Bearing historywomen, death and the Jaina ritual of sallekhana

Abstract

The largely-prescriptive Jaina literary texts contained severe strictures on women that forbade them from undertaking sallekhana (fasting to death) to attain spiritual liberation. However, fragmentary inscriptions written on stone slabs and pillars found in the Deccan indicate that women did undertake and experience this ritual practice. These records, written at the behest of those who took care of individuals going through sallekhana, enable us to juxtapose these two sources to argue that there was a dynamic regional religious and social milieu which prevailed over the didactic and normative depictions of an apparently pan-Indian Jaina sensibility. The idea and practice of spiritual liberation during early medieval times in this case study of the Deccan thus illustrates the gender and institutional history of the Jaina faith in its regional and local dimensions. © 2011 South Asian Studies Association of Australia.