Jainism constitutes one of India’s three classical religions, the others being Buddhism and Hinduism. Though older than Buddhism by a generation, Jainism has much in common with it. Both arose and were first spread in northeastern India. Both aim to lead their followers away from the painful cycle of endless rebirths (samsara) and toward the liberation from all suffering (nirvana). Both also rejected many of the practices and ideas of early Hinduism, particularly the religion’s ritual sacrifice of animals, preaching instead a doctrine of non-violence. Today the commitment to an ethic that regards all life—animal and human—as inviolate continues to be the heart of Jain practice and belief.

The exhibition Victorious Ones: Jain Images of Perfection is centered on images of the founding figures of Jainism, the Jinas, also known as the “Conquerors” or Tirthankaras. These important religious figures, despite their having achieved liberation from the world in which we live, are believed to be accessible to humans as objects of devotion. Thus many Jains worship images of the Jinas and believe that they can be found in different sacred spaces throughout the universe. In addition to fine examples of painting and sculpture depicting the Jinas, Victorious Ones will also present these spaces that the Jinas sanctify, including painted maps of the Jain universe, depictions of famous pilgrimage sites, beautiful domestic shrines, and ritual diagrams (yantras) that were made of both durable and ephemeral materials.

The full press release (PDF) and this essay (DOC) on Jain art and architecture may provide some useful background. (As a side note, the cover of Swadharma shows a Jain temple in Shankeshwar, Gujarat.)

The exhibition will last from September 18, 2009 to February 15, 2010. The Rubin Museum is located at the intersection of 17th St. and 7th Ave (directions).

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Can complete detachment exist when there is no moral framework?

To answer this question, we must first distinguish between two types of detachment in this example:

1. Detachment from the fruits of one’s actions.
2. Action without a plan, which is equivalent to detachment from purpose (if there exists a purpose, by definition there must exist a goal, and a goal is the most basic plan possible).

Detachment from the fruits of one’s actions is one part of the Hindu concept of detachment. As Krishna tells Arjuna:

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.(Bhagavad Gita, 2.47, emphasis added)

While this type of detachment typically receives the most attention, it is not enough:

Not by merely abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from reaction, nor by renunciation alone can one attain perfection. (Bhagavad Gita, 3.4, emphasis added)

In fact, Krishna explicitly warns Arjuna against detachment from fruitive action combined with detachment from purpose:

That action which is regulated, without attachment, like or dislike and done without desiring the result is said to be of goodness. But that work which is done in hot pursuit, identified with the material, or again is done with a lot of pressure; that is said to be in the mode of passion. But that work which is after attachment, is destructive, causes distress and has no regard for the consequences or is begun being mistaken about ones own capacity; that is said to be of ignorance. (Bhagavad Gita, 18.23-25, emphasis added)

In other words, detachment in Hinduism has two components: detachment from fruitive action guided by attachment to purpose. Of course, any attachment to purpose will not do. Purpose must be aligned with duty — that is, dharma:

But with all these activities must without doubt, performing them out of duty, the association with their results be given up; that, o son of Prithâ, is My last and best word on it. (Bhagavad Gita, 18.6, emphasis added)

Therefore, if we define detachment as detachment from fruitive action guided by attachment to duty, I argue that the answer to our original question is a resounding “no”.

So in what sense is the Joker attached?

1. Detachment from fruitive action. I do not think the Joker is detached from the fruits of his actions at all. Consider his quote “If you are good at something, never do it for free” — this is hardly what we would expect to hear from someone who performs actions without any hope of gain. Even the rhetorical climax that Saketh cites is an example of the Joker’s attachment to fruitive action — he gets pleasure out of showing others the futility of their plans.
2. Detachment from duty. While the Joker is not detached from purpose — he cannot possibly be attached to fruitive action and detached from purpose — purpose and duty are clearly not aligned since his action lacks morality.

But this is attachment to fruitive action guided by detachment from duty — the exact opposite of detachment in Hinduism. Therein lies the horror of the Joker’s character: he is truly the ultimate villain.

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The Joker, created in 1940 at DC Comics, is Batman’s archnemesis. Different writers have sculpted him in different ways over the years, varying from an offbeat gangster with a penchant for jokes, to a complete (and thereby shallow) madman. But most vivid and most realistic among all of these approaches was Ledger’s thundering portrayal in The Dark Knight.

The stunning realism of Ledger’s performance is what struck me while watching the film. Somehow, the movie makes us believe that such a psychotic man can exist, and that belief gives the movie its chill. That’s why, when the movie heightens to its rhetorical climax, and the Joker delivers a monologue about scheming and chaos, the words bite.

“Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don’t have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do if I caught one. I just do things. I’m a wrench in the gears. I hate plans. Yours, theirs, everyone’s. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”

The Joker, no doubt, is a repulsive madman. Somehow, though, here I found a glimpse of ascetic truth, about how much “scheming” I do in my daily life. Thinking about the future, thinking about the past — not thinking about the present, instead thinking about what I can get, where I can go, what I can do. The Joker calls himself a “dog,” doing without scheming — acting without hope for profit. He simply acts without a plan and has no attachment to the future, the past, or to anyone or anything in his present. He is, in that sense, a karma yogi.

This film — this scene in particular — was an artistic call to remember how much more effective we can be when we don’t have a plan, like the Taoist aphorism that the unaimed arrow never misses. With every scene where we see the fruits of karma yoga in the Joker’s twisted brilliance, we are reminded about the power of this yogic force of being detached. As Krishna says in the Gita [BG 2:48], “perform your activities giving up attachment.” Certainly, the Joker has his various plots and connivances in the movie, trying to destroy various things and people, but — and this is where Ledger was brilliant — he never comes across as attached to what’s going to happen. Even when Batman’s beating him up, or his truck is knocked over, or something fails to explode, he keeps on doing, without attachment.

That is where the Joker’s mesmerizing power comes from — everyone else in the film is constantly worrying about what’s going to happen, attached to their loved ones and to notions of justice, doing things and praying to God that they work. But Joker trudges on with a few bullets and oil drums, and wreaks havoc on the schemers. He never fails, because he never cares. Of everyone in Gotham City, Joker is the most ascetic. That is why we are drawn to him.

When I started writing this post, putting this popular quotation here, writing a little bit about how it relates to other things, I thought it trite, connecting popular art with intellectual thought, like lonely books I’ve seen at the bookstore titled X and Philosophy. Then I realized that this is when art is at its most valuable. Certainly, art entertains, makes us feel. But when art causes us to question what we think, and spurs thought unto fundamental truths…it gains incomparable meaning. It is hard to find such works — harder still that one’s epiphany might be another’s soap opera. Yet it is heartening, that in consuming art in all its various forms, we have the opportunity to think about these things, and perhaps even find a masterpiece that teaches us, which we can then cherish warmly for the rest of our thinking lives.

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