Winner: Eric Villalobos, for his essay, "The Benefits of Bending the Rules: the Social Functions of Yatis in Mūrtipūjaka Śvetāmbara Jainism (c. 18th century-Present)" The winner of the graduate essay prize receives a cash prize of $750.00 and a citation.
Within Śvetāmbar Jainism, yatis are a class of monks with a reputation for lax conduct and engagement with esoteric sciences. This paper attempts to look beyond yatis’ designation as corrupted renouncers and examines the social functions yatis served despite, and sometimes as a result of, their ambiguous status. Chapter I surveys colonial accounts, academic literature, and polemical writings which have described yati conduct and finds that none have definitively indicated which vows yatis are meant to take---calling into question the consensus that yatis are “semi-renouncers.” Chapter II uses gazetteers, biographies, and the author’s own fieldwork to show how yatis’ practice of esoteric sciences allowed them to provide specialized services, especially in medicine and education, which integrated them within their communities. Chapter III pushes back even further against the poor reputation of yatis and, on the basis of hagiographical material, vijñaptipatras, and yati sammelan reports, considers śrīpūjyas, the heads of yati lineages, in their roles as community leaders, virtuous gurus, and religious reformers. Finally, Chapter IV describes the status of yatis today, their strategies for coping with their newfound marginal status, and the motivations behind their continued initiations. It also gives an introduction to hitherto unexamined yati gotras, or clans which claim, controversially, to descend from noncelibate Jain yatis.