In this paper, I consider several contemporaneous texts alongside one another to offer a glimpse ... more In this paper, I consider several contemporaneous texts alongside one another to offer a glimpse into the twelfth century polemics over the notions of artistic expression, aesthetic pleasure, and devotion unfolding in Aṇahilavāḍ. I argue that Jain poets' attitudes toward aesthetic pleasure and artistic expression, central to the cultural life of a city, delineated their religious affiliations and participated in the formation of their religious identities. In his Kumāravihāraśataka, the court poet Rāmacandra celebrates (without conflict) both the aesthetic and religious (alaukika) potentials of the temple in the city of Aṇahilavāḍ. His poem portrays Jainism as a religion of devotion, widely accessible to all. By contrast, in the Gaṇadharasārdhaśataka, the Kharatara monk Jinadatta through the skillful use of double entendre identifies the city of Aṇahilavāḍ with something at least partly negative: a drama. In his other works, he chastises Jain monks for their infatuation with artistic expression. The equation of the city with a drama implies a negotiation between the demanding monastic and lay restrictions of the Kharatara teachings, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Jinadatta’s recognition of the power of artistic expression and perhaps even his attraction to it. I will further suggest that while Jinadatta’s position on aesthetic pleasure exhibits a degree of ambiguity, his early seventeenth-century commentator Padmamaṃdira exploits negative associations with drama and theater to make a stronger case for the necessity of the Kharatara teaching in medieval Gujarat.
The relationship between the real, illusory, and imaginary in Sanskrit literature has long fascin... more The relationship between the real, illusory, and imaginary in Sanskrit literature has long fascinated scholars of South Asia. This paper seeks to contribute to this conversation by exploring the dichotomy between reality and appearance through the technical categories of despair (nirveda) and delusion (moha) as they are laid down in Sanskrit works on poetics and expressed in medieval dramas. It focuses on the ways Rāmacandra (1093-1174), a Jain monk, court poet, and playwright, envisions the interplay between the notions of delusion, detachment, and discrimination in his treatise on Sanskrit poetics, the Nāṭyadarpaṇa (co-authored with Guṇacandra), and dramatic works. On one hand, nirveda and moha are polar opposites; nirveda is evoked by true knowledge (tattvajñāna) and moha is characterized by the lack thereof. On the other hand, they represent alternative emotional responses to the same dire circumstance of misery, misfortune, and pain. Moreover, nirveda is known as a contested category in the tradition of Sanskrit poetics. Abhinavagupta and Mammaṭa rationalize Bharata’s choice to begin the list of the transient emotions with this rather inauspicious (amaṅgalaprāya) emotion by its distinct status as both a stable and transient state. While Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra disagree with this interpretation, they similarly contextualize nirveda as “mostly unpleasurable” (duḥkhātmakaprāya). The ambiguous nature of nirveda stems from its transformative power to move one from the experience of pain in this world (saṃsāra) to the true knowledge about the world to liberation from it. While nirveda, as the first step to renunciation, and moha, as the complete loss of control over sense organs, appear to be on the opposite sides of human mental and emotional experience, their similar generating causes (e.g., kleśa and tīvravedanā) ensure a considerable measure of correspondence between them. This presentation, therefore, examines the ways in which Rāmacandra’s dramatic works probe and employ the two seemingly divergent aesthetic categories and demonstrate how the delusion of characters by evil tricks, often called kapaṭanāṭakas, leads them to aversion to this world and self-contempt.
This paper investigates the transformation of a pan-Indian tale about King Udayana into a Jain di... more This paper investigates the transformation of a pan-Indian tale about King Udayana into a Jain didactic play called the Vibudhānanda that teaches lessons about the omnipotence of karmic law and the transience of this-worldly existence. The Vibudhānanda is contained within a larger narrative about King Mahābala, the fourth life of the first Jain Tīrthaṅkara Ṛṣabha, included in the Caupaṇṇamahāpurisacariya, a ninth-century story collection (kathākośa) devoted to the fifty-four Jain cultural heroes. Building on the studies of Bruhn (2006) and Chojnacki & Leclère (2012), this presentation examines the Vibudhānanda as a literary specimen of a complex interaction between two distinct genres of dharmakathā (moralistic narrative) and drama and, hence, between Jain religious imperatives and the regulations of Sanskrit poetics. I propose that by camouflaging the Vibudhānanda as a type of meta-text, a play within a tale, Śīlāṅkasūri is able to challenge some of the fundamental rules laid out in Sanskrit treatises on poetics, particularly the principle of phalāgama, “attaining the goal,” an indispensable final phase of every Sanskrit play, in which the protagonist ultimately succeeds in his primary endeavor. In the Vibudhānanda, the prince, being the main character, suddenly dies from a snakebite right after the wedding ceremony. The king, who appears for the first time at the very end of the play, after the death of the prince, and, therefore, cannot be structurally seen as the protagonist, resolves to strive for liberation as a monk. By intentionally employing a famous story with a traditionally happy ending and turning it into a tragedy, Śīlāṅkasūri thwarts the audience’s expectations, thereby raising some of the central questions of Jain religiosity—questions concerned with the value of worldly existence entwined with the temporariness of love, wealth, and happiness. This paper suggests that it is the fact that the Vibudhānanda is not a pure type of Sanskrit drama that enables Śīlāṅkasūri to take liberties with its structure and plot.
