ABSTRACT
This fluidity of religious adherence is reflected in the questions raised in the course of the last century and a half by outside observers about Jain identity and the status of the Jain religion, most particularly in two contexts: legal judgements and the censuses organised under the British Raj. Many British judges in the nineteenth century had no doubts about the independent nature and origin of Jainism. As early as 1847, it was stated by one that the Jains, along with other religious minorities such as the Sikhs and the Parsees, had ‘nothing or next to nothing in common with brahmanical worship’, while in 1874 another argued that Jains could not be subject to Hindu law since ‘the term Hindoos means persons within the purview of the shastras, which shastras are at the bottom of Hindu law. If a person is out of that purview, Hindoo law cannot be applied to him’.5
