The composite image was adopted in 1975 by a consensus of Jain sects, drawn together the previous year at the 2,500th anniversary observances of the nirvana of Mahavira, the tradition's twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara of the present era, when representative bodies of both Digambara and Svetambara Jainism agreed on a single common emblem for the first time in the religion's history. It is often shown within a larger outline shaped like the Jain cosmos (loka, conceived as a standing cosmic figure), topped by a crescent for the siddhashila, the abode of liberated souls, with three dots above the wheel for the three jewels of right faith, right knowledge and right conduct.
The motto usually printed beneath, Parasparopagraho Jivanam, all life is bound together in mutual support, is drawn from the Tattvartha Sutra, a foundational Jain text of the early centuries CE. The emblem is thus a deliberately ecumenical modern summary of a very old ethical system, not itself an ancient sign, and it now appears on Jain temples, publications and organisations worldwide, including in the sizeable Jain diaspora communities of North America, the United Kingdom and East Africa, where it serves the same identifying function a cross or crescent serves for other faiths abroad.