The transformational model of linguistics has proven illuminating in understanding certain aspects of language. With the hope that a comparable model of analysis for other cultural systems may also prove useful, I discuss in this paper a theoretical model for an ethnology of religion that is analogous to the transformational model of linguistics in its assumptions, goals, and structure. Such a theoretical model is applied to analyze a part of Jainism. [India, religion, Jainism, ethnoscience, transformational theory]
