Challenging Semi-Renunciancy: Did Śvetāmbara Yatis Take the Five Great Vows?

Much of the history of Jainism has been shaped by the reformist context in which it was gathered by western scholars. In the Śvetāmbara sect, 20th century CE scholars gathered most of their material from saṃvegī sādhus, who had recently all but succeeded in reforming the yati renouncers out of the tradition. This colored Jain histories of the modern era, either by characterizing yati monks by monastic laxity or śithilatā, or by leaving them out of Jain history altogether. When yatis are mentioned in histories of Jainism, they are characterized as corrupt priests who took either partial or diminished vows. In reality, yatis were highly venerated renouncers with large followings. The question remains whether they took the five great vows of a proper Jain monk. This paper will survey colonial era evidence, from gazetteers to invitation scrolls, to argue that the term “semi-renunciant” mischaracterizes the actual status of yati renouncers.