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Jainism and Narrative
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Jainism and Narrative

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Humanities/Philosophies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2025) | Viewed by 5618

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Eva De Clercq

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University, B-9000 Gent, Belgium
Interests: south-Asian religions (esp.Jainism); Sanskrit epics and Purāṇas; Apabhraṃśa literature

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The corpus of narratives produced by Jain authors is vast, varied and rich, ranging from didactic stories explaining the laws of karma or illustrating rules of correct and incorrect conduct, to biographies of the Tīrthaṅkaras, the life stories of other great heroes of the Jain ‘Universal History’, fairytale-like colorful accounts of merchants and princes, to (semi-)historical stories of rules and monks, and even autobiographies. Some narratives or narrative motifs are unique to Jain traditions, but sometimes they are sourced from a corpus of pan-Indian stories representing specific Jain versions, e.g., the Jain Rāmāyaṇas, Harivaṃśas and Mahābhāratas, thus demonstrating the Jains’ engagement with and responses to other communities. On the other hand, originally Jain narratives and characters have sometimes been integrated by other religious traditions, such as the first Tīrthaṅkara Ṛṣabha, figuring as an avatāra of Viṣṇu. 

Constituting a fundamental part of Jain teachings, narratives can be found from the earliest available Śvetāmbara scriptures and its commentarial literature, and have for over two millennia continued to be composed, written and rewritten in various forms: from humble prose and easy metrical storybooks to ornate epic poems and dramas, some of which are veritable monuments in South Asian literary history, to contemporary comics, in a varied set of languages including Sanskrit, Ardhamāgadhī-, Māhārāṣṭrī-, and Śaurasenī-Prakrit, Apabhramsha, Kannada, Tamil, Braj-Bhāṣā, Gujarati, modern Indic languages and, nowadays, English.

This Special Issue welcomes the contribution of current research articles focusing on Jainism and narrative(s), including the following: 

  • Papers exploring a hitherto unstudied narrative (tradition), including critical edition and translation.
  • Papers on a Jain narrative or narrative tradition in different regions and/or languages.
  • Papers on the intertextuality of (a) narrative(s).
  • Papers on the function of a narrative/text in the lived tradition, past and present, in various applications (performance, visual art, contemporary media, etc.)

