ABSTRACT
The result of this abandonment of previous ritually orientated habits was that the moral structure of Banårs⁄dås’s life temporarily collapsed. He fell in with three cronies, passing the time with them in performing dubious pranks and mockeries of religion, such as stripping naked in private and pretending to be Digambara monks, and his generally irreverent behaviour led to the dissipation of his credibility as a Jain and a businessman. By 1636, however, Banårs⁄dås had begun to make sense of the two different approaches to the Jain religion to which he had been exposed in the course of his life. A famous scholar who had come to Agra expounded at the request of the members of the Ådhyåtmika movement a celebrated Digambara doctrinal digest called the ‘Essence of Gomma†a’ (Gomma†asåra).
