Mokṣamāla and the Movement of Śrīmad Rājcandra: Part 1
Course Number: 2007
Śrīmad Rājcandra (1867-1901) was an important Jain Saint of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries who founded a distinct and modern, yet also in
many ways quite orthodox, movement of Jainism. While Śrīmad and his followers
followed many mainstream Jain teachings and practices, his teachings and the
tradition that grew from them are distinct with regards to their emphasis on nonsectarianism,
the ability to attain self-realization as a profound experience of one’s
spiritual essence in this life or shortly thereafter, understanding of liberation as an
attainable goal within 15 lifetimes, a critique of contemporary institutions of
mendicancy, and the uniqueness of a bourgeoning lay movement where lay
practitioners are the primary source of spiritual authority—a feature that has been
widely appealing to Jain lay practitioners. The first half of this two-part course will
examine how the events of Śrīmad’s life gave shape to this movement and will look at
the philosophical underpinnings of Śrīmad’s tradition based on the Mokṣa-māḷā, a
Gujarati text that he composed in 1887, at the age of 20, the same year that he was
married, and several years before he attained self-realization and renounced worldly
life. In the first half of this course, we will focus primarily on how Śrīmad’s philosophy
was informed by notable events in his life, and how in turn these events and this
philosophy have influenced the development of the Raj Bhakta Marg, the tradition
that has developed from this important modern Jain guru.
Learning Objectives:
• Learn the basic biographical outline of the life of Śrīmad Rajcandra.
• Understand the social and biographical events that led to the development of
the Raj Bhakta Marga
• Examine key features of the Raj Bhakta Marga that make it a unique modern Jain movement
Jain Philosophy, History and Anthropology
Cogen Bohanec, MA, PhD
the late 19th and early 20th centuries who founded a distinct and modern, yet also in
many ways quite orthodox, movement of Jainism. While Śrīmad and his followers
followed many mainstream Jain teachings and practices, his teachings and the
tradition that grew from them are distinct with regards to their emphasis on nonsectarianism,
the ability to attain self-realization as a profound experience of one’s
spiritual essence in this life or shortly thereafter, understanding of liberation as an
attainable goal within 15 lifetimes, a critique of contemporary institutions of
mendicancy, and the uniqueness of a bourgeoning lay movement where lay
practitioners are the primary source of spiritual authority—a feature that has been
widely appealing to Jain lay practitioners. The first half of this two-part course will
examine how the events of Śrīmad’s life gave shape to this movement and will look at
the philosophical underpinnings of Śrīmad’s tradition based on the Mokṣa-māḷā, a
Gujarati text that he composed in 1887, at the age of 20, the same year that he was
married, and several years before he attained self-realization and renounced worldly
life. In the first half of this course, we will focus primarily on how Śrīmad’s philosophy
was informed by notable events in his life, and how in turn these events and this
philosophy have influenced the development of the Raj Bhakta Marg, the tradition
that has developed from this important modern Jain guru.
Learning Objectives:
• Learn the basic biographical outline of the life of Śrīmad Rajcandra.
• Understand the social and biographical events that led to the development of
the Raj Bhakta Marga
• Examine key features of the Raj Bhakta Marga that make it a unique modern Jain movement
Course Length
10 hours Self-Study (Professor available by appointment in office hours)Learning Area
Jain Philosophy, History and Anthropology Instructor
Cogen Bohanec, MA, PhD
Cogen Bohanec currently holds the position of Assistant Professor in Sanskrit and Jain Studies at Arihanta Institute where he teaches various courses on Jain philosophy and its applications. In addition, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Claremont School of Theology (CST) where he teaches Sanskrit and Gujarati, and he has taught numerous classes on South Asian Culture & Religions and Sanskrit language at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley. Dr. Bohanec specializes in the Jain and Hindu traditions, comparative dharma traditions, philosophy of religion, theo-ethics (virtue ethics, and environmental and animal ethics in particular), and Sanskrit language and literature, and has numerous publications in those areas, particularly in the fields of Jain and Hindu Studies amongst other disciplines. He has a PhD in “Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion” with an emphasis in Hindu Studies from GTU, where his research emphasized ancient Indian languages, literature, and philosophical systems. He also holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies at GTU where his research primarily involved translations of Pāli Buddhist scriptures in conversation with the philology of the Hindu Upaniṣads. He is the author of “Bhakti Ethics, Emotions and Love in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Metaethics” (Lexington, 2024), an interdisciplinary study that frames traditional Hindu themes of ecotheology, ecofeminist theology, feminist care ethics, within a framework of virtue ethics in conversation with a bhakti-based psychology of emotions. Currently he is largely engaged in publication and research on various aspects of the Jain tradition, emphasizing translations and analyses of Jain Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Gujarati texts, but is also publishing academic works on various topics within the Hindu tradition.