The Root of Jain Ethics

Ahimsa is the first and governing vow from which the others flow, and it shapes the whole of Jain life, from vegetarian discipline to the deliberate avoidance of violent livelihoods. The principle underlies the five great vows (mahavratas) taken in full by ascetics and the corresponding lesser vows (anuvratas) taken in a moderated form by the laity, who remain embedded in ordinary economic and family life and cannot practice non-harm with an ascetic's completeness.

The two major Jain sects, Digambara and Svetambara, agree entirely on ahimsa's supremacy but differ on some of its practical and doctrinal implications; Digambara ascetics, whose name means sky-clad, renounce clothing altogether as the fullest expression of non-attachment, while Svetambara ascetics wear white robes, and the sects have historically disagreed over related questions, including whether a soul in a female body can attain liberation in that same lifetime. Ahimsa's thoroughgoing extension to the smallest lives, tied to the physical conception of karma as fine matter that acts of harm draw onto the soul, marks it as distinctively and characteristically Jain, and it made Jainism a historic wellspring of the wider Indian ethic of non-violence that would later influence figures and movements well outside the Jain community itself.