forthcoming in Jaina Law and Society, ed. by Peter Flügel, Routledge.

Deity Worship in Nākoḍā: Religion and Economy in a Jaina Pilgrimage Site

Knut Aukland

Introduction
Max Weber is well-known for bringing attention to the relationship between religious
belief and economic behavior. In his work on Burmese Buddhism, Melford Spiro,
following Weber’s lead, concluded that Buddhist soteriology had negative
consequences for the development of capitalism: the kammatic Buddhist will indeed
have a religious motive to earn as much as possible, but instead of reinvesting it, he
will give it away as dāna (Spiro 1970: 460f). The proof of salvation for the Buddhist
lies not in accumulating and creating new wealth, but in distributing accumulated
wealth as dāna.1 Modern capitalism, as I understand it here, following Weber
(1930/1991: 17), “is identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by
means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise.” In this paper, however, I will
not deal with capitalism and Jaina ethics2 as such, instead I explore how the
interaction between religious belief and economic behavior is expressed through
deity worship in Nākoḍā Tīrtha - a Jaina pilgrimage site in western Rajasthan.3 When
Jainas give dāna in Nākoḍā, I will argue, it is typically done in the spirit of capitalism,
not because of Jaina ethics but rather because of beliefs in the power of Nākoḍā
Bhairava, the protective deity of Nākoḍā Tīrtha. The economic success of Nākoḍā
Tīrtha is intimately connected with Nākoḍā Bhairava. He is the main recipient of dāna
in Nākoḍā, yet the nature and appropriate understanding of donative actions related
to him and his worship have been and are regularly contested. These
understandings, it turns out, play an important role in the economic organization of
the pilgrimage site.

1
Both Spiro 1970: 455 and Tambiah 1970: 146f. found that the financing of religious buildings was
seen as one of the principle sources of merit, while Gombrich 1988: 199f. concluded that his ‘Buddhist
Protestants’ would “feel guilty about money making”.
2
See Flügel 2006: 92-5 for a discussion of merit and economic action in Jainism. While Tambiah
1973: 14 concluded that “perhaps we can give Weber the benefit of the doubt as regards to the
Jains…”, Laidlaw 1995:362f. is more skeptical to Weber’s 1967: 200 linking of Jaina ethics and ascetic
Protestantism.
3
Fieldwork material for this paper was gathered between December 2009 to February 2010 for my
MPhil thesis, The Cult of Nākoḍā Bhairava: Deity Worship and Possession in Jainism.
1
forthcoming in Jaina Law and Society, ed. by Peter Flügel, Routledge.

A Short History of Nākoḍā Tīrtha

Local sources, including a handful recently published brochures and books written for
and by the Jaina community, trace the history of Nākoḍā Tīrtha back to the second
century after Mahāvīra’s nirvāṇa, when the city of Nākoḍā and Virampur was founded
by two Jaina brothers (Sālecā 1991: 3). From this time onwards various Jaina
activities are reported, such as temple constructions and visits from various monks,
including the famous philosopher Haribhadra (Sagar n.d.: 18). In the troublesome
centuries between the tenth and fifteenth centuries V.S. many Jina idols and other
treasures were hidden underground for protection due to continuous attacks from
various kings, many of them Muslim. No less than 120 such idols, including the main
image of today’s Nākoḍā Tīrtha, Nākoḍā Pārśvanātha, were kept underground in
order to protect them from plundering around the 12th and 13th century V.S. (Sālecā
1991: 5). It would take years until any of them were rediscovered.
In 1455, a Jaina layman had a dream in which Nākoḍā Bhairava told him of
the idol of Pārśvanātha and where it was hidden. The idol was then discovered and
installed in Nākoḍā Tīrtha by the Kharatara Gaccha monk Kīrtiratnasūri. As
Kīrtiratnasūri was carrying the rediscovered idol of Pārśvanātha, people saw Nākoḍā
Bhairava in the form of a boy (bālarūpa) dancing and walking with them as they
spontaneously formed a procession (ib.: 6). The procession automatically stopped in
Nākoḍā Tīrtha where it was decided to keep the idol. An idol of the Bhairava was
simultaneously established by the entrance of the temple, making him the official
protector of the temple (Jain 2006: 41, 43). It was Kīrtiratnasūri who installed the
aniconic image (piṇḍākar) of Nākoḍā Bhairava, establishing the first ‘official link’
between Jainism and Nākoḍā Bhairava. Although it is not clear what the nature of
Nākoḍā Bhairava and his cult was before he was installed in the Jaina temple, it
seems reasonable to assume that Nākoḍā Bhairava has at some point been a local
deity without any connection to Jainism, similar to the many other Bhairavas found in
Rajasthani villages (Atal 1964, Gold 1988: 40, 164, 194).
The site was then abandoned by the Jain settlement in the area in the 17th
century V.S. due to ill-treatment by the local rulers (Jain 2005: 52).4 It was only when
the Tapā Gaccha nun Sundarśrī (1859-1937) came to Nākoḍā Tīrtha at the

