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Understanding Possession in Jainism: A Study of Oracular Possession in Nakoda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2012

KNUT AUKLAND
KNUT AUKLAND*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, Wadham College, Oxford OX1 3PN, UK Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Possession among Jains remains an almost unexplored field of study. Based on fieldwork at a Jain pilgrimage site in India, this paper presents ethnographical material on a hitherto unknown oracular possession cult. The paper looks at the ways in which Jains themselves understand and sometimes critique possessions, as a way of understanding Jainism itself. The ethnographic material is presented on the background of other cases of Jain possession, both in scriptures and other accounts, in an attempt to show how possessions challenge our understanding of Jainism as a religion. Furthermore, possession is not one thing. There are various types of possession—depending for instance on who possesses—and they have different implications in the Jain scheme of things.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 109 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

* The thesis was completed at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo. A full text online version is found here: <http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/work.html?WORKID=106792&lang=en> [accessed 28 May 2012]. A summary of the thesis is given in K. Aukland, The Cult of Nakoda Bhairava: Deity Worship and Possession in Jainism, in Jaina Studies: Newsletter of the Centre of Jaina Studies, 6, pp. 31-33 (online version: <http://www.soas.ac.uk/jainastudies/newsletter/file66850.pdf>) [accessed 28 May 2012].

1 Jainism is divided into two major schools, Shvetambar (‘White-clad’) and Digambar (‘Sky-clad’), their names referring to their monks’ white clothing, or lack thereof.

2 Humphrey, C. and Laidlaw, J. (1994). The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship, Oxford, Clarendon Press, p. 231Google Scholar.

3 Cort, J. E. (2001). Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India, New York, Oxford University Press, p. 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Dundas, P. (2002). The Jains, 2nd Edition, Oxon, Routledge, p. 164Google Scholar.

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12 Vallely, Ancestors, Demons and the Goddess.

13 Humphrey and Laidlaw, Archetypical Actions, pp. 230–239.

14 For definitions of possession see Smith, F. M. (2009). Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asia, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 35–39Google Scholar.

15 Smith, Deity and Spirit Possession, p. 16.

16 Smith, Deity and Spirit Possession, p. xxii.

17 Ibid., p. 14.

18 Ibid., p. 4.

19 Ibid., p. 598.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., p. 579.

22 Ibid., p. 595.

23 Cort, J. E. (ed.) (1998). Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Culture in Indian History, New York, State University of New York PressGoogle Scholar.

24 Carrithers, On Polytropy.

25 Here I follow the translated version of Barnett, L. D. (1907). The Antagada-Dasao and Anuttarovavaiya-Dasao. London, Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 86–92Google Scholar.

26 Qvarnström, O. (2002). The Yogashastra of Hemacandra: A Twelfth Century Handbook on Shvetambara Jainism, Cambridge Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, p. 142Google Scholar.

27 Qvarnström, The Yogashastra, p. 143.

28 Babb, L. A. (1996). Absent Lord: Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture, London, University of California Press, pp. 107, 165Google Scholar; cf. Cort, J. E. (2010). ‘The Goddesses of Sravana Belgola’ in Balbir, N.Svati: Essays in Honour of Prof. Hampa Nagarajaiah, Hampinagara, K. S. Muddappa Smaraka Trust Krishnapuradoddi, p. 347Google Scholar.

29 Granoff, P. (1989). Religious Biography and Clan History among the Shvetambara Jains in North India, East and West 39, pp. 202, 206Google Scholar.

30 Meister, M. W. (1998). ‘Sweetmeat or Corpses? Community, Conversion and Sacred Places’ in Cort, Open Boundaries, p. 126.

31 Humphrey and Laidlaw, Archetypical Actions, p. 186.

32 Ibid.

33 Vallely, Guardians of the Transcendent, p. 136ff.

34 Terapanth is an aniconic sect belonging to the Shvetambar side of Jainism.

35 A category of female semi-ascetics that are not fully ordained as nuns created by the Terapanthi sect.

36 Vallely, Guardians of the Transcendent, p. 136, n.13.

37 Ibid., p. 136.

38 Humphrey and Laidlaw, Archetypical Actions, p. 233.

39 Here I am referring to the congregational pujas that are auctioned off and not to the individually performed ones.

40 Smith, Deity and Spirit Possession, p. 597.

41 The only exceptions being the Jain clan medium (bhomia) described in Vallely, ‘Ancestors, Demons and the Goddess’, pp. 68–69, and the passing mentioning of an oracle woman in Pune in Carrithers, On Polytropy, p. 833.