This paper examines the stage direction “whispering in one’s ear” (karṇe evam) in the Raghuvilāsa... more This paper examines the stage direction “whispering in one’s ear” (karṇe evam) in the Raghuvilāsa, a play authored by the Jain monk and playwright Rāmacandra (1093-1174) who served at the Caulukya court in Gujarat. Whispers in Sanskrit plays represent the only mode of dramatic communication that remains unheard by the audience, as the whispering characters’ speech is camouflaged by the words “such and such” (evam eva, evam iva, or evam evam). In this paper, I show how in Rāmacandra’s Raghuvilāsa whispers acquire a novel function that is central to the construction and incorporation of malicious plots and false dramatic appearances, which are given a technical term kapaṭanāṭaka or kūṭanāṭaka. The Raghuvilāsa comprises eight acts and relates the Rāma tale from the moment of Rāma’s exile and Daśaratha’s death to the victorious reunion of Rāma and Sītā. I argue that whispers, which appear consistently and frequently throughout the Raghuvilāsa, create a very distinct viewing experience where, unlike in the usual dramatic configuration, the audience is substantially less informed about what transpires in the play than the characters are and is consistently duped into false thinking, which is often meant to evoke unpleasant emotions. Thus, whispering becomes a major plot device that makes the audience experience deception and the evil effects of illusion. The production of such unsettling experience in the spectator is important in light of Rāmacandra’s views on aesthetic pleasure and the relationship between the real and fictive and the true and false.
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online), 2020
Greed (lobha) is one of the four passions (kaṣāya) that are the primary causes for the soul’s bon... more Greed (lobha) is one of the four passions (kaṣāya) that are the primary causes for the soul’s bondage by karmic matter. Medieval Jain literature is brimful with stories and accounts where greed is condemned and ridiculed. This article looks at some of these literary instances, in which court poets attempt to uncouple the production of poetry from the monetary reward of a patron. It focuses on the three Jain authors—Bālacandra (thirteenth century), Hemacandra (1089-1172), and Rāmacandra (1093-1174)—who, I argue, set themselves apart from some other non-Jain poets, who engaged in what they implied was the foul practice of writing poetry for personal enrichment. While these monks, as well as Jains more generally, valorized wealth and riches for the purpose of spreading the Jain dharma, building temples, and worshipping the Jina, they denounced the reduction of the poetic skill to the fiscal benefits it can produce.
Performance has long been recognized to be a meaningful component in the worship of the Jina. Thi... more Performance has long been recognized to be a meaningful component in the worship of the Jina. This paper will focus on a particular aspect of devotional performance and historicize the phenomenon of ritual re-enactment of the Jina's biography, a practice that remains significant to temple worship today. This paper will argue that the performance of the enlightened soul's biography was familiar to Jains already in the early centuries of the common era and was not confined to the five auspicious events (kalyāṇakas). In a Śvetāmabara canonical text called the Rāyapaseṇiyasutta, this re-enactment is part of a greater, highly pleasurable spectacle that evokes a variety of aesthetic emotions, including erotic emotion, in the audience of monks. Through this discussion I will question the dichotomies between aesthetic pleasure and ritual efficacy and between drama and meritorious conduct and show that aesthetic pleasure, which lies at the heart of Jina worship, defines its meritorious value in the eyes of the devotees. The more splendid and aesthetically pleasing one's expression of devotion, the more efficacious it is believed to be. I propose that the significance of the aesthetic element in devotional performance for laypeople stems from their temporary transformation into gods and goddesses. Celestial beings, as the paradigmatic enjoyers (bhoktṛ) of sensual pleasures, spend their lifespans relishing joy and rapture. As such, the pleasurable experiences of laypeople are essential for the veracity of their ritual transformation.
