Kānjī Svāmī: The Transmission of the Adhyātmik Tradition in the Modern Era

Leaving a lengthy career within the Sthānakavāsī monkhood, Kānjī Svāmī declared himself to be a Digambara layperson (śrāvaka) and took on the status of an independent Jain lay guru. He faced fierce public backlash over this exit as well as criticism from other Jain leaders over his interpretation of the Digambara texts. It is against this backdrop that the question arises as to how a vilified ex-monk managed to attract and retain a significant following of ardent devotees, and moreover how the movement continued to survive into the present day. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the mid-20th century, Kānjī Svāmī did not author any books and nor did he engage with the social issues of the day. How did he garner attention and become relevant in Jain society? The answer to this question is necessarily multilayered with multiple factors contributing to Kānjī Svāmī becoming established as the leader of ‘the most successful lay movement of the 20th century’ (Dundas 2002: 267).

This paper will first briefly sketch some of the key teachings that Kānjī Svāmī covers in his public lectures, informed largely by the works of the famed philosopher, Kundakunda and his subsequent commentators, from Amṛtacandrasūri to Ṭoḍarmal. Kānjī Svāmī frames his teachings as a part of an inherited Digambara Jain, and more specifically, adhyātma tradition (parampara) through the choice of lecturing upon works of authors associated with the movement and explicitly stating this connection in his lectures. The connection with an adhyātmik parampara is reinforced through visual imagery, depicting an authorial lineage that flows from the Tīrthaṅkara Sīmandhara through to Kundakunda, Amṛtacandrasūri to Kānjī Svāmī and his listeners. This imagery is visible on book covers and the walls of sacred spaces, for example.

This paper seeks to explore the question of how Kānjī Svāmī attracted and retained a following during the mid-20th century, all the while facing fierce societal opposition from his contemporaries and rejection from the local communities he was operating in. Although the answer to this question is no doubt complex, I will highlight some major factors that contributed to the successful growth of the movement surrounding Kānjī Svāmī, such as orality and the use of technology for the dissemination and preservation of teachings. These factors will be brought to the fore through a division into three broad chronological phases.

Since the death of Śrīmad Rājacandra in 1901, Kānjī Svāmī was the first of his era to transmit adhyātmik teachings in public lectures, beginning in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat before spreading further. Moreover, these lectures were delivered in the Kathiawadi dialect of Gujarati and in an accessible style that made his lectures suitable for a mass audience. It appears that the desire to document lecture proceedings has been present in the community from an early point. The initial chronological phase occurs between the 1930s up to the 1950s and can be broadly characterized by the transcription and publishing of oral lectures. Audience listeners would take detailed notes of his lectures and these would then form the basis of summaries published in book form, most notably the Jain Śāstramāḷā series which consists of 108 books mostly of transcribed lectures in Gujarati, Hindi, and a few titles in Marathi. This series was released over some 25 years via the publishing activities of the foundational centre at Songadh, the Śrī Digambar Jain Svādhyāya Mandir Trust. Another influential medium is the monthly magazine Ātmadharma, which started in 1943 in Gujarati, followed by editions available in Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, and Tamil. This also consists mostly of lecture summaries and excerpts, as well as conveying news about upcoming or recent community events. It is still in circulation today, in print and online.

The first audio recordings were attempted in the 1950s, starting the second chronological phase. Borne out of a single follower’s efforts, audio recordings were embraced rapidly it seems, culminating in a concerted effort to record all daily lectures. Investment was made into importing the latest technology, moving from French-made wire spools to reel from Germany and then Japan. Although publishing activities continued, the transition to audio recordings became the primary manner of preservation of lectures. By the time Kānjī Svāmī passed away in 1980, over 9000 hours of one-hour lectures had been amassed in total.

The third phase begins around the turn of the millennium. Not only we do we see the digitization of this collection and its storage in online repositories, but we also see an interesting shift from preservation in a medium which allowed accessibility directly to the oral nature of lectures to reverting to the written word which defined the first phase. Enough time had elapsed since the guru’s death which meant that it had become increasingly difficult for the younger generations to understand these recordings. The sound quality of these old recordings had also deteriorated and thus a need arose to transcribe the recorded lectures to make it easier to understand once more. To this end, a project to transcribe the 19th (and final) series of lectures on the Samayasāra was undertaken, which produced 13 volumes of word-to-word lectures entitled Samayasāra Siddhi (2004). This endeavour proved to be popular and these volumes are now an essential fixture in the self-study (svādhyāya) sessions of followers and a common sight on their bookshelves at home as well as temples. Similar transcription projects were pursued producing further volume collections and more are still currently ongoing.

Nowadays, it is common to see svādhyāya sessions at home or in svādhyāya halls / mandirs using a combination of both the audio recording of a lecture and the word-to-word transcription in Gujarati or Hindi text displayed on screens to aid understanding. In this way, the use of technology has preserved teachings and shaped the manner in which ritual practices are performed. As engaging with these lectures constitutes a major part of religious praxis for followers, the use of technology to preserve lectures, although initially unintended, may have contributed to securing the continued existence of the community after Kānjī Svāmī passed away.