4
A specific incident is mentioned where the local king’s son had cut off a long lock of hair (coṭī) on the
head of a Jain bathing in a pond, only to use it as a fly-whisk (jhāvri) to chase away flies sitting on his
horse (Jain 2005: 52).
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beginning of the 20th century and decided to spend the rest of her life working on its
restoration that Nākoḍā once again became a site for Jaina pilgrimage. In the years
that followed she travelled around gathering monetary support and inspiring people
to visit the site, actively propagating the cult of Nākoḍā Bhairava. Sundarśrī turned
out to be quite a fundraiser and the donations she inspired are dwelled upon in local
sources.5 She is called the ‘Saviour of Nākoḍā Tīrtha’ (tīrthoddhārikā). In 1934 a new
idol of Nākoḍā Bhairava was fashioned on the instruction of Jaina mendicants after
his true form (svārup) had been revealed in dreams and visions of various Jains,
including the Tapā Gaccha monk Himācalsūri. The new three-dimensional bust idol
of Nākoḍā Bhairava was installed by Himācalsūri inside the temple, next to the idol of
Pārśvanātha that had been recovered in 1455.
Ever since Sundarśrī initiated the renovation in the beginning of the 20th
century, the fame of Nākoḍā Tīrtha has grown. Today it is one of the most well-
known Śvetāmbara pilgrimage sites in Rajasthan and Nākoḍā Bhairava is “the most
popular Jaina miracle working deity in Rajasthan” according to James Laidlaw (1995:
71). Conducting fieldwork in Jodhpur, I did not meet one person, Jaina or non-Jaina,
who had not heard of Nākoḍā and its protector deity. It has been noted that many
Jaina business men, especially in Jaipur, see Nākoḍā Bhairava as a business
partner, donate percentages of their annual income to Nākoḍā Tīrtha and hang
pictures of him in their shops (Laidlaw 1995: 72, Babb 1996: 80). According to an
eighty pages long brochure on Sundarśrī (Jain 2005), this tradition was inspired by
Sundarśrī herself. She had instructed the layman Kesarīmaljī to regularly give a part
of his business profit to Nākoḍā Tīrtha (ib.: 76). Kesarīmaljī was originally not a very
wealthy man. He had been a devotee of Sundarśrī for a long time. It was only when
Sundarśrī decided to organize a pilgrimage to Nākoḍā, because she received a sign
(saṅket) from Nākoḍā Bhairava, and Kesarīmaljī had said that he would support her,
that he began to see real profit. After the promise, he went to Mumbai to conduct
business, and with Sundarśrī’s blessing he suddenly had great fortune and earned a
lot of money in a short time. Sundarśrī, it is explained, had the unlimited blessing
(asīm kṛpā) of Nākoḍā Bhairava, and hence, whatever problem she addressed would
always be solved (ib.: 59). After his business trip to Mumbai, Kesarīmaljī had earned
enough money to support Sundarśrī’s pilgrimage to Nākoḍā.
5
See Cort 2001: 155, Kelting 2009: 296 and especially McCormic 1997: 248 for examples of Jaina
ascetics functioning as fundraisers.
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forthcoming in Jaina Law and Society, ed. by Peter Flügel, Routledge.