This paper presents a study of Ra ¯macandra–Gun ˙ acandra's theory of aesthetics in light of the ... more This paper presents a study of Ra ¯macandra–Gun ˙ acandra's theory of aesthetics in light of the Kashmiri rasa ideology and demonstrates that the Jain authors offer a new and original conceptualization of aesthetic experience, in which the spectator remains cognitively active in the course of watching the drama. In their model, the relationship between rasa and pleasure is mediated by a cognitive error, and the feeling of pleasure does not coincide with the savoring of rasa but emerges after the savoring of rasa ceases. This paper argues that Ra ¯macandra and Gun ˙ acandra demystify the Kashmiri theory of aesthetics by identifying affinities between the lived world and the fictive world of drama and by rendering the regular means of knowledge, such as inference and memory, as instrumental for the experience of rasa. It further suggests that this new conceptualization, in which pleasure is contingent upon the dissolution of illusion, may have facilitated the development of playwrighting among Jain monks from the twelfth century on.
This article explores the multidimensional poetics of devotion in medieval accounts of the Jain m... more This article explores the multidimensional poetics of devotion in medieval accounts of the Jain minister Vastupāla, who emerges as a paradoxical figure and defies the other characters’ expectations. It argues that the portrayal of Vastupāla as a model devotee of the Jina is contingent upon his affinity to a Kṣatriya king and god incarnate, as in Jain ritual culture celestial kings and queens embody the paragon of devotion. This depiction of Vastupāla, a bureaucrat (niyogin) and merchant (vaṇik), ultimately re-inscribes the standard cultural paradigm in which heroism and divine status are solely the purview of a Kṣatriya king.
Translation of Act I of "Truthful Hariścandra" (Satya-hariścandra-nāṭaka), a play by the Jain mon... more Translation of Act I of "Truthful Hariścandra" (Satya-hariścandra-nāṭaka), a play by the Jain monk and poet Rāmacandra (1093-1174).
In this paper, I consider several contemporaneous texts alongside one another to offer a glimpse ... more In this paper, I consider several contemporaneous texts alongside one another to offer a glimpse into the twelfth century polemics over the notions of artistic expression, aesthetic pleasure, and devotion unfolding in Aṇahilavāḍ. I argue that Jain poets' attitudes toward aesthetic pleasure and artistic expression, central to the cultural life of a city, delineated their religious affiliations and participated in the formation of their religious identities. In his Kumāravihāraśataka, the court poet Rāmacandra celebrates (without conflict) both the aesthetic and religious (alaukika) potentials of the temple in the city of Aṇahilavāḍ. His poem portrays Jainism as a religion of devotion, widely accessible to all. By contrast, in the Gaṇadharasārdhaśataka, the Kharatara monk Jinadatta through the skillful use of double entendre identifies the city of Aṇahilavāḍ with something at least partly negative: a drama. In his other works, he chastises Jain monks for their infatuation with artistic expression. The equation of the city with a drama implies a negotiation between the demanding monastic and lay restrictions of the Kharatara teachings, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, Jinadatta’s recognition of the power of artistic expression and perhaps even his attraction to it. I will further suggest that while Jinadatta’s position on aesthetic pleasure exhibits a degree of ambiguity, his early seventeenth-century commentator Padmamaṃdira exploits negative associations with drama and theater to make a stronger case for the necessity of the Kharatara teaching in medieval Gujarat.
