Establishing Righteous Conduct: Ritualization of Organizational Discipline in Digambara Monasticism

Talal Asad in his Genealogies of Religion (1993) discusses discipline as an “embodied practice” which considers body as a site of religious formation. Asad argues that discipline involves practices that shape body and subjectivity to regulate the religious life of an individual. Based on this framework, my presentation will investigate the ritual organizational discipline and the establishment of authority and obedience in Digambara monastic jurisprudence. The primary source of the presentation will be the Mūlācāra of Vaṭṭakera and its commentary Ācāravṛtti of Vasunandi. The paper will take three case studies from the text ̶  samācāra, vinaya and, vandanā as ‘embodied practices’ to explore the ritualized organizational discipline of a monk. The core methodology of the paper will be a philological analysis of primary sources with a focus on the historical framework provided by Asad to understand the role of bodily discipline and religious practices in constructing authority in religious communities.