The story of Kesarīmaljī establishes a link between Nākoḍā Bhairava and

economic prosperity. In the list of the eight miracles (camatkāra) of Nākoḍā Bhairava,
enumerated in various brochures in Nākoḍā, we find freedom from poverty (daridratā
mukti) and becoming profitable (saphal).6 Belief in Nākoḍā Bhairava’s power to help
in economic ways is strong in Nākoḍā, but it is also picked up by more critical voices
in the Jaina community. A self-proclaimed non-practicing Jaina told me that Nākoḍā
had become “just another Indian bank.” More than one Jaina used the expression
“bribing god” to explain why so many donate money to Nākoḍā Bhairava, while
another talked of “having shares in Bheru-jī [Nākoḍā Bhairava].” Many people, the
argument went, give money to Nākoḍā and its Bhairava so that they can get more
back.
This is not unlike John Cort’s observations in an auction of the fourteen
dreams of Mahāvīra’s mother, where the lotus lake and Lakṣmī received the highest
bids. Commenting on this fact, a Jaina layman explained: "How can you get anything
if you don't prime the pump?"(Cort 1991: 410) What we can conclude from these
examples is that while from an etic perspective it seems to be true that Jainas give
away their wealth as dāna (Spiro 1970: 460f.), it is nevertheless, from an emic
perspective, given away in a capitalist spirit. Donations to Nākoḍā Bhairava are by
some understood as straight forward investments. Nākoḍā Bhairava is therefore a
potential business partner.

The Worship of Nākoḍā Bhairava

It should be clear that Nākoḍā Bhairava receives an unusual amount of attention in
Pārśvanātha’s temple in Nākoḍā. The Nākoḍā Trust has found it necessary to remind
people of the proper religious hierarchy of things with a sign in front of the temple
reminding people to show their respects to Pārśvanātha before Nākoḍā Bhairava.7
The temple entrance and barriers are set up so that visitors must pass the Jina
before reaching the Bhairava. Still, it is clear that most people are more eager to take
darśana of Nākoḍā Bhairava than the Jina idol, and many devotes pass the three

6
The complete list of Nākoḍā Bhairava’s miracles includes (1) having many sons, (2) freedom from
poverty, (3) freedom from sickness, (4) fulfillment of desires, (5) protection from ghosts and evil spirits,
(6) power and wealth through daily recitation, (7) being profitable and (8) happiness and progress in
life.
7
It should be mentioned that Nākoḍā also features many non-Jaina visitors. Employees of the trust
told me that about 20% of those staying in the dharmaśālā are non-Jaina.
4
forthcoming in Jaina Law and Society, ed. by Peter Flügel, Routledge.

idols of Pārśvanātha in the inner sanctum rather quickly before indulging in lengthy
prayers in front of the Bhairava.
A series of pūjās are held every day, both morning and evening. They are led
by the non-Jaina pujārīs who also lead the daily auctions (boli) held for the honor of
performing the worship. The pūjās for Pārśvanātha are auctioned and performed first.
Then follows the worship of Nākoḍā Bhairava. The lamp offering (āratī) for Nākoḍā
Bhairava is the most popular rite and regularly receives the highest bids in the ritual
auctions. During the annual fair (melā) in 2009, held on the birthday of Pārśvanātha,
the highest bid for Nākoḍā
Bhairava’s āratī was 365,005 INR, while Pārśvanātha’s āratī went for 176,535 INR.
These and other auctions demonstrated that Jainas were willing to pay more to get
the honour of doing the Bhairava’s āratī than Pārśvanātha’s. The reason for this is
clear: people hope to gain something in their worldly lives through the rituals and this
can only be provided by the Bhairava. Yet, the implication of this difference in price,
that theBhairava is considered more important than the Jina, is problematic in a
religion that clearly states that the Jina and his ascetic path are the only objects truly
worthy of worship (Babb 1996: 62-3, 79-81, 84, 100-1, 174). The presence of
orthodox doctrine has produced a popular theory that combines the desire for boons
with the conventional hierarchy of worship-worthiness in Jainism. It is, in Richard
Gombrich’s (1971: 278) words, a “doctrinal response to un-doctrinal behaviour”. The
basic idea is that since Nākoḍā Bhairava is actually worshipping Pārśvanṭha, Nākoḍā
Bhairava will be more pleased if devotees worship Pārśvanātha properly, instead of
pleading directly to him. I will return to this point.
The non-Jaina pujārī leading the auctions told me that non-Jainas would
sometimes participate in the bidding, sometimes even winning. When I asked, how
he knew that these were non-Jainas, he replied that he often knew these individuals
and that their names – the winner and price of each auction is recorded in a book –
revealed their religious affiliations. The possibility of non-Jainas bidding and winning
Jaina auctions has been denied. Laidlaw (1995: 340) stated that it “…would be
unthinkable for any religious outsider who was present […] to win one of these
auctions, whose practical purpose, after all, is to raise funds for Jaina religious
events”. This has, however, been observed elsewhere. Kelting (2009: 296) reports of

