Cort, John E.2019-09-252019-09-252013-12-1720131748-1074http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/197957The springtime festival of Holī has long posed a problem for Jains. Jain ideologues have criticized the celebration of Holī as contravening several key Jain ethical virtues. In response, Digambar Jain poets developed a genre of Holī songs that transformed the elements of Holī into a complex spiritual allegory, and thereby “tamed” the transgressive festival. This essay analyzes the six Holī songs (pad) by the poet Budhjan (fl. CE 1778-1838) of Jaipur. An investigation of this Digambar genre of Holī songs encourages us to see that many of the “Hindu” Holī songs from this same period were also engaged in a process of reframing and taming Holī. Both Hindu and Jain songs translated its antinomian and transgressive elements into softer, less threatening sets of metaphors specific to their spiritual traditions.engCreative Commons Copyright (CC 2.5)JainismReligious ethicsArticle