ABSTRACT
Before I compare my case studies of the Swadhyaya movement, the Bishnois, and the Bhils, I first go back to the two different kinds of environmentalism based on the devotional and the ascetic models that I reviewed earlier. All my case studies involved Indian rural communities spread in the villages of Western India. Based on my observations of them, I found that their practices derive from the devotional model that is different from the ascetic model. To be sure, the devotional Hindus do not reject ascetics. They continue to attend discourses by ascetics and pay their respect to them but when it comes to their own personal practices, it is the daily rituals, pūjā, at home and at temples that heavily dominate over any austere practice by a layperson (Madan 1996). For example, the Bishnois gladly visit the pilgrimage sites where their guru attained enlightenment, but on returning home, they would indulge not in similar austere practice, which would lead toward an ascetic enlightenment, but they would come back to their routine daily rituals, such as sandhyā and ārati. Lay Hindus keep fasts in a milder form than its ascetic versions, which are much more austere. Compared to lay Hindus, lay Jains’ fasts are much more austere. While lay Hindus would eat fruits and vegetables in their fasts, lay Jains avoid water and all kinds of food just as ascetics (Jaini 1979: 157–85).
