sravikas (women) - but a graduated hierarchy of initiatory ranks among the mendicants”.
The sect-specific monastic organisation in Jainism becomes more clear when we contrast these studies with two studies of north Indian Digambar Jains done by Ravindra K. Jain - one based on the autobiography of Kshullak Ganesh Prasad Varni (1948) that describes in detail the organisation of Jains in the Bundelkhand region of central India and the other, a brief ethnography of Digambar Jains of Baraut of Meerut district in Uttar Pradesh (Jain, R. K. 1999: 50-82 and 83-100). These studies maintain that in Varni's accounts of Digambar Jain communities of Bundelkhand the "doctrine and practice are
Jains in India and Abroad