Gotras, Grandfathers, and Grand-gurus: The Transformation from Monastic to Biological Lineages

While theoretically casteless, Jain participation in and development of caste identities, especially as vaiśyas, has been well-documented. This study examines the development of four relatively new gotras (Matheran/Mahatma, Gorji, Gurusan, and Yati) that trace their origin from Śvetāmbar yatis, a special category of monks that follow an alternative interpretation of Jain monastic conduct. The existence of these gotras creates tension among yati monks and the broader Jain community by forcing them to consider the caste status of someone who walks back their renunciation and to deal with the social implications of their renewed worldly life.

Alan Babb’s 2004 Alchemies of Violence studied the development of Marwari Jain trader caste identity, typically in contradistinction to Brahman and Kshatriya caste identity. In examining the origin myths of Marwari Jain trader castes, he found that the alleged transformation of Jain social groups from Ksatriyas into vaiśyas was not characterized by a ceasing to be Hindu but rather a renegotiation of the group’s relationship with the Vedic sacrifice and Brahmins as a class of ritual specialists. For some groups, however, this transformation was not the end of the story. Members of these trader castes went on to renounce the world and become Jain monks called yatis. Yatis are a special category of Śvetāmbar Jain monks that base their praxis on an alternative interpretation of the Jain monastic code that allows for practical exceptions. They can therefore perform otherwise prohibited actions like traveling by vehicle, using money, and maintaining possessions. Despite reformist polemics describing them as lax in conduct, in their own sources the yati lifestyle is described as difficult, they are still said to detach themselves from the world, they still take the five great vows of an ascetic, and this technically involves renouncing their previous caste status.

Due to a number of social and economic factors, however, these yati monastic lineages, which were once very powerful, began to wither and be overshadowed by the ascendant saṃvegī sādhu reformist movement. Yatis began to adopt their disciples. This was possibly in a bid to protect their accumulated property from being seized by the colonial government or taken over by rival Jain factions. Some of these yatis and their disciples then lapsed in their renunciant life, or never took initiation at all, and began to take wives and father children. Many did this while still wearing monastic robes, carrying the ogha, and calling themselves yatis. This posed a major problem for the declining yati lineages, both because it could harm their reputation and because it forced them to delineate the boundaries of Jain monasticism. Could monks be noncelibate?

While the status of these noncelibate yatis (or former yatis) was negotiated among yati conferences, the descendents of these lineages, transformed from monastic into biological lineages, began to grow. Among the broader Jain society, their presence prompted a different set of questions, especially, what is the caste status of the descendent of someone who has renounced their social identity? These descendents began to form their own gotras, or exogamous lineages descended from a common male ancestor (in the Hindu context, often a sage). These four gotras have their own caste associations, confederated into the Śrī Akhil Jain

Śvetāmbar Yati Mahatma Gurosa Gaurji Samaj. Each of these distinct gotras has their own history and relationship to the yati lineages. In this presentation, each of these will be examined in their own light via a study of their origin narratives, archival materials, caste association documents, and interviews with members of these gotras.

The oldest of these gotras are the Matherans, alternatively called Mathens, who are said to have originated from the expulsion of lax yatis from the Khartar Gacch by the dādāguru Jincandrasūri. These Matherans are also the most well-documented, given that they developed a distinct style of Bikaneri painting, and were employed to paint miniatures, decorate both Jain and Hindu temple walls, ornament ritual instruments, and to do scribal and illustrative work on Jain manuscripts. This portion of the presentation will examine materials produced by their caste association, as well as court reports on legal disputes between the Jain sanghs and their caste associations. In doing so, I will attempt to parse out the nuances of their relationship to the Jain community as a whole, to the yati lineages of the Khartar Gacch, and to the Mahatmas, who claim to be an extension of the Matheran community outside of Bikaner and who also are involved in manuscript scribal and genealogical work.

The next most well-documented group are the Gorjis. From an examination of Gujarati newspaper articles, and a study of the Gorji lineage associated with the royal family of the Kutch State, it appears that this group derived from semi-renunciant apprentices of yatis who were tasked with performing basic ritual functions, much like pujārī temple priests. The Gurusans and Yatis seem to be the least well defined of the four gotras, but an examination of one prominent member, Channod Gurusa, also known as Yati Udaychand, may shed some light on their history.

The histories of these gotras serve not only as a source of tension for both the Jain yatis and the laity, but they also challenge scholars to reexamine how they study Jainism given that these developments cannot be explained by a textualist examination of canonical sources alone. The transformation of these lineages from monastic into biological ones force us to consider how various historical and social processes influenced Jain monastic structure.