Shivani Bothra
As said earlier, within Jainism there exist two sets of vows: the Mahavrat for the ascetic and the Anuvrat for the lay community. In the eleventh century text, Sravakacara,[85] Acharya Amitagati enumerated the vows and conduct prescribed for the lay disciple. According to the noted Jain scholar, Padmanabh S. Jaini, the rules of lay conduct are severe and thus the number of persons able to adhere to such conduct would be small. Some contemporary Jains have suggested, along the view of the above statement, that Acharya Tulsi was well aware of the prevailing laxity among Jains in keeping up with the traditional vows. Therefore, he developed the Anuvrat Movement as a way of making the rules outlined in the Sravakacara both easier to follow and more relevant to a modern audience. However, this reformation did not diminish the significance Tulsi placed on the traditional vows.
Although, the more conservative Jains have criticized Tulsi's reforms, calling the resulting vows "inferior vows," they were still very much in line with Tulsi's goal of encouraging greater involvement of laity while remaining true to traditional Jain practices. As an illustration, I will now present how my respondents in India viewed Tulsi's vows in greater depth, and address the relationship between Tulsi's 11 vows and the 5 categories of the Sravakacara's Anuvrat vows: ahimsa (nonviolence), satya, (truthfulness), asteya, (not stealing), brahmacharya (celibacy), and aparigraha (limiting possessions).