5
forthcoming in Jaina Law and Society, ed. by Peter Flügel, Routledge.

a Sikh that was interested in winning the rites associated with the lion dream in the
celebration of Mahāvīra’s conception and birth.
One must not be rich in able to participate in the āratī worship. At the auctions
I vitnessed in Nākoḍā, many people started queuing up before the āratī began,
hoping to stand as close to Nākoḍā Bhairava as possible when the worship began.
When the winners of the auction started circulating the plate with lamps, people
would place banknotes on the plate. Because it often became very crowded during
the ritual, many would simply send the banknotes forward. During the melā, when the
temple was even more crowded than usual, one could see dozens of banknotes
going from hand to hand before finally reaching its final destination on the āratī plate
offered to Nākoḍā Bhairava. On the day of Pārśvanātha’s birthday it was actually
impossible to enter his temple without money: a man at the temple entrance was
handing out a wrapped two rupee coin to each that entered. No one was coming
empty handed to that day’s worship.
I heard several stories of people who had bargained or made special deals
with Nākoḍā Bhairava. Discussing monetary donations and boli prices one informant
explained that the more people wanted from the Bhairava, the more they would be
willing to donate, hence “you leave whatever you desire from Bhairavdev”. Such
bargains need not involve something given to Nākoḍā Bhairava, such as money, but
also things given up. In this way some Jainas did relate the cult of Nākoḍā Bhairava
to Jaina soteriology. “Bheru-jī is also bringing us to the path of Mahāvīr” one young
Jaina man explained. A young Jaina father explained how he had promised Nākoḍā
Bhairava that he would quit smoking if his sick child would recover. The request was
granted he told me, and so he quit smoking. In this case, the Bhairava delivered his
part before he got his share. The mentioned Kesarīmaljī is reported to have had a
dream in which he was told to offer the weight of his baby in oil to the Bhairava. His
baby was suffering from an illness, but recovered soon after the oil offering.
The lay Jainas with whom I discussed these various aspects of the deity
worship in Nākoḍā offered different perspectives and sometimes critiques. The latter
should not surprise us, as Jainism is a religion centered on a world-rejecting
soteriology. The cult of Nākoḍā Bhairava is a world-affirming one. The eight
camatkāras of the Bhairava cover issues related to health and wealth, and are
completely non-soteriological in nature. Many Jainas, therefore, held that Nākoḍā

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forthcoming in Jaina Law and Society, ed. by Peter Flügel, Routledge.

Bhairava is not a part of Jainism proper. One had to separate between Jaina dharma
and Jaina people, I was explained. The rise of deities such as Nākoḍā Bhairava was
a result of Hindu influences and “mixing of dharmas”. Another common explanation
concerned the decline of our era. As one lay Jaina put it: “A man who really knows
religion will not go to Nākoḍā Bheru-jī…but because of this new era everybody is
after wealth, so it has become part of the religion.” Still, a general conviction seemed
to be that although the focus on Nākoḍā Bhairava inside the temple of a Jina is a
somewhat “awkward feature” (Babb 1996: 81), it is altogether a good thing that
Jainas are attracted to conduct pilgrimages to Pārśvanātha’s temple. In the spirit of
pragmatism, it was argued that whatever the intentions behind visiting Nākoḍā Tīrtha,
the end result is that more people are giving donations, worshipping the Jina and
involving themselves in the Jaina religion, which is a good thing after all. A
Śvetāmbara Professor in Jainology concluded regarding Jains motives for visiting
Nākoḍā, as if replying a disappointed western scholar searching for a “pure Jainism”:
“They are Jains only”.
There is more to the cult of Nākoḍā Bhairava than this-worldly help through
prayers and petitions. In recent years, the Bhairava has also become known to
possess his devotees. These sessions appear to happen regularly on Sundays, the
most auspicious day to worship the Bhairava. I observed several possessions during
my fieldwork in Nākoḍā, but unlike the possessions observed in the Jaina pilgrimage
site of Padampura,8 the possessions I witnessed did not fall into a predictable pattern
of more or less standardized acts. Most of them occurred during the evening āratī of
the Bhairava while people were singing and clapping. In some cases the possessed
subjects would lose themselves in frantic movements for a short while before
collapsing on the floor and soon recover to ‘normal state’. In other instances the
possessed subjects would be taken aside before they started to communicate with
the surrounding people. In these instances people eagerly flocked around the
possessed to watch as people asked questions concerning problems and future
outcomes in everything from family matters to business relations.
Interestingly, many Jainas I spoke to were critical of these oracular
possessions, not because they happened in front of the Jina or were improper in a

