दिगंबर और श्वेतांबर

Digambara and Svetambara

One teaching, two traditions, separated over monastic possession, the survival of the canon, and whether a woman can attain liberation in that life.

The division is old — the traditions themselves date it to within a few centuries of Mahavira — and it is a division about practice and about the record rather than about doctrine at its core. Both hold the same account of soul, karma, liberation and the twenty-four Tirthankaras.

The visible difference is monastic clothing. Digambara means sky-clad: a fully advanced Digambara monk possesses nothing, clothing included, on the reading that the vow of non-attachment admits no exception. Svetambara means white-clad: monks and nuns wear white robes and keep a small set of possessions, on the reading that a few items in support of the discipline are not attachment. Both are readings of the same vow.

The second difference is the canon. The Svetambara tradition holds that a portion of the original teaching survives in its Agamas, redacted at a council at Valabhi. The Digambara tradition holds that the original canon was lost and that what survives is the Shatkhandagama and the works built on it, written down from the memory of Acharya Dharasena — the event commemorated as Shruta Panchami. Two traditions with different scriptures is a deeper divergence than two traditions with different robes.

The third difference is stated most sharply. The Svetambara tradition holds that a woman may attain liberation in that life, and identifies the nineteenth Tirthankara Malli as a woman. The Digambara tradition holds that liberation requires the complete renunciation its monastic order defines, and therefore a male body in the final life, and names the same Tirthankara Mallinatha, a man.

A site like this one has to decide how to name things, and every choice is a choice. Naming here leans Digambara where the forms differ, the Svetambara form is always carried alongside, and both calendars are given in full. That is an editorial decision, recorded as one.