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

In full, the received narrative of the history of Digambara Jain asceticism in the course of the second millennium CE, often heard voiced by laypeople and underlying scholarly textbook accounts, runs roughly as follows. At some point in the 13th or 14th century CE, persecuted by fanatic Muslim rulers pursuing a theologically motivated policy, naked and itinerant Digambara ascetics (muni) took to clothing. This was a drastic step for a tradition which sees permanent nudity as a prerequisite for liberation, and it gave rise to the novel institution of the clothed and sedentary bhaṭṭāraka. Bhaṭṭārakas were instrumental in securing the continuation of the Digambara tradition during the adverse Sultanate (1206-1526 CE) and Mughal (1526-1857 CE) periods through their activities in icon consecration (pratiṣṭhā) and manuscript copying. Yet, they were semi-renouncers, administrators, and caste gurus, not venerable (pūjanīya) renouncers, and instead became increasingly lax in the observance of their ascetic rules, taking on royal insignia like thrones, palanquins, and other pomp. The rise in the late 17th century CE of the Digambara Terāpantha, which opposed the bhaṭṭārakas and some of their ritual practices, soon led to the decline and disappearance of all their seats in northern India. In the first quarter of the 20th century CE, three Digambara renouncers (Śāntisāgara ‘Dakṣiṇa’, Ādisāgara, Śāntisāgara ‘Chāṇī’) threw off their clothes, self-initiated as munis, and later also obtained the higher ācārya rank. They ushered in a revival of correct ascetic conduct and the reinstitution of meanwhile well-organised lineages of ācāryas which once again carry forward the tradition of the Digambara ācāryas of ancient lore.

The present paper builds on findings from recent research which gainsays many elements of this narrative. The rank of bhaṭṭāraka was introduced as the paramount Digambara ascetic rank in the centuries prior to the Sultanate period already. Bhaṭṭārakas led ascetic communities (saṅgha) which up to the first half of the 17th century CE included munis, ācāryas, and female renouncers. And attestations of ācāryas subordinated to bhaṭṭārakas are found up to the 19th century CE. Only as the 20th century CE ‘muni revival’ unfolded did the bhaṭṭāraka rank come to be conceived of, for the first time ever, as that of a semi-renouncer far inferior to munis and ācāryas. Up to that point, the bhaṭṭārakas had been venerated by their lay and ascetic devotees as ideal Digambara renouncers, and they indeed took the mahāvratas and other vows of fully-initiated munis. At the same time, they were the kingpins of Digambara polities which interacted with and were modelled after royal and imperial, Rajput and Indo-Muslim courts, and adopted various symbols of sovereignty, including funerary pavilions (chatrī). Political history and attendant socio-economical conditions steered the bifurcations of bhaṭṭāraka lineages and the relocations of their seats, following migrations of Jain lay communities to the capitals of flourishing Indo-Muslim states as much as to rising Hindu kingdoms. The majority of Western and Central Indian bhaṭṭāraka lineages were continued up to the 19th century CE, and about half of them even into the 20th century CE. Evidence is found of 19th century CE Digambara munis, even in northern India. And 21st century CE munis remain closely involved with lay communities in multiple ways, performing many of the same functions as the bhaṭṭārakas. Many of their practices, like consecration and initiation rituals, have been adopted from the bhaṭṭāraka traditions.

These findings give rise to a new set of questions concerning the foundations of the bhaṭṭārakas’ authority, the causes of the implosion of their traditions in northern India, the complete oblivion to their former venerability, and the swift formation instead of a deep-rooted conception of pre-20th century CE bhaṭṭārakas as ‘semi-renouncers’ and ‘administrators’. This paper argues that these issues all revolve around changing models of power and governmentality cutting across religious and secular spheres, notably the decline of the ancien régime polities in which power is manifested in the body of the king or some other lordly persona, and the appearance of ‘softer’ yet often more efficient forms of governance in which power becomes so subtle and masked it is often no longer recognised as such. These transformations rendered obsolete and undesired the models of authority and the practices on which the bhaṭṭārakas based their status, prestige, and power. In this process, multiple Western conceptual formations took root in 20th century CE Digambara self-conceptions. Orientalist discourse carried Protestant tropes about the universal corruption of religious traditions at the hands of a corrupt priesthood yielding unchecked ‘papal’ or sacerdotal power. Self-serving colonial representations of despotic Sultanate and Mughal rule became a staple in pre- and post-independence Indian historiography. And the lay reform movements which ultimately caused the fall from grace of the bhaṭṭārakas were built on representative, administrative modes of governance. Local lay trusts were created to organise the management of temples and other aspects of community life formerly overseen by bhaṭṭārakas, and paṇḍitas formed in new educational institutions took on ritual and scholastic roles.

The negative portrayal of the bhaṭṭārakas as lax ‘semi-ascetics’ meanwhile continues to serve as a counterfoil for the idealisation of today’s munis. Renouncers with a Terāpantha orientation are connected to construction projects in which temples from the bhaṭṭāraka era are replaced by megalomaniac compounds directly connected to their own names and lineages. Regardless of such substantial social engagement, contemporary munis are taken to represent a model of individual, ‘charismatic’ authority based on strict asceticism. The reappearance of naked, possessionless munis, I argue, was enabled by shifting models of power at least as much as gave rise to them. Yet, aspects of the royal trappings developed in and prior to the bhaṭṭāraka era are still projected on contemporary munis, some even increasingly so. The epithet mahārāja (great king) for example has now become the standard term of address. The former royal mould is antiquated. Victory (jaya) to the new kings!