Publications by Tillo Detige
Eternal Salutations: Memorials of Digambara Jaina Ascetic Lineages from Western India, 2024
This dissertation presents a study of the Digambara Jaina ascetic lineages of Western and Central... more This dissertation presents a study of the Digambara Jaina ascetic lineages of Western and Central India in the Sultanate (1206( -1526 CE) CE) and Mughal (1526-1857 CE) period. It is built around the first ever survey of memorials of Digambara renouncers in Western India. I analyse the memorials' spatial, architectural, iconographic, and ritual aspects. My arguments are also backed by information from numerous other material and textual sources like manuscript colophons, devotional song compositions, and inscriptions of temple images. I focus on the history of three branches of the Balātkāragaṇa tradition which centred their activities in the contemporary state of Rajasthan. My findings go a long way in dislocating notions prevalent both among Jains and in scholarship that Jaina traditions faced only adversity, decline, and discontinuity in the period of the 'Muslim rule' of Northern India. Prior scholarship long interpreted the sedentarised and clothed bhaṭṭārakas which led the Digambara mendicant lineages in the Sultanate and Mughal era as mere 'clerics' or 'corrupted ascetics' who replaced the naked and itinerant munis, the ideal Digambara renouncers. The latter were thought to have disappeared early in the Sultanate period because of persecutions by supposedly fanatical Sultans. A substantial number of munis is now found attested flourishing as pupils and devotees of the bhaṭṭārakas up to the early Mughal period, and memorials and other sources also make it abundantly clear that lower-ranking renouncers and laypeople venerated the bhaṭṭārakas as paramount Digambara ascetics. The remaining memorials are also uniquely helpful in reconstructing the geographical distribution of the Digambara ascetic lineages. Their subsequent relocations can often be directly mapped onto political history and the attendant socio-economic conditions in the Delhi Sultanate, the regional Sultanates, the Rajput kingdoms, and the Mughal empire. Far from fleeing from them, the bhaṭṭārakas were often attracted to the capital cities of the Indo-Muslim polities. They no doubt followed in the wake of lay communities of Jain merchants and literati migrating there in search of professional opportunities. Bhaṭṭārakas can also be conceptualised as lords of Digambara polities, sharing many markers of sovereignty and courtly practices with South Asian monarchs. Though long abandoned and frequently dilapidating, memorials, then, still stand to remind us that lay and ascetic Digambara Jaina communities did not wither but flourished in the Indo-Muslim states. As arguably the most fundamental Jaina technology of the self, the ritualised praise of asceticism which in the Sultanate and Mughal period was instantiated in the devotion of bhaṭṭārakas constituted a deep continuity of the Digambara tradition throughout the second millennium CE. i Standing on the shoulders of giants. My research would not have been possible without the existing scholarship. Topping a body of work by Jain scholars mostly published in Hindi in the second half of the 20 th century CE is Vidyādhara Joharāpurakara's Bhaṭṭāraka Sampradāya (1958). This seminal work first outlined the successions of the Digambara ascetic lineages of Western and Central India. The vast corpus of epigraphic and textual evidence edited in it is of lasting interest. It remains to be seen whether there will ever be another book, scholarly or other, to remain on my desk similarly long, constantly consulted yet never depleted. His relatives and acquaintances in Kārañjā (Lāḍa) kindly arranged for me to visit Dr. Joharāpurakara at his home in Nāgapura (Maharashtra) in January 2015. (Fig. 0.1 L.) Kastūracanda Kāsalīvāla and Anūpacanda Nyāyatīrtha performed a
29 vāgavara-deśe rājādhirājye. The phrasing rājādhirājye seems to be an erring contraction of the... more 29 vāgavara-deśe rājādhirājye. The phrasing rājādhirājye seems to be an erring contraction of the common mahārājādhirāja-māhārāja-[X]-rājya.
