ABSTRACT
Jains venerate the satīs (“virtuous women”) as mytho-historical exemplars for celibate nuns and monks, as well as chaste laywomen. The religious and heroic guṇas (“qualities”) of these satīs, the most important of which is the quality of chastity, are eulogized in hagiographic literature, as well as in rituals of worship and prayer such as the preaching of renouncers, the confession and repentance of sins, hymns, fasts, and religious dramas. Jain acts of worship and prayer are often characterized by emulation, veneration, praise, and/or inspirational narration, and this is how Jains worship mytho-historical and contemporary satīs. Jains worship the satīs in the sense that they also worship the founders of Jainism, the Tırthankaras (also called Jinas), for the purposes of earning good karma and developing their virtues as enumerated and described in the context of narrative events. Those women who are considered successful in this process of emulation, by being faithful wives or becoming nuns, thereby become worthy of worship themselves as contemporary satīs.