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send them to the Guest Editor, Prof. Dr. Eva De Clercq (ev.declercq@ugent.be), or to the Assistant Editor of Religions, Ms. Margaret Liu (margaret.liu@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Eva De Clercq
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3027 KiB  
Article
Causality in Jain Narratives: Teaching Dharma Through Karma by Sītā’s Abandonment
by Achyut Kant Jain
Religions 2025, 16(4), 464; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16040464 - 3 Apr 2025
Viewed by 386
Abstract
This paper investigates the complex causal relationships within Jain narrative literature (prathamānuyoga/dharmakathānuyoga), specifically focusing on the examination of the Sītā abandonment narrative across Prakrit, Sanskrit, and Apabhramsha textual traditions. By employing textual analysis and philosophical interpretation, the study explores the intricate [...] Read more.
This paper investigates the complex causal relationships within Jain narrative literature (prathamānuyoga/dharmakathānuyoga), specifically focusing on the examination of the Sītā abandonment narrative across Prakrit, Sanskrit, and Apabhramsha textual traditions. By employing textual analysis and philosophical interpretation, the study explores the intricate causative mechanisms in narratives by Vimalasūri, Raviṣeṇa, and Svayambhūdeva. The paper addresses critical research questions examining the multifaceted nature of causality: the root causes of Sītā’s abandonment, the identification of precursory causal signs like dreams, cravings during pregnancy and omens, an analysis of Sītā’s philosophical response to her circumstances, and the complex interplay between external and internal instrumental causes (bahiraṅga- and antaraṅga-nimitta-kāraṇa). Through rigorous textual comparison and philosophical analysis of the Paümacariyaṃ, Padmapuraṇa, and Paümacariü, the study reveals that Jain narrative literature predominantly employs instrumental causality as its primary explanatory framework. The paper demonstrates how external and internal instrumental causes interplay, and explores the role of Sītā’s bad or good karma in shaping her narrative trajectory. The paper contributes to the ongoing scholarship on Jain narratives by analyzing causality in religious narratives, offering philosophical insights into narrative causation, providing an interdisciplinary perspective that bridges literary analysis with philosophical interpretation, and illuminating the ways Jain narratives employ causality to explain complex human experiences and ethical dilemmas, ultimately revealing how narrative structures reflect deeper metaphysical and philosophical concepts within the Jain textual tradition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jainism and Narrative)
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16 pages, 957 KiB  
Article
Books of Becoming: Memory Writing and Memory Sharing on 20th-Century Oshwal Jain Migration
by Tine Vekemans
Religions 2025, 16(3), 352; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16030352 - 12 Mar 2025
Viewed by 467
Abstract
This article examines the narrative of migration that circulates among Oshwal Jains today. It does so by closely analyzing a varied corpus of memory-writing, including autobiographies, family histories, community histories, memoirs, and social media discussing the settlement of Oshwal Jains from British India [...] Read more.
This article examines the narrative of migration that circulates among Oshwal Jains today. It does so by closely analyzing a varied corpus of memory-writing, including autobiographies, family histories, community histories, memoirs, and social media discussing the settlement of Oshwal Jains from British India in East Africa between 1890 and 1950, and their subsequent onward migration from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. This article first presents a brief historical overview of South Asians in East Africa, and pieces together a picture of how and where Oshwal and non-Oshwal Jains featured within this colonial history. Operationalizing concepts from the field of memory studies, it then discusses which stories and memories are shared, and shows how they combine to form and sustain a community-affirming rags-to-riches narrative. Although the materials in the corpus can certainly help fill in some of the under-researched aspects of South Asian cultural history in East Africa, the narrative(s) of migration they present, with their telling tropes and silences, are indicative of dynamics and developments within the contemporary Oshwal Jain community. Therefore, by way of conclusion, the article interrogates the timing and intergenerational dynamics of the recent surge in memory sharing and memory writing by Oshwals settled around the globe. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jainism and Narrative)
24 pages, 371 KiB  
Article
Holding Out for a Husband ‘til the End of the Fast: Wifehood, Widowhood, and Female Renunciation in Two Jain Mahābhārata Adaptations
by Simon Winant
Religions 2025, 16(3), 314; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16030314 - 2 Mar 2025
Viewed by 483
Abstract
Among the Dharmic religious traditions, Jainism is unique for its continuous tradition of female monastics. Jain monastic women have made up a large part of Jain communities up to this day. Naturally, their prominent position in Jain society is reflected in the countless [...] Read more.
Among the Dharmic religious traditions, Jainism is unique for its continuous tradition of female monastics. Jain monastic women have made up a large part of Jain communities up to this day. Naturally, their prominent position in Jain society is reflected in the countless depictions of Jain nuns (āryikā/sādhvī) in Jain narrative literature. However, despite Jain narratives sometimes extolling renunciation as an alternative, often even superior, ideal to wifehood, there remains a fundamental tension between the ideologies of normative Jain wifehood and renunciation as well as the question of widowhood. In this article, I explore how two Digambara Sanskrit texts deal with the question of premature widowhood and renunciation in their adaptation of the Mahābhārata narrative. Whereas Jinasena’s Harivaṃśapurāṇa (783 CE) stress the value of pativratā-ideology as an appropriate response for prematurely widowed young Jain women, Śubhacandra’s Pāṇḍavapurāṇa (1552 CE) adapts the exact same episodes, but introduces an explicit ambivalence towards the idea of young Jain women renouncing to become Jain nuns. By comparing these two Digambara adaptations, I wish to show how Digambara Jain narratives in Sanskrit dealt with the same tension between Jain wifehood and renunciation hitherto mostly discussed with reference to Jain narratives in the vernacular. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jainism and Narrative)