8
See Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994: 230f. and Vallely 2011: 74-6.
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Jaina temple,9 but because those possessed were faking the possessions for
economic purposes. Most of the possessions, they claimed, were artificial (banāvaṭī)
and mere trickery (ḍhoṃg). The idea is that those who had been possessed would be
contacted after the session by people who needed some ritual assistance involving
possession. The possessed subject and those in need of the service would then
meet up at the medium’s dharmaśālā room or home shrine and pay the appropriate
sum for the service. The possessions in Nākoḍā, therefore, were criticized because
some of them were simulated in order to attract potential clients. They were faked for
economic gain.

Fields of Donation: Nākoḍā Bhairava as a Jaina Layman

Gift-giving of various kinds lies at the center of Jaina lay religiosity. The dāna-vrata,
states R. Williams (1963: 149) in his exposition of Jaina Yoga, “covers the most
important single element in the practice of religion for, without almsgiving by the laity,
there could be no ascetics and therefore no transmission of the sacred doctrine”. In
the transaction of giving, the donor will acquire merit (puṇya), resulting in prosperity
in this life or the next. Weber’s Protestants would see fortune and wealth as pointing
forward in time to salvation. Jainas on the other hand, understand current prosperity
as a result of past deeds. Hence it points back in time. But the potential benefit of
religious giving is not just of the worldly kind. In some cases, the benefits of giving
may also include advancement on the road to salvation (Cort 2001: 105f.). Besides
the various benefits described in religious teachings, gifting, when displayed before
others, may also serve social ends (Kelting 2009: 293). Giving and public donations
are integral to the role of the Jaina seṭh, the trustworthy and prosperous merchant
(Cort 1991).
Jaina understandings of gifting and donative actions are manifold. Scriptural
Jainism provides many ways to label and evaluate acts of giving. One particular list,
which relates to the deity worship in Nākoḍā, is the seven fields (sāptakṣetra) of
giving, presented by the Śvetāmbara philosopher Hemacandra (Cort 1991: 394).
With his 12th century Yogaśāstra, Hemcandra composed a comprehensive manual
of Jaina doctrine, including guidelines for the Jaina laity. In it, he introduces the

9
Observing a possession in a Jain temple, Whitney Kelting 2001: 104 concluded that: “To lose control
was unacceptable and doubly so in the Jina’s temple”.
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concept of the seven fields in connection with the ‘exceptional layman’

(mahāśrāvaka):

“Thus, one who is firm in [the twelve] vows and with devotion strews his
wealth in the seven “fields”, including [images, temples, scriptures, male
mendicants, female mendicants, layman [and] laywomen], and one who out
of compassion [strews his wealth on] the oppressed, [such a person] is said
to be an exceptional layman” (Hemacandra, Yogaśāstra 3.119, translated by
Qvarnström 2002: 69).

The list is still used by contemporary Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjaka Jainas who classify
donations in accordance with it. A curious development, however, which is not found
in Hemacandra’s work, is the contemporary hierarchical understanding of these fields
(Cort 2001: 105, n. 11). This entails that donations given to a lower field can be
‘invested’ in higher ones, but not the other way around. The fields in which one can
‘strew’ one’s wealth, in descending order, are: image, temple, scripture, male
mendicants, female mendicants, layman and laywoman. To take an example, this
means that money donated to mendicants can be used to restore an image or a
temple, but money donated to an image cannot be used for mendicants. If a temple
trust wants to build an upāśraya it cannot use money donated to a temple or an idol.
Textual sources for this hierarchical understanding still remain undetected (Cort
1991: 394, n. 13).
This principle has created an economic problem in the case of pilgrimage sites
such as Nākoḍā Tīrtha. The economy of Nākoḍā Tīrtha largely consists of monetary
donations. These donations are classified according to the seven fields, but because
the fields are understood hierarchically the usage and distribution of the donations
are restricted. If the Nākoḍā Trust wants to repair or expand the more practical
facilities for the lay or ascetic community, they cannot employ the monetary
donations that are given in the higher fields. If the main source of monetary income is
donated to Nākoḍā Bhairava and he is considered an image, then all donations given
to him can only be used for images, and not, say, the expansion of facilities at the
site. And while the need to fund the making and maintenance of images can only go
so far, the possibilities of improvements and enlargements of a pilgrimage site in
areas other than images are endless. Hence, the hierarchical understanding of the
seven fields has created problems in the economic organization of Jaina temple
complexes.

