Ahimsa is a shared Indian ethical term, catalogued in this atlas as a doctrine Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism all hold, but Jain practice takes the vow to a stringency the other two traditions do not attempt, extending it beyond harm to humans and large animals to cover the smallest and least visible forms of life the tradition recognises, down to the single sensed beings, ekendriya, held to inhabit earth, water, fire, air and plant matter itself. As the first of the five mahavratas, the great vows a fully initiated Jain monk or nun undertakes without qualification, ahimsa governs an entire visible discipline of conduct: sweeping the path before walking to avoid crushing insects, straining drinking water, avoiding travel and eating after dark when unintentional harm is hardest to see, and, in its most demanding form, the vow of sallekhana, a monitored fast unto death undertaken only at the end of life to avoid even the violence of decay overtaking an unprepared body.
Lay Jains observe a lesser version of the same vow, anuvrata, permitting the unavoidable violence ordinary householding requires while still shaping diet, occupation and daily practice around minimising it, a graded structure the Tattvartha Sutra itself distinguishes explicitly as mahavrata for the monastic and anuvrata for the lay follower.