42 Shvetambar Jains have the tradition of giving the honour of performing various rituals through auctions. See, e.g., Kelting, M. W. (2009). Tournaments of Honor: Jain Auctions, Gender, and Reputation, History of Religions 48: pp. 284–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Laidlaw, Riches and Redemption, pp. 334–5.

43 Humphrey and Laidlaw, Archetypical Actions.

44 Ibid., pp. 230–231.

45 Ibid.

46 Qvarnström, The Yogashastra, p. 128.

47 Smith, Deity and Spirit Possession, p. 429.

48 Kelting, Singing to the Jinas, p. 104.

49 cf. Laidlaw, Riches and Redemption, pp. 69–77.

50 Kelting, Singing to the Jinas, p. 104.

51 Smith, Deity and Spirit Possession, pp. 43–56.

52 Jain, B. (2006). Jay Shri Nakoda, Barmer, Arihant Prakashan, p. 41Google Scholar.

53 For example, Bhandari, P. (1991). Jain Tirth Shri Nakoda, Jodhpur, Jnan Prakashan, p. 21Google Scholar, ‘Shri Bhairav Calisa’.

54 See, e.g., Gold, A. G. (1988). Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims, Berkeley, University of California Press, Chapter 2Google Scholar.

55 Vallely, ‘Ancestors, Demons and the Goddess’, p. 71.

56 Ibid., pp. 67, 76.

57 Ibid., pp. 74–76. This was also my experience when visiting Padampura on one occasion in May 2010.

58 Gombrich and Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed.

59 Ibid., p. 19.

60 Ibid., p. 40.

61 Ibid., p. 37.

62 Ibid.

63 Gombrich and Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed, p. 38.

64 Laidlaw, Riches and Redemption, pp. 69–67.

65 See ibid., pp. 365–374 for a description of Lakshmi puja.

66 ibid., p. 80; and Vallely, Ancestors, Demons and the Goddess, p. 71.

67 Gombrich and Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed, p. 15.

68 Ibid., p. 157.

69 Ibid., p. 293.

70 Ibid., p. 457.

71 Cort, Singing the Glory, p. 719.

72 Ibid., p. 731.

73 Cort, Bhakti in Early Jain Tradition, pp. 59–60.

74 Cort, Singing the Glory, p. 728.

75 Ibid.

76 It was obviously felt that the ban on talking did not extend to hymn-singing. In other words, the ascetic vow of not making verbal utterances was not felt to extend to the verbal expression of bhakti through singing.

77 Vallely translates bhut as ‘demon’.

78 Vallely, Guardians of the Transcendent, p. 120.

79 Ibid., p. 123.

80 Ibid., p. 126.

81 Ibid., p. 20.

82 Ibid., p. 131.

83 Ibid.

84 The Shvetambar scholar monk Jambuvijay, who died in a road accident close to Nakoda in 2009, was seen by some to be a medium of Saciya Mata (Cort, personal communication). Such a case and similar ones would be interesting to look into in future research.

85 Cort, Bhakti in Early Jain Tradition, p. 85.

86 Term adopted from Gellner, D. (2001). The Anthropology of Buddhism and Hinduism: Weberian Themes, Delhi, Oxford University Press, p. 93Google Scholar.

87 Kelting, Singing to the Jinas, p. 104.

88 If I am right in suggesting that the positive possession in Nakoda is a recent development (p. 18), then it has emerged simultaneously with the spread of Jain modernism and concepts of a ‘scientific Jainism’. Such a paradoxical development has certain similarities to the simultaneous development of Protestant Buddhism and ecstatic religiosity in Sri Lanka described in Gombrich and Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed, pp. 451–456, 463.

89 Jain, S. K. (ed.) (2010). Antiquity of Jainism: Jainism an Ancient, Scientific and Independent Religion of the Universe, Delhi, Vishwa Jain Sangathan, p. 28Google Scholar.

90 Ibid.

91 Folkert, K. W. (1993). ‘The Jain Sadhu as Community Builder’ in Cort, J. E., Scripture and Community: Collected Essays on the Jains, Atlanta, Scholars Press, p. 167Google Scholar.

92 Brekke, T. (2002): Makers of Modern Indian Religion in the Late Nineteenth Century, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The early Jain ascetics were originally known as the niganthas, meaning ‘free from bonds’ (Dundas, The Jains, pp. 3–4).

93 Cort, Bhakti in Early Jain Tradition, p. 85.