SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Lawrence A. “Alan” Babb (1941-2023) was a leading anthropologist of South Asian religions, whose extensive scholarship on the Jains played a pivotal role in bringing the study of the Jains into the mainstream of South Asian Studies. His writings consistently were theoretically astute, but he rarely wrote articles devoted solely to questions of method and theory. The two short essays presented here are an exception. He wrote them for audiences of Jains who were interested in scholarly approaches to their tradition. They therefore provide an excellent overview of Babb’s anthropological methods, and indicate how the anthropological study of the rituals and lived experience of the Jains is an essential component to textual studies of doctrine for a larger, more complete understanding of the Jains. These articles are difficult to access, and neither is found in standard academic indices and bibliographies. IJJS therefore reprints them here as a service to the field of Jain Studies.