Escaping the world : women renouncers among Jains / Manisha Sethi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sethi, Manisha.

Contributor:

Lachs-Adler Family Endowed Fund for Collection Development.

Series:

South Asian history and culture ; 8.

South Asian history and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Asceticism--Jainism.

Asceticism.

Women in Jainism.

Monastic and religious life (Jainism).

Sannyasi.

Women ascetics--India.

Women ascetics.

India.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 240 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

New Delhi ; New York : Routledge, 2012.

Summary:

The status of women and its implications for then access to spiritual life has been a largely neglected area in the study of Indian society and culture. This hook explores, problematic questions of salvation for women in Jainism, a religion that institutionally recognises the right of women to seek liberation. It seeks answer to a key question: why are nuns over represented in Jain monastic orders? Presenting rich ethnographic data, the book challenges the commonsense understanding about the attraction of mendicant Orders for women which holds that women are escaping a life of poverty, unhappy domestic situations, or widowhood for the relative security of a monastic order. The larger significance of this study lies in its examination and understanding of the sexism and gender bias that lies at the heart of dominant ideologies that serve to disempower women in both the religious and secular domains of life.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in northern India, Escaping the World investigates the numerical preponderance of female renouncers among Jains through a variety of ways. It examines the gendered imagery proffered by Jainism, analyses the institutional framework of female mendicancy, and listens closely to the voice of the nuns to offer a new understanding of why and how women are drawn towards renunciation. In so doing, the book challenges the existing sociological theories of renunciation and tests the feminist concepts of independence, power, agency and autonomy. It serves to advance our understanding of the role that the social construction of gender plays in Indian social and religious life.

The book will be of interest to scholars, students and researchers of sociology, religion, gender and feminist studies, anthropology, and history. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

2 Theorising Renunciation: Possibilities and Limitations 20

3 Nuns and Temptresses: Representing Women in Jainism 51

4 The Making of a Sadhvi: Claims and Counterclaims 87

5 Ethics of Care: Individual and the Institutional 131

6 Idealised Lives: Biographies of Two Iconic Nuns 191

7 Some Concluding Thoughts 200.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [226]-231) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Lachs-Adler Family Endowed Fund for Collection Development.

ISBN:

0415500818

9780415500814

OCLC:

744299200

Publisher Number:

99948647478