After Petersham: A Journey in Search of Jain Nuns
Sr. Mary O’Hara was one of the participants at the meeting in Petersham, Massachusetts, in 1977 when the groundwork was laid for the formation of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue in North America. She is an emerita professor of philosophy at the College of S. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. She still resides in that city and is currently finishing a book on Jain women ascetics that is tentatively entitled Approaching Escape Velocity. Although the MID board has not formally engaged in dialogue with members of the Jain religion, Sr. O’Hara’s reflections point to ways in which such dialogue could be beneficial to both Christians and Jains.
A recent Google search indicates that there are some 6,000 Jain nuns in the world, the vast majority of them living in India. In the past decade, however, some of these nuns have taken special vows that allow them to travel abroad. Some have located in England, others in Orlando, Florida.
What intrigued me about the Jain nuns when I first heard of them at Dom Jean Leclercq’s slide lecture at Petersham were two things: First, it seemed that they valued the individual person (a research interest of mine for many years) and believed in personal immortality, unlike Hindus and Buddhists I had heard about. Second, the women ascetics (or “nuns”) of this faith group were said to have been the first women ever to undertake this form of life. As I looked at a slide of two of the women, I wondered what they might be thinking about. Was their experience anything like that of Catholic nuns today? When it became possible for me to visit and talk with these women in India, I tried to connect their experience with my own.
One of the first things I learned about them was surprising: While in many ways, such as believing in reincarnation, they share a common worldview with Hindus, Jains claim not to believe in a god. Is their “atheism” some sort of reaction against the many Hindu gods? And does their not believing in a god make it necessary for us to consider them as a “faith group” but not a religion? Surely not. It is significant that Pope John Paul II included them in his prayer meeting with religious leaders in Assisi. In the opinion of one distinguished Jesuit authority, the supposed Jain disbelief in God may reflect a kind of negative theology, an attitude of reverence that would prevent them from thinking anything specific about God, somewhat as the Muslims and Jews do not represent God artistically. I was once fortunate to met a Jain nun with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Bombay. Her thesis dealt with the topic “Hindu gods and Jain no-god.” She told me that the principal objection to belief in the existence of the Hindu gods was that they are so needy. And who created them?
Jains do, however, have a very coherent and elaborately worked-out system of thought about the structure of the world, its supposed eternal existence, the nature of human being, survival after death, and the need to organize society around men and women ascetics who embody the ideal observance of certain moral standards. Jain cosmology, literature (especially folk literature), logic, law, epistemology, and what may be called “anti-theology” have played a significant role in Indian intellectual life for more than two millennia, persisting alongside the majority Hindu belief. The secret of this persistence may lie in the fundamental principle of ahimsa, non-violence. There exist in Jain folklore countless stories encouraging believers to practice non-intervention and to mind their own business instead of trying to rescue anyone, even an innocent person, who is being attacked.
An unusual feature of Jain belief is that the soul (with perhaps a corporeal sheath, the soul being an inner reality not sensibly observable) is the fundamental reality of one’s being and that it persists through incarnations that will continue until, as a result of ascetic purification, it is freed from the visible human body in which it finds itself realized. This soul can go from one embodiment, such as that of a plant, animal, or atom, to another. What makes incarnation as a human being so desirable is that only in this form can the individual free him- or (perhaps) herself from the karma that, like glue, binds soul to body. The liberation from rebirth that Jains desire is, however, possible only in a favorable era, like that of their hero Mahavira (500 BCE), and not in ours. When a person is born in a “good” time and practices rigorous asceticism and the careful observance of the rules of Jain behavior, then he or she may obtain release to a state of moksha, everlasting, blissful omniscience. The successful kevalin, however, does not intervene in this world in answer to any prayer.
Jains have traditionally been very successful in the business world, with most of the world’s diamond trade being controlled by Jain-owned corporations. Since they prefer businesses like money-lending and dealing in precious stones to occupations like farming (in which worms or other small creatures might be harmed), they are at times disliked for their wealth. When I once asked an affluent Jain woman how she happened to be so well off, she shrugged and said, “It was something I did in my past life.” The same sort of conviction no doubt has the effect of making the average Indian appear to feel no responsibility for the fate of persons less fortunate. Salvation is strictly up to the individual. In this respect, Jain thought seems to me less radically incarnational than Christian thought.
Jain nuns take five vows: not to harm, not to lie, not to steal, not to possess, and to live chastely. We Western Christians have been accustomed to categorize religious women as either contemplative (and so, usually, cloistered) or apostolic (and not bound by cloister). The Benedictine tradition sees obedience, stability in one place, and continual conversion as fundamental to religious life. Jain women ascetics live a different sort of life, for they have no settled dwelling. They also combine the contemplative with the active life, somewhat like the observance of St. Francis in the thirteenth century. These nuns abstain from meat and some vegetables, and from all food and water from sunset until well after sunrise the next day. Their discipline of ahimsa is symbolized by the small broom they carry everywhere, used to brush off a place to sit so as to avoid inadvertently killing any insect that might be there.
Monks and nuns must beg their food from the lay members of the community. These monastics act as the acknowledged leaders of Jain society, moving from one town to another, instructing and consoling the people, leading them in prayers, studying their scriptures, but never acting as priests. Those Jains who worship in temples may hire a priest to function for them, but they themselves are not permitted to light a fire, something essential in Indian worship. Jains might at times beg from observant Hindus, but they would never beg food from Muslims or Christians because of the issue of eating meat.
