The Jain traditions share a concern with transforming the self through virtuous conduct informed by correct faith and knowledge. Jain thinkers often present ethical cultivation as essential to the path to liberation. Some Jain authors have discussed the nature of such cultivation and have endeavored to promote proper dispositions and behavior in readers in multiple ways. Our papers session brings together presentations on a Digambara scriptural text, an early modern treatise by the Śvetāmbara monk Yaśovijaya, and a number of narratives told by Digambara and Śvetāmbara authors. This broad coverage allows us to explore the diversity of Jain approaches to ethical cultivation. The texts discussed in the first two papers detail mechanisms of inner transformation, and the second two presentations argue that the narratives under consideration aim to actually effect transformation in readers. Taken together, these sources illustrate the diverse strategies Jain authors employ to conceptualize and promote ethical transformation.
This paper focuses on selected sections of the Kasāya-pāhuḍa (“Treatise on Passions”) and its commentaries to explore the ways in which these texts define and discuss the concept of passions through the analytical method of naya (perspective) and nikṣepa (parameter). It will focus on the meaning of pejja and dosa, the Prakrit terms that denote categories that give rise to pleasure and pain, respectively, and which should not be understood in a one-sided way. While these states are often seen as causes of bad karma, some of the passages in the text suggest that pejja can have a positive valence in the Jain tradition and denote something that is karmically beneficial. I argue that the analytical framework of perspectivism allows certain passions, under specific perspectives, to contribute to ethical cultivation.
This paper examines the concept of bhāvanā in Yaśovijaya’s Dvātriṃśaddvātriṃśikā, showing how it links ethical cultivation with ontological transformation. Bhāvanā in this text denotes a sustained and discerning practice of inner cultivation oriented toward the self. Yaśovijaya presents it as the disciplined formation of ethical virtues that gradually reshape one’s inner condition, weakening harmful tendencies and stabilizing wholesome dispositions. External religious acts, he argues, function only as supports; what ultimately determines moral value and soteriological progress is the condition of the soul itself. Liberation, described as śuddha-bhāva (pure state of being), emerges through this gradual refinement rather than through mere realization or ritual performance alone. By tracing discussions of intention, conduct, meditation, and the self, I show that bhāvanā functions as the process through which ethical practice produces enduring dispositions, linking ethical cultivation to transformation at the level of being.
This paper examines bhakti (devotion) to the Jina as a practice of ethical cultivation, mapping how Jain literature in Sanskrit may work to engender in its reader a devotional attitude toward the figure of the Jina. I focus on a the 33rd canto of Jinasena’s Book of Beginnings, a ninth century-CE hagiography of the first Jina, Adinatha. This canto follows Bharata, one of Adinatha’s sons, as he ascends Mount Kailasa to pay homage to his father. During this ascent, I track how Jinasena prepares his reader to ethically meditate upon the Jina’s good qualities once the Jina is met at the mountaintop. I demonstrate that it is not only Bharata who follows a path up Mount Kailasa, and not just Bharata who is meant to offer devotional bhakti to the Jina. The reader also traverses a path aimed to set their mind towards offering ethically formative devotion to the Jina.
I will discuss how selected narratives related by medieval Jain authors aim to contribute to ethical cultivation by promoting Jain virtues in the (especially non-ascetic) reader. Jain society is traditionally divided into four groups (monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen), on each of whom specific societal expectations are imposed. I will show how the stories of the laymen Amarasīha (in Somaprabhasūri’s Kumārapālapratibodha) and Agaḍadatta (in Devendra’s Uttarādhyayanaṭīkā) and the laywomen Rohiṇī (in Āmradevasūri’s commentary on the Ākhyānamaṇikośa) and Ārāmasohā (in Devacandrasūri’s commentary on Pradyumnasūri’s Mūlaśuddhiprakaraṇa) aim to form virtuous subjects by presenting models for different groups in engaging and memorable narrative contexts and illustrating the rewards of good behavior, while characters like Amarasīha’s violent brother Samarasīha and Agaḍadatta’s unfaithful wife, Mayaṇamañjarī, act as negative role models discouraging undesired characteristics/behavior.