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A senior informant, who had been involved with Nākoḍā and its trust for
decades, told me that there had been a discussion of this topic in the years after the
initial renovations of Nākoḍā Tīrtha. The two highest fields, he explained - image and
temple - were collectively labeled devadravya10 and money donated to these could
be used interchangeably, but not for anything in the lower fields. The dispute in
Nākoḍā revolved around whether or not donations given to Nākoḍā Bhairava was
devadravya or not, that is, only to be used in the two highest fields of donation. While
some had claimed this to be the case, Himācalsūri – the monk who had seen the true
form of Nākoḍā Bhairava and later installed his image - argued that Nākoḍā Bhairava
is in fact a Jaina layman and that donations to him should be defined thereafter. At
the time Himācalsūri proposed this, the ex-Nākoḍā trustee explained, there was little
money to develop the site.
In the end, Himācalsūri won the argument and the economic consequences of
this have been, and continue to be, of major importance. To define Nākoḍā Bhairava
as a layman meant that all donations given to him could be used to finance all sorts
of improvements at the pilgrimage site, improvements that again would make it more
attractive for potential visitors. It also means that the Nākoḍā Trust has more
opportunities to give financial support to institutions outside Nākoḍā, such as the
research institute Prakrit Bharati in Jaipur. The samavasaraṇa11 that is currently
under construction in Nākoḍā could hardly have begun without this important income.
The 175 feet high samavasaraṇa will be grand indeed and the plan is to construct
different levels within this building through which one can move upwards to the top,
experiencing Jaina teachings through various mediums such as 3 dimensional
figures and screenings. The budget, I was told, had already crossed 300,000,000
rupees and will perhaps become the double when finished. Even as it stands now,
with only the skeleton construction completed, it is a testimony to the enormous
budget of the Nākoḍā Trust as a result of the popularity of Nākoḍā Bhairava. This
strike of genius by Himācalsūri, defining Nākoḍā Bhairava as a layman in terms of
donation, is one of the reasons why Nākoḍā has grown to become so successful. It
remains to be seen if this solution to the devadravya problem is unique to Nākoḍā.

10
The term devadravya is also used to denote ritual offerings “given to” a Jina (Babb 1996: 93).
11
See Folkert 1993: 147-52 and Hegewald 2010: 6-11 for more on the importance of the
samavasaraṇa in Jainism.
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The same senior informant told me of other trusts that had problems related to
the restricting tradition of the seven fields. They had temples which received huge
sums in donation, but were not able to use this money for other activities than the
building and renovation of images and temples. Being very rich in devadravya, they
could not use this money to develop their tīrthas. For instance, they could not build
upāśrayas, because many Jain mendicants would not stay in devadravya financed
upāśrayas. Trustees of one of the major Śvetāmbara trusts struggling with this issue
contacted my informant while he was active in the Nākoḍā Trust and had requested if
they could donate some of their devadravya to Nākoḍā so that the Nākoḍā Trust
again could re-donate it to their tīrtha, this time as a donation to the laity. In this way,
they hoped to transform the donations from a higher to a lower field in order to create
more financial freedom - a sort of religious laundering of donated money. My
informant and his trust had not accepted this dubious request.
I did speak with others who confirmed that the devadravya problem is indeed a
real one for Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjaka temple trusts. One interviewee explained that
too much is being spent on building temples because of this, and that in order to stop
the unnecessary building, the trusts should organize the economy in other ways
themselves, without the involvement of orthodox sadhus. He had tried to suggest a
system in which lower fields could loan devadravya money and pay back later if
necessary.
Two questions emerge from this: (1) why are the seven fields understood
hierarchically in this case, and (2) how can a deity plausibly be defined as a layman?
The first question, I believe, can be answered by looking at the way classical Indian
religions understand gift giving. In the Jaina tradition five factors are identified in the
proper understanding of the act of giving: the recipient, the giver, the thing given, the
manner of giving and the result of giving (Williams 1963: 150). The dispute in Nākoḍā
related to the first factor, namely the nature of the recipient. Torkel Brekke (1998:
289f.), focusing on the two first factors – the recipient and the donor - has argued that
there is a common ideology surrounding the gift in Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism
that hinges around two contradictions. The contradictions lie in (a) understanding the
gift as a sacrifice or a charitable gift, and (b) understanding the source of merit as
originating from the qualities of the recipient or intentions of the donor. If understood
as a charitable gift, the intention of the giver becomes the important issue, not the

