Jainism and Narrative

Dear Colleagues,

The corpus of narratives produced by Jain authors is vast, varied and rich, ranging from didactic stories explaining the laws of karma or illustrating rules of correct and incorrect conduct, to biographies of the Tīrthaṅkaras, the life stories of other great heroes of the Jain ‘Universal History’, fairytale-like colorful accounts of merchants and princes, to (semi-)historical stories of rules and monks, and even autobiographies. Some narratives or narrative motifs are unique to Jain traditions, but sometimes they are sourced from a corpus of pan-Indian stories representing specific Jain versions, e.g., the Jain Rāmāyaṇas, Harivaṃśas and Mahābhāratas, thus demonstrating the Jains’ engagement with and responses to other communities. On the other hand, originally Jain narratives and characters have sometimes been integrated by other religious traditions, such as the first Tīrthaṅkara Ṛṣabha, figuring as an avatāra of Viṣṇu. 

Constituting a fundamental part of Jain teachings, narratives can be found from the earliest available Śvetāmbara scriptures and its commentarial literature, and have for over two millennia continued to be composed, written and rewritten in various forms: from humble prose and easy metrical storybooks to ornate epic poems and dramas, some of which are veritable monuments in South Asian literary history, to contemporary comics, in a varied set of languages including Sanskrit, Ardhamāgadhī-, Māhārāṣṭrī-, and Śaurasenī-Prakrit, Apabhramsha, Kannada, Tamil, Braj-Bhāṣā, Gujarati, modern Indic languages and, nowadays, English.

This Special Issue welcomes the contribution of current research articles focusing on Jainism and narrative(s), including the following: 

• Papers exploring a hitherto unstudied narrative (tradition), including critical edition and translation.
• Papers on a Jain narrative or narrative tradition in different regions and/or languages.
• Papers on the intertextuality of (a) narrative(s).
• Papers on the function of a narrative/text in the lived tradition, past and present, in various applications (performance, visual art, contemporary media, etc.)

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send them to the Guest Editor, Prof. Dr. Eva De Clercq ([email protected]), or to the Assistant Editor of Religions, Ms. Margaret Liu ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Eva De Clercq
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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