Given the social distance between Jain ascetics and Christians, Jain nuns know little of Christian doctrine. A fruitful approach to members of this religious tradition might be through an emphasis on non-violence and Christian charity. It would also be good if nuns of both traditions were to undertake the study of their respective scriptures together.
What intrigued me about the Jain nuns when I first heard of them at Dom Jean Leclercq’s slide lecture at Petersham were two things: First, it seemed that they valued the individual person (a research interest of mine for many years) and believed in personal immortality, unlike Hindus and Buddhists I had heard about. Second, the women ascetics (or “nuns”) of this faith group were said to have been the first women ever to undertake this form of life. As I looked at a slide of two of the women, I wondered what they might be thinking about. Was their experience anything like that of Catholic nuns today? When it became possible for me to visit and talk with these women in India, I tried to connect their experience with my own.
One of the first things I learned about them was surprising: While in many ways, such as believing in reincarnation, they share a common worldview with Hindus, Jains claim not to believe in a god. Is their “atheism” some sort of reaction against the many Hindu gods? And does their not believing in a god make it necessary for us to consider them as a “faith group” but not a religion? Surely not. It is significant that Pope John Paul II included them in his prayer meeting with religious leaders in Assisi. In the opinion of one distinguished Jesuit authority, the supposed Jain disbelief in God may reflect a kind of negative theology, an attitude of reverence that would prevent them from thinking anything specific about God, somewhat as the Muslims and Jews do not represent God artistically. I was once fortunate to met a Jain nun with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Bombay. Her thesis dealt with the topic “Hindu gods and Jain no-god.” She told me that the principal objection to belief in the existence of the Hindu gods was that they are so needy. And who created them?
Jains do, however, have a very coherent and elaborately worked-out system of thought about the structure of the world, its supposed eternal existence, the nature of human being, survival after death, and the need to organize society around men and women ascetics who embody the ideal observance of certain moral standards. Jain cosmology, literature (especially folk literature), logic, law, epistemology, and what may be called “anti-theology” have played a significant role in Indian intellectual life for more than two millennia, persisting alongside the majority Hindu belief. The secret of this persistence may lie in the fundamental principle of ahimsa, non-violence. There exist in Jain folklore countless stories encouraging believers to practice non-intervention and to mind their own business instead of trying to rescue anyone, even an innocent person, who is being attacked.
An unusual feature of Jain belief is that the soul (with perhaps a corporeal sheath, the soul being an inner reality not sensibly observable) is the fundamental reality of one’s being and that it persists through incarnations that will continue until, as a result of ascetic purification, it is freed from the visible human body in which it finds itself realized. This soul can go from one embodiment, such as that of a plant, animal, or atom, to another. What makes incarnation as a human being so desirable is that only in this form can the individual free him- or (perhaps) herself from the karma that, like glue, binds soul to body. The liberation from rebirth that Jains desire is, however, possible only in a favorable era, like that of their hero Mahavira (500 BCE), and not in ours. When a person is born in a “good” time and practices rigorous asceticism and the careful observance of the rules of Jain behavior, then he or she may obtain release to a state of moksha, everlasting, blissful omniscience. The successful kevalin, however, does not intervene in this world in answer to any prayer.
Jains have traditionally been very successful in the business world, with most of the world’s diamond trade being controlled by Jain-owned corporations. Since they prefer businesses like money-lending and dealing in precious stones to occupations like farming (in which worms or other small creatures might be harmed), they are at times disliked for their wealth. When I once asked an affluent Jain woman how she happened to be so well off, she shrugged and said, “It was something I did in my past life.” The same sort of conviction no doubt has the effect of making the average Indian appear to feel no responsibility for the fate of persons less fortunate. Salvation is strictly up to the individual. In this respect, Jain thought seems to me less radically incarnational than Christian thought.
Jain nuns take five vows: not to harm, not to lie, not to steal, not to possess, and to live chastely. We Western Christians have been accustomed to categorize religious women as either contemplative (and so, usually, cloistered) or apostolic (and not bound by cloister). The Benedictine tradition sees obedience, stability in one place, and continual conversion as fundamental to religious life. Jain women ascetics live a different sort of life, for they have no settled dwelling. They also combine the contemplative with the active life, somewhat like the observance of St. Francis in the thirteenth century. These nuns abstain from meat and some vegetables, and from all food and water from sunset until well after sunrise the next day. Their discipline of ahimsa is symbolized by the small broom they carry everywhere, used to brush off a place to sit so as to avoid inadvertently killing any insect that might be there.
Monks and nuns must beg their food from the lay members of the community. These monastics act as the acknowledged leaders of Jain society, moving from one town to another, instructing and consoling the people, leading them in prayers, studying their scriptures, but never acting as priests. Those Jains who worship in temples may hire a priest to function for them, but they themselves are not permitted to light a fire, something essential in Indian worship. Jains might at times beg from observant Hindus, but they would never beg food from Muslims or Christians because of the issue of eating meat.
Given the social distance between Jain ascetics and Christians, Jain nuns know little of Christian doctrine. A fruitful approach to members of this religious tradition might be through an emphasis on non-violence and Christian charity. It would also be good if nuns of both traditions were to undertake the study of their respective scriptures together.
Website by Booklight, Inc. Copyright © 2010, Monastic Dialogue
