Women and the ascetic ideal in Jainism

grantor: University of TorontoThis is a study of Jain ethics based on 13 months of fieldwork in the town of Ladnun, Rajasthan, India. The research was conducted among a community of Terapanthi Svetambar Jains and explores the many facets of what constitutes a moral life within the Terapanthi ascetic community. Jainism's core values are ascetic. Its ethical ideals revolve around non-violence, non-possession and non-attachment. These ideals are embodied in the ascetics who, by renouncing the world to dedicate their lives to spiritual pursuits, serve as the community's cultural heroes. The central distinctions--common to all Jain communities--between ascetic and household life, between the 'spiritual' and 'worldly' and between non-violence and violence, are more sharply delineated among the Terapanthi than among any other Jain community. Their notions of what constitutes a moral life are narrowly circumscribed to include only that of complete detachment and non-violence, in other words, a life of renunciation. The ontological separation between the spiritual and the worldly is at the centre of the Terapanthi worldview. The research explores how Terapanthi religious ideals related to the lives of the ascetics who profess them. It focuses on the Terapanthi moral universe from the perspective of female renouncers. In Indian ascetic traditions, women are perceived as ambivalent symbols--both as symbols of detachment and attachment, of renunciation and worldliness. The research explores how Terapanthi Jain women create their own ascetic subjectivities, and how they construct and understand themselves as symbols of renunciation.Ph.D