Article: Vows

‘Five Great Vows’
Image by Shree Diwakar Prakashan © public domain

Jain men and women renounce the householder life when they become mendicants. As part of their initiation, they take the decision to follow the five ‘absolute’ vows or mahā-vratas for the rest of their lives.

Also called the ‘fundamental vows’, the mahā-vratas are:

1. non-violence – ahiṃsā
2. truth – satya
3. non-stealing – acaurya or asteya
4. celibacy – brahmacarya
5. non-attachment or non-possession – aparigraha.

These vows are ‘absolute’ for the mendicant. This is the traditional order of the vows, clearly set out by Māhavīra, the 24th Jina. At the time of initiation – dīkṣā – a monk or a nun pronounces the vows in front of his or her religious teacher.

Making these five absolute vows is a key part of becoming a monk or nun. It is rare for a mendicant to return to the life of a lay person, and Jain society does not approve of it.

Mendicants decide to follow these vows in three ways, namely in:

• mind – manas
• speech – vāc
• action – kāya, literally ‘body’.

This resolution applies to actions that the mendicants directly perform and also to indirect involvement or implication. As part of this threefold approach, Jain mendicants also resolve not to:

• cause or encourage anybody else to sin by breaking vows in any of these three ways
• approve of anybody who would transgress in these ways.

Figure of Pārśvanātha
Image by Victoria and Albert Museum © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

In the Śvetāmbara scriptures, the teaching of five or six vows is associated explicitly with Mahāvīra in several places. Earlier, in the time of the Jina‘s predecessor Pārśvanātha or Lord Pārśva, there were only four vows, which consisted of avoiding:

• violence
• lying
• taking what has not been given
• possession.

This list is found in the section called ‘Four items’ of the Sthānānga-sūtra, the third Aṅga. It lacks the vow of celibacy. In Pārśva’s teaching, this is equally important, but is included in that of non-possession and not singled out.

The contrast between the two views is presented in a dialogue between Keśi, disciple of Pārśva, and Gautama, a follower of Mahāvīra, as reported in the Uttarādhyayana-sūtra (chapter 23, verse 23). There this alteration is explained with reference to the different periods of time, and can be interpreted as follows:

In other words, the first and last fordmakers [= Jinas] formulated their teachings in the form of the five Great Vows in which prohibition of sexual relations is prescribed as a result of the inadequacies of their followers, whereas such a ban would have been understood by the followers of the other fordmakers as being incorporated in the prohibition on possession

Dundas, 2002: 31

Dialogues between Mahāvīra and monks who continued to follow Pārśva’s teaching are provided in the fifth Aṅga of the Śvetāmbara canon, the Vyākhyā-prajñapti. These show that when the monks convert to Mahāvīra’s doctrine, they give up the fourfold restraint and take the five great vows.

Lay people worship a Jina
Image by Sheetal Shah © Sheetal Shah

Like the mendicant vows, the 12 lay vows are partly meant to help cultivate mindfulness of one’s actions and thoughts. Controlling these is a way of making spiritual progress, as it helps, eventually, to earn merits and destroy the karma weighing down the soul. This is a vital step in moving towards final liberation of the soul, the ultimate goal in Jainism. Both Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras recognise the 12 vows, even though details of their contents may vary.

The ideal of the perfect lay man is expressed clearly in the seventh Aṅga of the Śvetāmbara canon, the Upāsaka-daśāḥ. The stories in ten chapters focus on ten wealthy and powerful householders who are inspired after they have listened to Mahāvīra’s teaching. However, they do not become mendicants, but decide to live as an upāsaka – a follower of ideal Jain lay conduct. They adopt the 12 lay vows, which Mahāvīra describes as the:

• five ‘minor’ vows – aṇu-vratas
• three guṇa-vratas
• four śikṣā-vratas.

The possible transgressions – aticāras – of each of the lay vows are also described at length. Taking these vows has a definite impact on the way these lay people practise their professions.

The purpose of these stories is to show that living the life of a perfect lay Jain is not inferior to that of a perfect ascetic. In the final stage of their itinerary, these lay men put their sons in charge of household responsibilities. They are thus able to reach a level similar to that of a monk in their mental purity and life of withdrawal. They follow the path of the 11 pratimās, which define the stages of spiritual progress. The men’s practice of austerities finally results in their reaching the third type of knowledge – clairvoyance. Human beings can gain this knowledge only after performing special meditation or ascetic practices. The wives of these lay men follow their examples, adopting the same way of life.

Thus the Jains have always been aware of the crucial place of the lay community in the Jain faith. In the course of time a full-fledged literature has developed, centring on all the areas of lay life, depicting in details the vows, their applications and conditions when the possibility of breaking the vows is high. These are the śrāvakācāras – lay conduct – treatises by Śvetāmbara or Digambara mendicants (Williams 1963). In parallel to the prescriptive texts, Jain religious teachers have written a number of stories to illustrate vows in practice and produced a rich répertoire of characters.

Lay people can also practise asceticism – tapas – without making formal vows and observe temporary fasts – called vratas in the non-technical sense of the term. This is probably more common nowadays.

Ācārya Tulsi
Image by Pramodjain3 © CC BY-SA 3.0

This is the first category of the 12 vows that define the lay Jain path to liberation. They are modelled on the five mendicant vows and are identical among Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras. Lay Jains take ‘lesser’ or ‘limited’ versions of the mendicant vows of:

1. non-violence – ahiṃsā
2. truth – satya
3. non-stealing – acaurya or asteya
4. celibacy – brahmacarya
5. non-attachment or non-possession – aparigraha.

The aṇu-vratas apply the five mendicant vows – mahā-vratas – within the daily life of a householder. They are less rigorous than the mendicant vows but are still challenging.

The aṇu-vratas are intended to reduce behaviour that may injure:

• other living beings
• the individual, by hampering spiritual development.

A lay Jain taking the five lesser vows resolves not to:

• do any forbidden thing with mind, speech and body – kṛta
• cause harm to other living beings – kārita
• approve of such actions – anumodana.

These vows are considered key to the concept of the ideal lay Jain.

Even so, it is quite rare for contemporary Jains to take one or more of these formal vows. Nevertheless, there has been at least one important initiative to adjust the system of lay vows to the modern context of post-Independence India. This is the creation of the Aṇuvrat movement by the late Ācārya Tulsi of the Terā-panthin sect.

Digambara monk seeks alms
Image by Nalini Balbir © Nalini Balbir

The five vows in their ‘lesser’ version are the basis of lay Jain conduct and are fixed in all sources, from the earliest ones. They have been supplemented by additional vows that encompass all areas of lay life, especially that of people engaged in business. The vow of abstaining from food after sunset is often brought into the system, as it is for mendicants.

There is less unanimity about the way to arrange and name these additional vows than there is for the lesser vows – aṇu-vratas. In Śvetāmbara sources they are grouped into the two categories of:

• three guṇa-vratas – ‘reinforcing vows’
• four śikṣā-vratas – ‘vows of training’.

This arrangement is also found in many Digambara sources, but some of them designate all the seven vows as śīlas – ‘moral virtues’.

Examining the sources in depth shows that there are variations in the names and sequence of these vows between authors (see table in Williams 1963: 56), even of the same affiliation. Here the standard Śvetāmbara canonical list is given as reference.