Session Name: Tantric Futures III: Human, Nonhuman and Material Mediations
2 - A Modern Jain Monk's Book of Yantras
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
14:00 – 15:45 (GMT+7)
Presentation Abstract This presentation will be a micro-study of a modern, Jain grimoire found by the presenter in Azimganj, West Bengal in the personal collection of the recently deceased Yati Subhāṣacandra likely the last monk of the Loṅkā monastic lineage. While Jain monks are technically prohibited from using mantras and related esoteric practices for worldly ends, monks often use these means to benefit their followers, carrying grimoires like the one under this study. Some of these grimoire’s instructions make references to non-Jain deities and no references to distinctly Jain material. This has prompted scholars of Jainism to ask, “What makes this Jain?” likely in partial response to Jain reformers’ assertions that both the practice and the practitioners were not Jain to begin with. This calls into question why Jain reformers were so concerned with making strict boundaries to “Jainism” in the first place? Moreover, why did practical magic not make the cut into these boundaries? These questions are further complicated by the fact that many reformist lineages regularly venerate semi-divine monks whose occult powers are strikingly similar to the powers afforded by the mantras and yantras in this grimoire. These semi-divine monastic figures are venerated by reformists for supernatural acts that are not viewed as “black magic,” as these yantras would be, but as a miraculous expression of their orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Studying this grimoire and its owner(s), helps to shed light on the historical development, practical use, and supporting networks involved in Jain mantra-śāstra in the mid-20th century.
.png)