Who Are the Jains? a Community Between Indian Tradition and Global Modernity

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chapter 2 Who are the Jains? A Community between Indian Tradition and Global Modernity

Bawa Jain, Secretary-General of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Reli- gious and Spiritual Leaders and the World Council of Religious Leaders, asked me during an interview: “Do you know why they accept me?” – referring to the large number of top-level religious and political leaders he works with – “It is because I am a Jain.” Why should being a Jain in the eyes of others make a person particularly suited for mediation and dialogue? As Jainism is a religion that is still largely unknown in the West, the following pages aim to introduce Jainism with a focus on that question. The book A to Z of Jainism (Wiley 2006: 100), part of the reference book se- ries ‘A to Z of Indian Religions’, defines Jains as those who “accept the teachings of the omniscient Jinas or Tīrthaṅkaras and are followers of the religion called Jainism.”1 To my knowledge, dictionaries and handbooks invariably define Jainism as a religion alongside the various forms of Hinduism and Bud- dhism. Some Indian authors, mainly with a Hindu nationalist background, still try to claim Jainism as a sub-branch of Hinduism, but these are now in the minority.2

1 The entry continues: “Nirgrantha (Pkt.: Nigaṇṭha) was the term used in earlier times for itin- erant Jain monks. Sometime in the early centuries of the Common Era, the term Jain came into use for these monks and their lay followers. By the 9th century, the words ‘may the Jaina teaching prosper’ appear in inscriptions.” 2 Bharat Gupta (2008: 128), an Associate Professor at the University of Delhi, may be cited as a typical example of such attempts. He argues: “After the Jains, the Buddhists, Ram-Krishna followers, the Vaishnavas, Shaivas and Shaktas all can claim to be non-Hindus and thus minorities and when within a decade Hindu fold splits a few dozen minorities, the whole edifice of majoritiy-minority syndrome shall collapse making a mockery of the very concept of majority-minority distinction enshrined in the Indian Constitution.” His claim that the term ‘Hinduism’ applies equally to all of the groups he lists is, of course, not tenable, even if this should mean that the Indian state has to look again at how they classify these communities. It has not to be omitted, however, that also some Jains consider Jains to be Hindus, and that some also support Hindu nationalist politics. In the West, the impression that Jainism is part of Hinduism may stem also from the fact that sometimes Hindu and Jain communities share places of worship. J. Long (2009: 5) writes, for example, about his astonishment of find- ing a Jain statue in a us Hindu temple.

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Jains themselves usually speak of Jainism or Jain Dharma as a way of life. When asked to define ‘Jainism,’ they are likely to refer to the principle of non- violence (ahiṃsā). ‘Non-violence’ demands that believers abstain from all forms of behaviour that harm and especially lead to the death of living beings. One consequence of this principle is that Jains do not eat meat, others are pro- fessional restrictions, such as not earning one’s livelihood by trading with stock or animal husbandry or farming.3 The Jains I spoke to in India did not refer to Jainism as a religion of their own accord. In fact, when I asked one researcher from a Jainology department why he was an adherent of Jainism, he answered that there was only one true religion, the religion of the universe and that was called not Jainism but ahiṃsā. Message 5720 on Jainlist, an internet discussion forum for Jains, discusses the impression that anekāntavāda is self-contradictory, as presented in The Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy.4 The Jainlist member remarks that “prima facie” he cannot refute this accusation, and that he would appreciate the views of other people on this topic. There are two replies. The first, by “Sreepalan vc”, consists mainly of a copy of a letter sent to the Online Ency- clopedia of Philosophy, in which the encyclopedia article is criticised from an internal Jain position. He insists that “Jina Dharma is not an ‘ism’ just like com- munism, communalism, socialism, vegetarianism, etc.” because all these ‘isms’ have been developed by “erring humans.” The Jina Dharma, on the other hand, “is a Universal Dharma – truth – applicable in its entirety for all the living beings” because “being and becoming is the order of all the substances.” “This,” he states, “is the structural nature of substance and called the doctrine of Anekaant.”5 The author of the letter criticises that the “Jina Dharma” is referr ed to as “Jainism” because it is not an -ism that could be accepted or rejected but quite simply the “truth.” I had also come across a similar position in an interview, namely that defin- ing Jainism as an “-ism” was to introduce a narrow and limiting categorisation, and that the path of the Jain should not lie in system building, but in discover- ing the universal truth, which defies such labels. In the post, the teachings of Jainism are not conceptualised as a religion or an -ism among others, but (else- where in the same post) as “the happy blending of the happy principles of neu- trality,” which is distilled in the teaching of anekāntavāda.” Another definition

3 R. Zydenbos (2006: 51), however, points out that lived religion does not always adhere to aca- demic expectations, and that, for example, most Jains in the Karnataka-Maharashtra border region are landholders and farmers. 4 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jainlist/message/5720, last accessed 06.01.2017. 5 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jainlist/message/5727, last accessed 06.01.2017.