Women in the History of Jainism

Women have occupied a significant and multifaceted place throughout the long history of Jainism, as ascetics, patrons, devotees and, in tradition, even as a Tirthankara. The history of Jain women illuminates both the opportunities the tradition afforded and the constraints it imposed, and it reveals a religious community in which female participation was, from the earliest times, extensive and important.

The fourfold community established by Mahavira in the sixth century BCE comprised monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen, and women were thus integral to the sangha from its foundation. Tradition holds that the order of nuns founded by Mahavira was led by the ascetic Chandanbala, and that the number of nuns in his community substantially exceeded the number of monks, a striking indication of the appeal of the renunciant life to women in the earliest period. Chandanbala, whose story of suffering, endurance and spiritual attainment is much revered, stands as the archetypal Jain nun and the head of the female ascetic order.

The mother of Mahavira, Queen Trishala, and the mothers of the Tirthankaras generally, hold an honoured place in Jain devotion, and the auspicious dreams that tradition says foretold the birth of a Tirthankara are associated with them. The narratives of the Tirthankaras and other great figures are populated with women of virtue, wisdom and spiritual strength, and the didactic literature of the tradition preserves many stories of exemplary laywomen and nuns.

A profound doctrinal question concerning women divided the two great Jain traditions. The Svetambara tradition affirms that women are capable of attaining liberation directly, and it holds, remarkably, that the nineteenth Tirthankara, Mallinatha, was a woman, Malli, a belief that grants women the highest possible spiritual status. The Digambara tradition, by contrast, holds that because final liberation requires the complete nudity of the advanced ascetic, which social norms did not permit women to practise, a woman cannot attain liberation in her present birth but must first be reborn as a man. This disagreement, rooted in the differing attitudes to monastic nudity, is one of the defining distinctions between the two traditions and reflects contrasting evaluations of women's spiritual capacity.

Despite such doctrinal debate, women were consistently prominent as patrons and supporters of the faith throughout Jain history. The inscriptions of ancient Mathura, of the southern rock-cut sites, and of the medieval temples record numerous donations by women, from queens and noblewomen to merchants' wives and ordinary devotees. Jain queens endowed temples and supported the ascetic community under the Gangas, Hoysalas and other dynasties, and the involvement of women in the donative religion of Jainism was extensive and continuous.

The order of nuns has remained a vital institution across the centuries and into the present day. In modern Jainism, nuns often greatly outnumber monks, and female ascetics have played important roles as teachers, scholars and spiritual guides within their communities. The Terapanth tradition in particular has given prominence to educated and organised orders of nuns.

The history of women in Jainism thus presents a complex picture: a tradition that welcomed women into the ascetic life from its very beginnings, that produced revered female saints and, in the Svetambara view, a female Tirthankara, and that depended heavily on the devotion and generosity of laywomen, yet that also debated the ultimate spiritual capacity of women and imposed real constraints. Throughout, women have been indispensable to the vitality and continuity of the Jain tradition, a presence written into its scriptures, its inscriptions and its living communities.