The relationship between the real, illusory, and imaginary in Sanskrit literature has long fascin... more The relationship between the real, illusory, and imaginary in Sanskrit literature has long fascinated scholars of South Asia. This paper seeks to contribute to this conversation by exploring the dichotomy between reality and appearance through the technical categories of despair (nirveda) and delusion (moha) as they are laid down in Sanskrit works on poetics and expressed in medieval dramas. It focuses on the ways Rāmacandra (1093-1174), a Jain monk, court poet, and playwright, envisions the interplay between the notions of delusion, detachment, and discrimination in his treatise on Sanskrit poetics, the Nāṭyadarpaṇa (co-authored with Guṇacandra), and dramatic works. On one hand, nirveda and moha are polar opposites; nirveda is evoked by true knowledge (tattvajñāna) and moha is characterized by the lack thereof. On the other hand, they represent alternative emotional responses to the same dire circumstance of misery, misfortune, and pain. Moreover, nirveda is known as a contested category in the tradition of Sanskrit poetics. Abhinavagupta and Mammaṭa rationalize Bharata’s choice to begin the list of the transient emotions with this rather inauspicious (amaṅgalaprāya) emotion by its distinct status as both a stable and transient state. While Rāmacandra and Guṇacandra disagree with this interpretation, they similarly contextualize nirveda as “mostly unpleasurable” (duḥkhātmakaprāya). The ambiguous nature of nirveda stems from its transformative power to move one from the experience of pain in this world (saṃsāra) to the true knowledge about the world to liberation from it. While nirveda, as the first step to renunciation, and moha, as the complete loss of control over sense organs, appear to be on the opposite sides of human mental and emotional experience, their similar generating causes (e.g., kleśa and tīvravedanā) ensure a considerable measure of correspondence between them. This presentation, therefore, examines the ways in which Rāmacandra’s dramatic works probe and employ the two seemingly divergent aesthetic categories and demonstrate how the delusion of characters by evil tricks, often called kapaṭanāṭakas, leads them to aversion to this world and self-contempt.
This paper investigates the transformation of a pan-Indian tale about King Udayana into a Jain di... more This paper investigates the transformation of a pan-Indian tale about King Udayana into a Jain didactic play called the Vibudhānanda that teaches lessons about the omnipotence of karmic law and the transience of this-worldly existence. The Vibudhānanda is contained within a larger narrative about King Mahābala, the fourth life of the first Jain Tīrthaṅkara Ṛṣabha, included in the Caupaṇṇamahāpurisacariya, a ninth-century story collection (kathākośa) devoted to the fifty-four Jain cultural heroes. Building on the studies of Bruhn (2006) and Chojnacki & Leclère (2012), this presentation examines the Vibudhānanda as a literary specimen of a complex interaction between two distinct genres of dharmakathā (moralistic narrative) and drama and, hence, between Jain religious imperatives and the regulations of Sanskrit poetics. I propose that by camouflaging the Vibudhānanda as a type of meta-text, a play within a tale, Śīlāṅkasūri is able to challenge some of the fundamental rules laid out in Sanskrit treatises on poetics, particularly the principle of phalāgama, “attaining the goal,” an indispensable final phase of every Sanskrit play, in which the protagonist ultimately succeeds in his primary endeavor. In the Vibudhānanda, the prince, being the main character, suddenly dies from a snakebite right after the wedding ceremony. The king, who appears for the first time at the very end of the play, after the death of the prince, and, therefore, cannot be structurally seen as the protagonist, resolves to strive for liberation as a monk. By intentionally employing a famous story with a traditionally happy ending and turning it into a tragedy, Śīlāṅkasūri thwarts the audience’s expectations, thereby raising some of the central questions of Jain religiosity—questions concerned with the value of worldly existence entwined with the temporariness of love, wealth, and happiness. This paper suggests that it is the fact that the Vibudhānanda is not a pure type of Sanskrit drama that enables Śīlāṅkasūri to take liberties with its structure and plot.
This paper examines the stage direction “whispering in one’s ear” (karṇe evam) in the Raghuvilāsa... more This paper examines the stage direction “whispering in one’s ear” (karṇe evam) in the Raghuvilāsa, a play authored by the Jain monk and playwright Rāmacandra (1093-1174) who served at the Caulukya court in Gujarat. Whispers in Sanskrit plays represent the only mode of dramatic communication that remains unheard by the audience, as the whispering characters’ speech is camouflaged by the words “such and such” (evam eva, evam iva, or evam evam). In this paper, I show how in Rāmacandra’s Raghuvilāsa whispers acquire a novel function that is central to the construction and incorporation of malicious plots and false dramatic appearances, which are given a technical term kapaṭanāṭaka or kūṭanāṭaka. The Raghuvilāsa comprises eight acts and relates the Rāma tale from the moment of Rāma’s exile and Daśaratha’s death to the victorious reunion of Rāma and Sītā. I argue that whispers, which appear consistently and frequently throughout the Raghuvilāsa, create a very distinct viewing experience where, unlike in the usual dramatic configuration, the audience is substantially less informed about what transpires in the play than the characters are and is consistently duped into false thinking, which is often meant to evoke unpleasant emotions. Thus, whispering becomes a major plot device that makes the audience experience deception and the evil effects of illusion. The production of such unsettling experience in the spectator is important in light of Rāmacandra’s views on aesthetic pleasure and the relationship between the real and fictive and the true and false.
