The king is dead, long live the king! Digambara bhaṭṭārakas and munis

In popular conceptions of the history of Digambara Jain asceticism, ideal, naked and peripatetic mendicants (muni) are thought to have disappeared early in the second millennium CE. Persecuted by Indo-Muslim rulers, they were replaced by sedentary and clothed ‘semi-renouncers’ (bhaṭṭāraka) and only reappeared in the 20th century CE. Recent research however shows that Sultanate and Mughal era bhaṭṭārakas took the vows of fully-initiated Digambara renouncers and were venerated as paramount ascetics. The practices and symbols of sovereignty they adopted from Rajput and Persianate courtly cultures were not seen as signs of their ascetic laxity, but as expressions of their authority as the kingpins of Digambara polities. While contemporary Digambara munis operate in a social world which values different models of power, they engage in many of the same community functions as their bhaṭṭāraka forebears, and in some ways are still conceived of as kings (mahārāja).