ABSTRACT
An intriguing puzzle for students of Jainism is to explain why Jainism survived in India while Buddhism, similar in both origin and teachings, died out. Of the theories advanced, most take into account a significant organisational difference between Jainism and Buddhism —the Jain ‘professional ascetics’ (to use a phrase of Weber’s), the sā dhus and sā dhvās 1 (‘monks’ and ‘nuns’), actively incorporated the laity into the organisational structure of the religion, while the Buddhist ascetics did not. The Jain sā dhus, and to a much lesser extent sadhvis, became in some sense leaders.
