SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Some thirty per cent of Jains describe themselves as Sthanakavasis. Yet the Sthanakavasi tradition has not received any attention by academic scholarship. The present article is the second of a four-part history of the Sthanakavasi tradition, based on textual and ethnographic sources. The first part (BIS 13/14 2000) gave an overview of the history and doctrines of the Sthanakavasi mendicant traditions, from the reforms of Lonka in the 15th century, until the creation of a unified Sramanasangha under the command of a single acarya in 1952. It analysed the aims and structure of Sramanasangha, and the refusal of many Sthanakavasi orders in Gujarat and Rajasthan to join the new organisation. In conclusion, four types of Jainism were distinguished: canonical, traditional, protestant, and post-protestant. The Sthanakavasi tradition is a mixture of protestant and traditional elements. Part II investigates the sectarian dynamic within the Sramanasangha in conjunction with the history and structure of the independent Sthanakavasi traditions in Malva. It starts with a critical analysis of the notion of '22 schools' (baistola) of the Dharmadasa tradition, from which most Malva traditions are derived. The analysis of the relationship between the segments of the Dharmadasa traditions inside and outside the Sramanasangha, leads to the identification of three principal variables of Jain monastic organisation: descent, seniority, and succession. These structuring devices are used to mediate between the imperatives of historical legitimation and maintenance of differential group identity. It is argued that the new Sthanakavasi lists of succession (pattavalis), the prime markers of sectarian identity, were constructed retrospectively on the basis of lists of descent (gurvavalis) and biographical poems, not the other way round, as commonly assumed. Parts III-IV (forthcoming) describe the Sthanakavasi traditions in the Panjab and Gujarat, and the overall context of Jain politics of religious modernisation in the 19th - 20th centuries.