13 - The Renouncer's Staff: triviṃṭabdha, tridaṇḍa, and ekadaṇḍa

Summary

A stick carried in the hand is one of the more interesting themes in the history of religions. Gods and kings, priests and holy men, carry an assortment of sticks: scepter, mace, wand, baton, and the like. Many studies have examined the religious and practical significance of carrying a staff. In ancient India the best known examples are associated with the Vedic sacrificer (yajamāna) and the Vedic student (brahmacārin). Both carry staffs made of different wood corresponding to their varṇa. The Gṛhya and the Dharma literature contain rules that govern every aspect of their manufacture and use.

It comes as no surprise then that the staff is also associated in India with holy men. Literary, inscriptional, and art-historical sources indicate that hermits in the woods as well as itinerant mendicants carried staffs.

Already in Pāṇini we find the term maskarin, staff bearer, as an epithet for a renouncer. Gosāla, the founder of the Ājīvikas, also had the epithet maskarin, and the carrying of a single bamboo staff was a hallmark of Ājīvika ascetics (Basham 1951: 99-100). Jain sources indicate that Jain monks used a variety of staffs and sticks for several purposes. One type bearing the technical term daṇḍa was used as a walking stick during begging (Deo 1956, 273–74). Buddhist Sanskrit literature uses the term khakkhara for a monk's staff. In none of the other ascetic traditions, however, did the staff assume the centrality that it did in the Brahmanical tradition.