The division between Digambara, sky-clad, and Svetambara, white-clad, Jainism centers most visibly on a question of monastic dress. Digambara monks, though not nuns, practice complete nudity, understood within that tradition as the fullest expression of non-attachment, since clothing itself represents a possession and a barrier the fully realized ascetic has no need to maintain. Svetambara monks and nuns wear simple white robes, and the tradition holds that complete nudity is not a necessary condition for spiritual advancement.
The two communities differ on more than dress. Digambara teaching holds that women cannot achieve liberation in a female body and must be reborn male first, since female physiology is held to preclude the total renunciation nudity represents, a position Svetambara Jainism rejects, holding that women can and have achieved liberation as women, citing Mallinatha, the nineteenth Tirthankara, whom Svetambara tradition holds to have been female. The communities also maintain separate scriptural canons, with Digambara Jainism holding that the original canon was lost centuries ago and Svetambara Jainism maintaining a continuous, though periodically redacted, textual tradition.
These differences extend into temple practice and image iconography, where Digambara Tirthankara images are shown unclothed and without ornament, while Svetambara images are typically adorned and, in some cases, shown with eyes inlaid in glass or crystal, a visible marker most visitors can use to distinguish the two traditions' temples at a glance.