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quality of the recipient. It is the good intention that secures merit to the giver. But if
“the giving is seen as a sacrifice, the qualities of the recipient are naturally the focus
of the attention” (ib.: 312). In this case, accrued merit is not dependent on the
intention of the giver, but rather the nature of the recipient. These two alternative
merit-making mechanisms can be seen in the quoted passage above of
Hemacandra. In it, he differentiates between that which is given in the seven fields,
which is done out of devotion (bhakti), and that which is given to the oppressed,
which is given out of compassion (dayā) (Williams 1963: 165f.). In the first case the
gift is primarily meritorious because of the quality of the recipient, hence they are
given out of devotion. In the second case the gift is meritorious because of the
intention of the donor, hence it is given out of compassion.
I believe that the hierarchical understanding of the seven fields of gifting has
developed because in this sort of donation, which is given out of devotion, the giving
is understood as a sacrifice and not as a charitable gift, in Brekke’s terms. Because
“the quality of the soil determines the harvest” (Brekke 1998: 300), i.e. the merit
accrues from the quality of the recipient, the people handling the donation must make
sure that a specific donation is planted in the right soil, lest the religious harvest of
the giver be compromised. A donation given in a lower field can be used in a higher
for that will simply mean that the donor receives more benefit from his donation,
whereas the opposite would imply a loss to the donor that cannot be accepted. The
hierarchical understanding of the seven fields of gifting secures the merit for the
donors.
Yet, this principle also restricts the economic organization of temple funds.
This potential problem is solved in Nākoḍā, since most of its income comes through
Nākoḍā Bhairava, who is defined as a layman. Though it might seem strange at first
that a deity could be classified in such a way, it does in fact resonate with Jaina
cosmology and ritual culture. Who are the deities in Jainism? The deities, Babb
(1996: 76f.) convincingly argues, are role model worshippers for lay Jainas. Indra and
his retinue conduct the ritual bathing and worship of every new-born Jina (ib.: 70f.).
When Śākra (Indra) rises from his throne, seeing that the embryo of Mahāvīra is
growing in the stomach of a Brahmin woman in the Kalpasūtra, he makes sure to
bend down and pay his respect to Jinas and accomplished Jain ascetics before
addressing the issue (Kalpasūtra 2.15-16, in Jacobi 1884/1964: 224f.) During the

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Eight Day Festival (aṣṭāhnikā) Indra again comes, this time to the mythical island
Nandīśvara, with his divine friends to conduct worship of Jinas in their ‘uncreated
temples’ (akṛtrima caitya). Digambara Jainas reenact this worship. This leads us back
to Babb’s point, namely that many deities are portrayed as worshippers of Jinas par
excellence.
Nākoḍā Bhairava, however, is a different sort of deity than Indra. He seems to
have more in common with Ghaṇṭākarṇ Mahāvīr, the protective deity of a Jain temple
in Mahudi (Cort 2000). His cult was promulgated by the monk Buddhisāgarsūri who
installed his image in the Jain temple. Like Himācalsūri, he understood Ghaṇṭākarṇ
Mahāvīr as a fellow Jain who worships the Jina, stating that: “It is not a fault to
believe in…Vīr as a fellow Jain. He is a devotee of Lord Mahāvīr” (quoted in Cort
2001: 91). Another famous Jain deity comparable to Nākoḍā Bhairava is Saciyā
Mātā. Saciyā Mātā is the lineage goddess (kuldevī) of Osval Jains and there are
different stories of how she became a Jain deity (Babb 1996: 140-60). These stories
narrate how the monk Ratnaprabhsūri converted the fierce, meat-eating Hindu
goddess Camūṇḍā into the Jaina, vegetarian goddess Saciyā Mātā. Similarly,
Nākoḍā Bhairava has been incorporated into its Jaina setting in which his violent
aspects have been toned down and he has become a devotee of Pārśvanātha. At
present the idol of Nākoḍā Bhairava is standing outside the inner sanctum, facing the
idol of Kīrtiratnasūri, the monk who installed him in the Jaina temple. This is because,
people say, Nākoḍā Bhairava wants to have continuous darśana of his guru
Kīrtiratnasūri (Sālecā 1991: 7). Having darśana of gurus is of course a prominent
feature of Jaina lay religiosity.
This establishes a clear link between the Jaina laity and deities. Besides the
fact that Jaina gods are nothing but reborn, pious Jaina men and women, these
deities function as lay followers in that they are worshippers of the Jina. The unity of
deities and men is expressed in Hemacandra’s definition of the highest divinity in
Jainism:

