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Jainism is typically understood as an ascetic tradition that privileges the suppression of emotion and the attainment of equanimity and neutrality through rigorous mental and physical discipline. Challenging the common view of Jainism as a tradition centered on ascetic virtuosity alone, this book demonstrates the importance of emotional cultivation and theatrical forms to Jain ethical formation and soteriological goals.
Drawing on previously unexplored and understudied texts, The Theater of Renunciation examines the tension within the Jain tradition between prescriptive ideals of emotional abnegation and self-restraint and the relational and affective regimes through which ethical transformation is cultivated. Aleksandra Restifo argues that across philosophy, conduct manuals, poetry, and dramatic literature, emotions shape practice, public life, and ideals of virtuous personhood. Jain traditions, she contends, did more than theorize emotion: They actively sought to cultivate emotional states through embodied disciplines and collective forms of practice central to self-perfection. Restifo emphasizes the significance of theater as a tool for both understanding and experiencing the transformative power of emotion in ethical choices and religious practice. Offering new insights into Jain tradition and ethics, The Theater of Renunciation sheds light on the intertwining of aesthetics, emotion, and religious life more broadly.
— Maria Heim, author of Words for the Heart: A Treasury of Emotions from Classical India
In recent years, scholars have paid renewed attention to medieval Jain literature, but have paid little, if any, to Jain theories—and theorists—of literature. Restifo casts her scholarly gaze on the twelfth-century author Rāmacandra, a playwright, poet, and literary theorist who set the standard for medieval Jain literature in Sanskrit. After Restifo’s fine-grained study of this path-setting author, scholars of Indian literature will ignore him at their peril.
— John E. Cort, author of Framing the Jina: Narratives of Icons and Idols in Jain History
This highly original and beautifully crafted book reveals the richness and sophistication of Jain theories of emotional experience and aesthetic wonder, in marked contrast to the normative view of Jainism as an austere, ascetic religion. Restifo shows how, through presenting a wide spectrum of emotional experiences, Jain dramas are meant to move spectators toward self-knowledge and self-fulfillment. If the hidden self is itself an actor who plays many roles over many lifetimes, the aesthetic enactment of that self may well be the condition of liberation.
— David Shulman, author of Tamil: A Biography