DETIGE (2020) Whither the Bhaṭṭāraka Era? Jaina Studies: Newsletter of the Centre of Jaina Studies 15, p. 34-37, 2020
![Research paper thumbnail of DETIGE (2020) Not Just Stories. Jain and Buddhist Narratives as Epistemic Technology [FULL]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/120218022/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The abundance of stories in South Asian traditions is proverbial, with diverse narrative genres c... more The abundance of stories in South Asian traditions is proverbial, with diverse narrative genres constituting extensive bodies of stories composed or told in various languages. Among these, this chapter focusses on Buddhist jātakas and Jain dharmakathās, narratives about karma and rebirth,1 revisiting their functioning in subject formation as what I term an epistemic technology.2 My concept sits close to Michel Foucault's "technologies of the self," practices "which permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality."3 I argue that like ritual, devotional, and meditational practices, South Asian stories construct practical, embodied knowledge which is distinct from, and cannot be reduced to the abstract, conceptual knowledge derived from theoretical learning. Story-telling has more precisely a distinctly relational, intersubjective aspect both in terms of social aspects of the practice and the listeners' mimetic attuning to the experiences of story actors. As such, story praxis forms a structural feature of the Buddhist and Jain traditions, active in the epistemic formation of their listeners, and by extension in these traditions' cultural and social continuation.4 1 For a study already combining the stories of these two traditions, see Naomi Appleton, "Heir to One's Karma: Multi-life Personal Genealogies in Early Buddhist and Jain Narrative,"
![Research paper thumbnail of DETIGE (2020) Not just Stories. Jain and Buddhist Narratives as Epistemic Technology [SAMPLE]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/62868736/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Parables in Changing Contexts: Essays on the Study of Parables in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. Eric Ottenheijm & Marcel Poorthuis (eds.), Leiden: Brill, p. 95-126., 2020
The abundance of stories in South Asian traditions is proverbial, with diverse narrative genres c... more The abundance of stories in South Asian traditions is proverbial, with diverse narrative genres constituting extensive bodies of stories composed or told in various languages. Among these, this chapter focusses on Buddhist jātakas and Jain dharmakathās, narratives about karma and rebirth,1 revisiting their functioning in subject formation as what I term an epistemic technology.2 My concept sits close to Michel Foucault's "technologies of the self," practices "which permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality."3 I argue that like ritual, devotional, and meditational practices, South Asian stories construct practical, embodied knowledge which is distinct from, and cannot be reduced to the abstract, conceptual knowledge derived from theoretical learning. Story-telling has more precisely a distinctly relational, intersubjective aspect both in terms of social aspects of the practice and the listeners' mimetic attuning to the experiences of story actors. As such, story praxis forms a structural feature of the Buddhist and Jain traditions, active in the epistemic formation of their listeners, and by extension in these traditions' cultural and social continuation.4
Encyclopedia of Jainism, Leiden: Brill, John Cort, Paul Dundas & Kristi Wiley (eds.), p. 182-215, 2020
![Research paper thumbnail of DE CLERCQ & DETIGE (2015) Colossi and Lotus Feet: Paṇḍitas and Bhaṭṭārakas in the North Indian Digambara Legacy [edit]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/36797850/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Emblematic for contemporary Digambara Jainism are the naked male ascetics (Munis). For a period o... more Emblematic for contemporary Digambara Jainism are the naked male ascetics (Munis). For a period of several centuries, however, we find only scattered references to these fully-initiated renunciants. From at least the thirteenth century onwards, the backbone of the Digambara tradition was formed by clothed and domesticated Bhaṭṭārakas. 1 These Bhaṭṭārakas took only lesser vows, and contrary to fully initiated Jaina ascetics they were allowed to possess property and manage temple estates and donations. 2 Unlike the naked and peripatetic Munis, Bhaṭṭārakas wore robes and they took up residence in a temple or monastery where they enjoyed supreme authority and surrounded themselves with royal paraphernalia. 3 Bhaṭṭārakas were often learned men, and some were prolific authors. They oversaw the copying and preservation of texts, consecrated images and organised pilgrimages. In later centuries, and particularly in the South, Bhaṭṭārakas became a kind of caste guru, associated with a particular caste, sometimes with judicial power. Surrounding the Bhaṭṭārakas was often a circle of pupils consisting of celibate Brahmacārīs and lay ritual specialists called Paṇḍitas. It appears that the Bhaṭṭārakas often chose their successor from amongst the Brahmacārīs in their entourage, and some Brahmacārīs and Paṇḍitas were great litterateurs in their own right.
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Publications by Tillo Detige