Fortifying the Tradition through the Icon: Ātmārāmajī Mahārāj’s Vision for Reforming Jainism in Modern India

Ātmārāmajī Mahārāj (1837 – 1896) is the popular name of the Jain ācārya Vijayananda Surī, a Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjaka Jain mendicant leader in the late 19th century. Born in Lahara village of Punjab in a brahmo-kṣatriya family, Ātmārāmajī was initiated as a Jain Sthānakavāsī (non-image worshipping sect) mendicant at the age of 17. After having spent around 22 years reading Jain scriptures, he gave up on Sthānakavāsī ideology and accepted initiation into the Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjaka fold in Gujarāt, for which he faced backlash from the Sthānakavāsī sect that he left. As a mendicant leader Ātmārāmajī led the decision on how Jainism would be represented at the World’s Parliament of Religions convened in Chicago in 1893 and, at the same time, he was working on bringing his vision of reform to the Jains in the western and northern parts of colonized British India as a response to the growing influence of the Hindu practices and ideals, and particularly, refutation for the Jain forms of mūrti-pūjā by the Sthānakavāsīs (non-image worshipper Jains) and by Dayānanda Sarasavatī (1824-1883) of Ārya Samāj, a Hindu Indian reform movement. Through the Ārya Samāj, Jains were adopting Hindu ideals and practices, and thus abandoning their Jain identity and letting go of Jain values. Ātmārāmajī’s vision was to re-situate these Jains in their own tradition by re-establishing the Jain ideals of image-worshipping as set by the mūrti-pūjā.

My paper will discuss how, for Ātmārāmajī Mahārāj, the ideals of the Jain form of mūrti-pūjā were the essential core tradition and the representation of the Jain doctrine, values, and sense of identity, which he identified as a method to bring reformation in the Jain community in the modern time. According to Ātmārāmajī, the Jain form of mūrti-pūjā was exactly in alignment with the Jain scriptures, and for him if Jains would restore faith in and engage with the mūrti-pūjā vision, then the process to bring reformation would be easier.

While most religious traditions were experiencing chaos and working on large-scale reformations during the colonial period, the Jain mendicant-leader Ātmārāmajī also observed several other challenges facing the Jain tradition. According to him, the Jain tradition was corrupted, facilitated by both lay and mendicants. He identified some of the causes for this, such as the incorporation of Hindu practices and ideals, the lack of a unified Jain identity, which demonstrated for him inability to comprehend the Jain values from the scriptures. Furthermore, for Ātmārāmajī it was a matter of concern that many lay Jains such as Lālā Lājpata Rāi (1865- 1928) joined Ārya Samāj under the influence of Dayānanda Sarasavatī, while the Sthānakavāsīs were already promoting the views on non-image worshipping Jainism practices actively through Punjab and the western parts of India. Therefore, for him, the most crucial task was to restore the understanding of the core (or true) Jainism among the community members, as the tradition faced resistance from various internal and external sources, especially in the western and northern parts of India. For Ātmārāmajī, the project of reiterating image-worshipping would solve the double challenge of restoring the tradition in the modern period, on the one hand, while contesting the refutations of it by Dayānanda Sarasavatī of Ārya Samāj as well as the Sthānakavāsīs, on the other.

In this paper, I will discuss how Ātmārāmajī centered his project of reformation around the Jain form of mūrti-pūjā by exploring two writings of Ātmārāmajī’s The Chicago Praśnottara (“The Chicago Question and Answer”), which was written in 1892-93, and his Ajñānatimīra-bhāskara (“The Light-maker Amid the Darkness of Ignorance’), written in 1882. Both texts contain his views on the mūrti-pūjā practice. For example, in the The Chicago Praśnottara, Ātmārāmajī explains why the Jain form of image-worshipping or mūrti-pūjā is significant for Jains, and how it transmits Jain values, doctrines, and teachings of the Jinas. For example, in response to the questions such as “What should man do for God?,” Ātmārāmajī uses the illustration of image worshipping practices as a method for Jain laity to connect with Jain values and doctrine, since, according to him, images of the Jinas are a way to “recollect the knowledge of the God.”

Ātmārāmajī authored the text, Ajñānatimīra-bhāskara as response to Dayānanda Sarasavatī’s Satyārtha Prakāsha (Light of Truth), a text first published in 1875. While Dayānanda Sarasavatī expresses his views on Jainism and refutes worshipping icons, while accusing Jainism of introducing icon worship in India, In the Ajñānatimīra-bhāskara, Ātmārāmajī explicitly responds to Dayānanda Sarasavatī’s criticism and refutations of Jainism and its worship of icons. For example, Ātmārāmajī, through titles such as, “Hypocrisy of Dayānanda” and “Dayānanda’s iconoclasm” points out flaws in the methods of Dayānanda in his describing of Jainism on the one hand, while establishing the importance of an image as the core feature of Jainism with various arguments in favor of connecting the concept of divinity with an icon, on the other. This paper will discuss the other debates between the two figures as articulated in this text.

By discussing such examples, this paper will add to the scholarly understanding of the processes by which a mendicant leader navigated and presented tradition in the modern period. For Ātmārāmajī, it was by laying down the significance of image worship as a method for Jains to follow, in order to for them to reclaim their true religious identity.