This research paper explores the dynamic relationship between dietary practices (foodways), philosophical nonviolence (ahiṃsā), and the construction of religious identity within the Jain tradition ^[3]. In Jainism, eating is not treated as a mere physiological necessity or a secular cultural habit. Rather, it functions as a primary ethical technology and an embodied ascetic practice through which the ultimate soteriological goal of spiritual liberation (mokṣa) is systematically realized ^[3].
By examining classical canonical literature-including the Puruṣārthasiddhyupāya, Daśavaikālika Sūtra, Ācārāṅga Sūtra, Tattvārtha Sūtra, and Mūlācāra alongside modern anthropological fieldwork, this paper analyzes how microscopic avoidance rules, nocturnal fasting (rātribhojana-tyāga), root vegetable proscriptions (kandamūla-varjana), and monastic alms protocols (piṇḍaiṣaṇā) structure daily life ^[4].
Special analytical focus is placed on the gendered division of domestic labor. The paper demonstrates how laywomen (śrāvikās) serve as the custodians of dietary purity in the domestic kitchen, generating auspicious spiritual merit (puṇya) that counterbalances the inevitable worldly compromises of male commerce ^[7]. Furthermore, it investigates how bodily fasting disciplines (tapas) like āyambila provide women with moral agency and spiritual authority ^[7].