The community's principal division is between the Digambara, the sky-clad, and the Svetambara, the white-clad. It emerged gradually over the early centuries of the Common Era rather than at a single moment, and the two traditions give different accounts of how it came about.
The visible difference is monastic dress. Digambara monks of the highest rank renounce clothing altogether, holding that complete non-possession admits no exception; Svetambara monks and nuns wear white cloth. Behind that lie deeper disagreements.
The canon is the largest of them. Svetambaras accept a body of scripture, the Agamas, as preserving the teaching, redacted at councils of which the last is traditionally placed at Valabhi. Digambaras hold that the original teaching was lost in transmission and do not accept that canon, relying instead on later works of their own lineage.
The liberation of women is the sharpest doctrinal split. Digambaras hold that liberation cannot be attained from a female birth, since the renunciation required includes nudity; Svetambaras hold that it can, and that the nineteenth Tirthankara, Malli, was a woman, a figure Digambaras identify as male. The two also differ over whether one who has attained omniscience still takes food, and over details of the lives of the Tirthankaras.
Each side has divided further. Within the Svetambara fold the Sthanakvasi and the Terapanth reject the worship of images as unsupported by the teaching, while the image-worshipping Murtipujaka remain the largest grouping; Digambaras have their own sub-traditions differing over ritual. For all this, both hold the same core account of soul, karma and liberation, both revere the same twenty-four Tirthankaras, and both venerate the same principal pilgrimage sites, control of which has at times been disputed between them.