The Issue of Monastic Dwelling in Jain Texts of Conduct: Sustained idealization, Silences and Adaptations

In the 15th century, a Digambara Jain monk, Ratnanandi, laments how monks in this adverse age of kali observed their saṃyama (restraint) while living in temples [emphasis added] situated in cities or villages. He acknowledges that the existing practices are a deviation from the ideals of the jina-kalpa, a remote era when tīrthaṅkaras and monks spent their time meditating in caves, forests, mountains, and riverbeds. The sthāvira-kalpa, which began around six decades after the death of Mahavira, entails monks to live together as a community in some residence that they request from the laity for a temporary stay. It is not surprising that the glorified accounts of marvelous monks in Jain narrative literature often situate them in the liminal or peripheral spaces of gardens or forests, away from urban dwellings.

Early Jain literature, both canonical and non-canonical, regardless of the sectarian affiliation, like Acārāngasūtra, Sthānāngasūtra, Tattvārthasūtra, Mūlācāra, etc., also glorify stays in these liminal spaces. Considering the time gap between these  “early texts” and the chronological layers within a text, one can observe a changing attitude concerning dwelling within the canonical literature. For instance, the Bhagavatīsūtra has textual layers covering roughly a gap of a millennium, from the first canonical stage (6th/5th-4th century BCE) to the fifth canonical stage (4th-5th century CE), based on the philological study of Suzuko Ohiro. A careful comparison between the Acārānga-I, corresponding to the first canonical stage, and the relevant portion on monastic dwelling practices from the Bhagavatīsūtra of the fifth canonical stage betray tensions within the texts of conduct. They broadly run on two parallel concerns: a) adhering to the older injunctions of solitary stays in liminal spaces and b) pragmatic acceptance of stays in a vasati (house of laity) or a vimocitavāsa (abandoned structure) and sometimes, in structures which seems to be early prototype of the modern upāśraya, dwellings built for temporary monastic stays. The early Digambara texts also betray a gradual expansion and pragmatic adjustment of the strict textual regulations on monastic stays.

There are minor instances when the authors/compilers of both sects betray some differences, but they continued to proscribe, throughout this long period, against the construction of any residential strcuture for the sake of the monastic order. Doing so would entail upon monks the fault of utpādana-doṣa (construction for the sake of monks). In reality, as one learns from archaeological and epigraphical records, some forms of monastic residential establishment was always needed for an ideal temporary stay or, sometimes, a more sedentarized stay.

My study explores:

1. how the monastic law-givers from both these sects during these long canonical periods had dealt with the pertinent issue of monastic dwelling. On one hand, they anxiously maintained the old injunction of necessary isolation (from women, animals, and hermaphrodites) and the concern of utpādana-doṣa (construction for the sake of monks), on the other hand, there are divergent views in these texts, shaped by the requirements of the time and the pragmatic readjustments on the part of the lawgivers;
2. how the later exegetical and the commentarial literature based on these “early texts” interpreted the injunctions as their contemporary concerns;
3. lastly, how the issue of monastic dwelling appeared in the Jain texts of conduct composed during the early medieval period (8th-12th centuries), and their comparison with the concerns of monastic dwelling in the contemporary narrative literature

Christine Chojnacki’s recent work (2024) discusses the issue of monastic dwelling in Prakrit romantic novel-poems of the 8th-12th centuries composed by Jain monks. Besides these novel- poems, other forms of textual narratives betray interesting information on monastic dwelling practices. In contrast to these fictional narratives, the contemporaneous normative text of conduct usually abstained from any discussion of dwelling- an understandable position in the situation of a conflict between the canonical norms and existing practices. However, they also reveal a gradual acceptance of the upāśraya, a residential structure built for monastic stay, as a common practice. The usual position of observing silence on the issue of monastic dwelling in normative literature significantly changed after the 11th and 12th centuries. The subsequent reform movement, centered around the issue of dwelling, with an emphasis on monastic stays in a vasati, made the issue of dwelling a major concern. Thus, the issue of monastic dwelling in the normative literature could no longer be dealt with “silences” of the earlier period or a simple “repetition” of the canonical injunctions. 

For a religious tradition, which had to continuously adapt itself to changing conditions and at the same time define the standards of orthopraxy, the issue of monastic dwelling had to be carefully dealt with, sometimes with a sustained idealization, at other times through adaptations and sometimes through an uncanny silence on it. My study explores these trends in a longue durée. While the orthopraxy is defined in the sens of strict observation of the texts of conduct, could the latter be seen as something inherently monolithic, coherent, or firmly static? Lastly, it also brings the complicated issue of the “shift of meanings” of the terms associated with monastic dwelling, with the passage of time or their multiple contextual re-interpretation.