Who Were the Caityavāsins? Monastic Dwelling, Sectarian Polemics, and Reform in Medieval Jainism

Traditional Jain historiography often narrates an interesting phase of Śvetāmbara Jain monastic history, starting from around the 7th-8th century CE, when monks supposedly abandoned their vows of continuous mobility and permanently resided in temple compounds. Subsequently, as the lore goes, various forms of monastic laxities and corruptions crept into the conduct of these caityavāsins (literally ‘temple-dwellers’), as well as a desire for luxury, power, and comfort. This allegedly monolithic ‘caityavāsin period’ was gradually transformed through efforts at reform in the 11th-12th century CE by the members of the emerging Kharataragaccha ascetic lineage. This conceptualization of the caityavāsins is however based on polemical charges levied upon it by rival traditions, and recent scholarship has turned increasingly critical of this simplified portrayal of  a substantially long phase of monastic history. Christine Chojnacki (2024) recently analysed a corpus of romance-poems, some of which were written by monks whom she identified as belonging to the caityavāsin tradition, and questions the conventional accusations of laxity associated with them.

We are then left with the question of how to define the caityavāsin tradition. What were their distinct practices? What brought them under the attacks of the later reformers? And most importantly, how to identify or label any individual monk or an entire gaccha as caityavāsin? Is the conventional definition of caityavāsins being sedentarized and permanently dwelling in a temple-monastery sufficient? Can their dwelling practices be simply linked with other forms of monastic laxity, as has been done by medieval polemicists? Furthermore, it is suggested that the caityavāsin tradition surpassed reform efforts and continued across the late medieval period. Some writers even trace a direct continuum between ‘corrupt’ caityavāsin and the ‘lax’ yatis who preceded the saṃvegī Śvetāmbara reform of the 19th century CE, but these claims require scrutiny. If the caityavāsin tradition indeed continued in the later medieval centuries, on what basis can a gaccha of this later phase be identified as caityavāsin? Can a singular definition suffice to label this long phase of monastic history or do they share any common practices?

This paper deals with these questions, in particular the caityavāsins’ monastic practices, especially the issue of the place of dwelling. I present a case study of the Upakeśagaccha, a monastic lineage identified as a caityavāsin tradition in the polemical charges levied upon it by the rival Kharataragaccha. Like many other gacchas, it derived its name from its place of origin, Upakeśapura or Osian in Rajasthan. I argue that the available sources, archaeological evidence from the 8th to 12th century CE, consecration epigraphs, and later genealogical literature, refute any conception of the Upakeśagaccha as a sedentarized monastic order stationed at the place of its origin. What then, makes it a caityavāsin tradition? Was it perhaps a mobile order which stayed temporarily in a monastic residence (maṭha, upāśraya) within the temple enclosures? Sources are unclear about their dwelling practices.

However, I raise a question whether polemical charges levied on it by a rival sect are a sufficient criteria to identify it as a caityavāsin, at a time when it was a common practice among medieval polemicists (c. late 13th/14th-16th century CE) to blame their rival as a caityavāsin? During this later period, the term caityavāsin became a comfortable and ubiquitous polemical motif. Thus, the same gaccha is described by caityavāsin by one gaccha (Kharataragaccha) and non-caityavāsin by another (Tapāgaccha), depending on the relation they share with that gaccha. This polemical usage should not be assumed at a surface level for a widespread period of continued monastic laxity. If the caityavāsin tradition did continue post-reform period, which specific monastic practices associated with this tradition exactly were maintained, and which were successfully challenged and transformed by the reform?

While concerns over dwelling practices are a central issue of the reform of caityavāsins, I argue that the question of dwelling need not be related to other aspects of monastic praxis (mobility, food, non-possessiveness, etc.). This perspective helps us take distance from the later medieval sources which use the caityavāsin label to refer to all sorts of monastic corruptions. Surprisingly, most of the sources (both normative and narrative) produced during the so-called ‘caityavāsin period’, 8th-11th century CE, show little concern over the issue of dwelling, and even lack the depiction of widespread monastic laxity, but rather speak of multiple dwelling patterns. This gradually changed after the reform efforts aimed to raise a unitary orthopraxy, where the issue of dwelling became one of the major concerns of the reform. In this regard, I seek to answer why sources other than those of the Kharataragaccha do not comment on this supposedly major transformation in Jain monastic practice which the reform supposedly brought. Why do leading monastic leaders and prolific writers of the time outside the Kharataragaccha remain silent about it? This section brings up the issue of monastic dwelling as a major concern in understanding the caityavāsin tradition, prevalent monastic practices, and the nature of reform.