19 pages, 343 KiB  
Article
The Usages of the Homage to the Five Supreme Entities in the Romance Poems (8th–12th Centuries)
by Christine Chojnacki
Religions 2024, 15(12), 1542; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15121542 - 17 Dec 2024
Viewed by 694
Abstract
Used to mark devotion to the main propagators of Jainism, namely the Jina (arhat), the Liberated Souls (siddha), the Teachers (ācārya), the spiritual Guides (guru), the Preceptors (upādhyāya), and the monks (muṇi), the formula of homage to the five supreme entities (pañcanamaskāra) underwent [...] Read more.
Used to mark devotion to the main propagators of Jainism, namely the Jina (arhat), the Liberated Souls (siddha), the Teachers (ācārya), the spiritual Guides (guru), the Preceptors (upādhyāya), and the monks (muṇi), the formula of homage to the five supreme entities (pañcanamaskāra) underwent a significant development in the medieval period where it became a mantra protecting against all evils and violence and symbolising Jainism in its entirety and its respect for life in all its forms amidst the various Indian religions. In the present paper, I intend to investigate how the formula was used in largely unknown romance poems composed in the Prakrit language by Jaina scholar monks in medieval North India between the 8th and 12th centuries. Particular attention will be paid to how the writer monks used the formula of homage in the narrative to avoid the use of violence. The analysis will also focus on the development of the formula in the hymns of praise of the romance poems and study its significance in the context of the spread of Jainism at the turn of the first millennium, a period that led to the advent of King Kumārapāla, who has remained famous in history not only for the imposing monuments he left behind, but also for his conversion to Jainism and his governance according to principles of non-violence. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jainism and Narrative)
27 pages, 410 KiB  
Article
Polemic, Diatribe, and Farce: Jaina Postures vis-à-vis Sectarian Others in the Kannada Texts of Nayasēna, Brahmaśiva, and Vṛttavilāsa
by Shubha Shanthamurthy
Religions 2024, 15(11), 1350; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15111350 - 6 Nov 2024
Viewed by 899
Abstract
The Deccan in the first half of the second millennium is marked by political and religious ferment. The Cōḻas, Gaṅgas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas, and Cāḷukyas are contesting its mundane territory, while the Śaivas, Jainas, and Vaiṣṇavas are contesting its spiritual geography. Unlike the interactions of [...] Read more.
The Deccan in the first half of the second millennium is marked by political and religious ferment. The Cōḻas, Gaṅgas, Rāṣṭrakūṭas, and Cāḷukyas are contesting its mundane territory, while the Śaivas, Jainas, and Vaiṣṇavas are contesting its spiritual geography. Unlike the interactions of the earthly rulers which spill real blood, the bloodshed of the spiritual gurus is merely metaphorical. But, the animosity driving their interactions is no less intense, for survival is at stake for them just as it is for their secular counterparts. In this essay, I explore the Jaina point of view in sectarian contestations between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries through the texts of three Kannada authors: Dharmāṁṛtam of Nayasēna (1112CE), Samayaparīkṣe of Brahmaśiva (c.1200CE), and Dharmaparīkṣe of Vṛttavilāsa (c.1360CE). My objective is to identify the sectarian ‘other’ that these authors address, dispute with and vilify, and to explore the changing nature of this sectarian ‘other’ and the shifting attitudes of these authors towards their opponents. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jainism and Narrative)
24 pages, 372 KiB  
Article
An Incredible Story on the Credibility of Stories: Coherence, Real-Life Experience, and Making Sense of Texts in a Jaina Narrative
by Itamar Ramot
Religions 2024, 15(9), 1129; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091129 - 19 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1704
Abstract
Throughout the centuries, Jaina authors actively engaged in producing their own versions of stories that were told in sources such as the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, and the purāṇas. These authors self-consciously present themselves as correcting preceding narratives that they do not [...] Read more.
Throughout the centuries, Jaina authors actively engaged in producing their own versions of stories that were told in sources such as the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, and the purāṇas. These authors self-consciously present themselves as correcting preceding narratives that they do not accept as credible. However, the question arises: what criteria determine the credibility of one version over another? This paper offers one possible answer as it appears in the Investigation of Dharma (Dharmaparīkṣā), a Jaina narrative that has been retold repeatedly in different languages throughout the second millennium. By examining its earliest available retellings—in Apabhramsha (988 CE) and Sanskrit (1014 CE)—I argue that this narrative traces the credibility of stories to the ideas of (1) coherence across textual boundaries and (2) correspondence with real-life experience. In this paper, I trace how these notions manifest in the Investigation and analyze the narrative’s mechanism for training its audience to evaluate for themselves the credibility of stories. Through this analysis, the paper offers a fresh perspective on the motivations of premodern South Asian authors to retell existing narratives and sheds light on the reading practices they expect from their audience. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Jainism and Narrative)
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