“God is [that] arhat and Supreme Lord who is omniscient, who has
conquered defects such as attachment [and aversion], who is worshipped in
the three worlds [by gods, demons, humans and so forth], and who explain
things as they really are“ (Hemacandra, Yogaśāstra 2.4, translated by
Qvarnström 2002: 31).

Many I spoke to in Nākoḍā similarly pointed out that Nākoḍā Bhairava is worshipping
Pārśvanātha. As mentioned above, there was also a theory circulating that Nākoḍā
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Bhairava would be more helpful to those who worshipped Pārśvanātha properly than
to those going directly to him, because Nākoḍā Bhairava himself is worshipping
Pārśvanātha. The shared identity between man and deity vis-à-vis the Jina was by
one informant expressed in the following formula: “We are worshipping Pārśvanātha.
Bheru-jī is also worshipping Pārśvanātha. So, we are colleagues.”
Discussing worship in Nākoḍā, Babb correctly argued that: “[Nākoḍā] Bhairav
is really a lay Jaina who, out of fellow feeling, will come to the aid of other pious lay
Jains” (1996:81). This turns out to be true in terms of donations as well. It makes
sense then to classify donations to Nākoḍā Bhairava as donations to a Jaina layman,
both theologically and economically.

Conclusion
In this paper I have described various crossing points of religion and economy
expressed through the worship of Nākoḍā Bhairava. Nākoḍā Bhairava is a major
money-spinner, both for the Nākoḍā Tīrtha, but also for his devotees. This has made
him a business partner of many Jaina enterprises that “have shares” in him. It was
the nun Sundarśrī who brought back Nākoḍā from oblivion, propagating the cult of
Nākoḍā Bhairava while functioning as an ascetic fundraiser. She advised Kesarīmaljī
to give percentages of his yearly income in donation to Nākoḍā, a widespread
tradition today. In the Jaina auctions people are giving higher bids for Nākoḍā
Bhairava than Pārśvanātha, hoping to get the formers blessings, but according to
one theory one will be more successful if one pays more respect to Pārśvanātha.
Underlying this theory is the fundamental unity of Jaina deities and laity coming from
the fact that both worship the Jinas. This was used by the monk Himācalsūri who
defined Nākoḍā Bhairava as a Jaina layman in terms of donation thereby providing
Nākoḍā Trust with a financial freedom that other Śvetāmbara trusts do not have. The
possession cult in Nākoḍā is another crossroad for economy and religion. Many
people believe that most possessions are faked for economic purposes. According to
the critique, most of the possessions that transpire in Pārśvanātha’s temple are
nothing but advertisement.
In the introduction I noted how Spiro argued that the Burmese Buddhist would
not reinvest his wealth, but rather give it away as dāna. Such an argument could be
made for Jainas as well. In the subsequent paragraph after the already quoted

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passage of the Yogaśāstra concerning the seven fields of gifting, Hemacandra

declares:

“He who does not strew his existing wealth, which is external and
impermanent, into [these seven] fields, how can such a wretch [ever hope to
be able to] practice the conduct [of a mendicant], which is difficult to realize”
(Hemacandra, Yogaśāstra [verse number], translated by Qvarnström 2003:
69).

Accumulated wealth should be strewn in religious fields, if not, one becomes a

wretch, unable to practice the true religion. Jainas are indeed strewing their wealth as
dāna in Nākoḍā, but in terms of the seven fields of gifting, they are not mainly
donating to Jinas or Jaina ascetics, but to an exceptional Jaina layman. When Jainas
are giving their wealth to Nākoḍā Bhairava, it is by many actually understood to be a
reinvestment in itself: they are buying “shares in Bheru-jī”. These Jainas are giving
dāna in a capitalist spirit, not because of Jaina ethics but because of belief in Nākoḍā
Bhairava’s power. In Nākoḍā, giving away money as dāna can be profitable, in
religious terms, but also in economic terms. Gifting in Nākoḍā serves not only
religious and social ends, highlighted by Cort (1991: 407f.) and Kelting (2009: 293),
but also economic ends.

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