Digambara Jain Monks who Wear Clothes: The Art of Jain Festival Narratives

What do Jain monks look like in paintings of the narratives linked to Jain festivals? This presentation will address this question by looking at 20th-and 21st-century temple wall paintings and sculptures, from Delhi, Hastinapur, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. It will focus on the narratives linked to two Jain festivals: Akṣaya Tṛtīyā, which commemorates the first fast-breaking of the first Jina, Ṛṣabha, and Rakhi, or Rakṣā Bandhan, which commemorates the Jain monk Viṣṇukumāra’s rescue of 700 Digambara monks from the fiery torments of a king’s minister-turned king, Bali. In the paintings and sculptures representing these narratives, Jain monks look like brahmins. The Śvetāmbara sculptures related to Akṣaya Tṛtīyā portray Ṛṣabha with a śikhā, or a tuft of hair required of brahmins initiated into the Vedic sacrifice. Digambara paintings of the Rakhi narrative also have a monks wearing a śikhā, and they even portray Digambara monks as wearing clothes: a white dhoti and upper garment. This material culture, when put in conversation with the written narratives of these festivals, from the medieval period to the present day, shows how these festivals emerged as a way to argue that Jain monks are the true brahmins.