Jainism and the Spirit of Capitalism? Foreign and Vernacular Practices of Comparison

This paper revisits the works of Max Weber, particularly The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism alongside his Religions of India, to ask what is at stake in comparing the Jains to other groups. As Alan Babb has argued, Weber never actually asserts that the Jains are the Protestants of India; nevertheless, the comparison persists. Based on fieldwork conducted from 2018-2023, attention is then drawn to vernacular practices of comparison between Jains and other foreign groups by Jains and non-Jains alike: comparisons that often involve a theological dimension, but rest on sociological assumptions about both Jains and the nature of commerce itself. These comparisons reveal the continuing salience of the caste category baniya, glossed by the Subaltern Studies scholar David Hardiman as “usurer,” for understanding contemporary Jain communities, as well as the economic system that they are the “spirit” of.