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online), 2020
Greed (lobha) is one of the four passions (kaṣāya) that are the primary causes for the soul’s bon... more Greed (lobha) is one of the four passions (kaṣāya) that are the primary causes for the soul’s bondage by karmic matter. Medieval Jain literature is brimful with stories and accounts where greed is condemned and ridiculed. This article looks at some of these literary instances, in which court poets attempt to uncouple the production of poetry from the monetary reward of a patron. It focuses on the three Jain authors—Bālacandra (thirteenth century), Hemacandra (1089-1172), and Rāmacandra (1093-1174)—who, I argue, set themselves apart from some other non-Jain poets, who engaged in what they implied was the foul practice of writing poetry for personal enrichment. While these monks, as well as Jains more generally, valorized wealth and riches for the purpose of spreading the Jain dharma, building temples, and worshipping the Jina, they denounced the reduction of the poetic skill to the fiscal benefits it can produce.
Performance has long been recognized to be a meaningful component in the worship of the Jina. Thi... more Performance has long been recognized to be a meaningful component in the worship of the Jina. This paper will focus on a particular aspect of devotional performance and historicize the phenomenon of ritual re-enactment of the Jina's biography, a practice that remains significant to temple worship today. This paper will argue that the performance of the enlightened soul's biography was familiar to Jains already in the early centuries of the common era and was not confined to the five auspicious events (kalyāṇakas). In a Śvetāmabara canonical text called the Rāyapaseṇiyasutta, this re-enactment is part of a greater, highly pleasurable spectacle that evokes a variety of aesthetic emotions, including erotic emotion, in the audience of monks. Through this discussion I will question the dichotomies between aesthetic pleasure and ritual efficacy and between drama and meritorious conduct and show that aesthetic pleasure, which lies at the heart of Jina worship, defines its meritorious value in the eyes of the devotees. The more splendid and aesthetically pleasing one's expression of devotion, the more efficacious it is believed to be. I propose that the significance of the aesthetic element in devotional performance for laypeople stems from their temporary transformation into gods and goddesses. Celestial beings, as the paradigmatic enjoyers (bhoktṛ) of sensual pleasures, spend their lifespans relishing joy and rapture. As such, the pleasurable experiences of laypeople are essential for the veracity of their ritual transformation.
This paper presents a study of Ra ¯macandra–Gun ˙ acandra's theory of aesthetics in light of the ... more This paper presents a study of Ra ¯macandra–Gun ˙ acandra's theory of aesthetics in light of the Kashmiri rasa ideology and demonstrates that the Jain authors offer a new and original conceptualization of aesthetic experience, in which the spectator remains cognitively active in the course of watching the drama. In their model, the relationship between rasa and pleasure is mediated by a cognitive error, and the feeling of pleasure does not coincide with the savoring of rasa but emerges after the savoring of rasa ceases. This paper argues that Ra ¯macandra and Gun ˙ acandra demystify the Kashmiri theory of aesthetics by identifying affinities between the lived world and the fictive world of drama and by rendering the regular means of knowledge, such as inference and memory, as instrumental for the experience of rasa. It further suggests that this new conceptualization, in which pleasure is contingent upon the dissolution of illusion, may have facilitated the development of playwrighting among Jain monks from the twelfth century on.
This article explores the multidimensional poetics of devotion in medieval accounts of the Jain m... more This article explores the multidimensional poetics of devotion in medieval accounts of the Jain minister Vastupāla, who emerges as a paradoxical figure and defies the other characters’ expectations. It argues that the portrayal of Vastupāla as a model devotee of the Jina is contingent upon his affinity to a Kṣatriya king and god incarnate, as in Jain ritual culture celestial kings and queens embody the paragon of devotion. This depiction of Vastupāla, a bureaucrat (niyogin) and merchant (vaṇik), ultimately re-inscribes the standard cultural paradigm in which heroism and divine status are solely the purview of a Kṣatriya king.
Translation of Act I of "Truthful Hariścandra" (Satya-hariścandra-nāṭaka), a play by the Jain mon... more Translation of Act I of "Truthful Hariścandra" (Satya-hariścandra-nāṭaka), a play by the Jain monk and poet Rāmacandra (1093-1174).
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