Teaching and Learning Guide for: Child Ordination in South Asian Jainism

The practice of initiating minors (children under the age of 18) was once common among Śvetāmbara Jain mendicant communities in South Asia. Given the growing importance of discourse on children's rights, the initiation of young Jain children raises important questions. What are the capacities of children to choose for themselves? Are they sophisticated enough in their intellectual and emotional development to opt for a monastics life that would limit their education, their vocational possibilities, their potential to marry and establish families, and other important spheres of life? Should an 8-year-old girl or boy be allowed to make a decision that would render all these things out of the question? How should we regard the claims of Jains who say that young children can be wise beyond their years due to good past life karma? Scholarship on Jain child ordination, specifically initiation into Śvetāmbara mendicant, life sheds light on the Jain child mendicant in her historical, textual, demographic, sociological, and political contexts. Consideration of Jain conceptions of children’s rights provides a welcome addition to the project of revising European Enlightenment-era frameworks so as to endow children with a more robust basis for rights than modern Western or Atlantic-world rights discourses grounded in European Enlightenment-era frameworks offer. 1. Balbir, Nalini. “La question de I’ordination des enfants en millieu jaina,” In: Chojnacki, Christine (ed.), Les ages de la vie dans le monde Indien, Actes des journees d’etude de Lyon (22.–23.juin), pp. 155–179. Lyon: Diffusion De Boccard, 2001. The first major study of the issue of child ordination; covers a broad sweep of history in a clear manner. 2. John E. Cort. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. New York. Oxford University Press, 2001. For those looking to gain understanding of Jain values, particularly with regard to how the quest for salvation squares with worldly life, this monograph offers invaluable guidance. 3. Phyllis Granoff. Fathers and sons: some remarks on the ordination of children in the medieval Śvetāmbara monastic community. Asiatische Studien, 60(2006: 3), pp. 607–633. This scholar of Jain literature shows that in the medieval period, kinship relationships between blood relatives were continued even after individuals were accepted into a monastic order. 4. Andrea Luithle-Hardenberg. “When Children Become Ascetics,” Oriental Anthropologists, 14 (2014: 2), pp. 217–240. An anthropologist argues that child ordination should be studied in the context of how ordination was shaped by colonial relations and continues to be shaped by the politics of religious identity in modern India. 5. Uday Mahurkar. “Soul Purpose.” India Today, April 4, 2002. A journalist writes about a contemporary ordination ceremony involving young children, one as young as 7 years in age. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE_xKEKWOZA. Gujarat Diamond Merchant's Daughter Gives Up Luxury to Embrace Monkhood. This OTV News English video tells of an 8-year-old girl—heiress to a major diamond industry fortune—who chose to give up wealth and marriage to take initiation. The video sheds light on her vast learning in Jain scriptures and experience on Jain pilgrimages. 2. Beyond Blood Ties: How Two Siblings Left Surat to Become Monk and Nun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Mp80XLBBo. This video in The Print India shows interviews with a pair of siblings who each took initiation when 12 years old. It sheds light on their motivations and explains what the monastic lifestyle means to them. 3. 12-year-old boy renounces family to become monk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExnVcUwzZAM. ANI Bharat offers extensive footage of the initiation ceremony of the young man described in “Beyond Blood Ties: How Two Siblings Left Surat to Become Monk and Nun.” Use English language captions to understand what is being said in interviews. This sample syllabus includes readings appropriate to both general-level courses (indicated by A) and advanced or seminar courses (B). Week 1. Children's Rights. A John Wall. Children's rights: today's global challenge. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. B Martha Fineman (Editor) and Karen Worthington (Editor). What Is Right for Children?: The Competing Paradigms of Religion and Human Rights. Ashgate, 2009. Week 2. What is Jainism? A Sherrie E. Fohr, Jainism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury Guides for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2015. B John Cort, Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. New York. Oxford University Press, 2001. Week 3. Medieval Jain Child Initiation Practices. A Phyllis Granoff. “Fathers and sons: some remarks on the ordination of children in the medieval Śvetāmbara monastic community.” Asiatische Studien, 60 (2006: 607–633). B Nalini Balbir. “La question de I’ordination des enfants en millieu jaina,” In: Chojnacki, Christine (ed.), Les ages de la vie dans le monde Indien, Actes des journees d’etude de Lyon (2001: 22.–23.juin), pp. 155–179. Lyon: Diffusion De Boccard. Week 4. Contemporary Jain Child Initiation Practices. A Uday Mahurkar. “Soul Purpose.” India Today, April 4, 2002. B Andrea Luithle-Hardenberg. “When Children Become Ascetics”, Oriental Anthropologists, 14 (2014: 2), pp. 217–240. Discuss what initiation meant for medieval Jains and what it means for Jains today. How did the colonial experience shape the way that different communities in India came to regard Jain child initiations? Divide the class into groups and give various groups the task of describing the motivations of various social actors in the initiation of a 7-year-old child described by Uday Mahurkar. What is at stake for each group? What arguments would make sense for each group to offer if the contestation over the ordination of a 7-year-old child were to take place in a court setting?