Jainism

The caves are Buddhist, Hindu and Jain together, cut over some four centuries.

Remembered by both Digambara and Svetambara traditions as the last shruta-kevalin, the last teacher who held the entire Jain canon in memory.

Jain monastics observe their own rain retreat over the same four months as Chaturmasya, adapted in form from the Hindu observance.

Gujarat holds a large Jain population and the temple complexes of Palitana and Girnar.

Jainism originated in and remains centered in India.

The tradition's liturgical, scriptural or ancestral language belongs to this family.

A Jain council was held at Mathura to recover the Svetambara scriptures after famine had scattered the community.

Jain influences from his Gujarati childhood, particularly on ahimsa.

The Jain canon is preserved in Ardhamagadhi and other Prakrits.

Tapas, ascetic austerity, is central to Jain monastic and lay practice and is enumerated as twelve specific forms in canonical and commentarial literature.

The Jain Network is constituted to advance the Jain religion and its communities' welfare, so linked to Jainism at the religion level.

The title is Jain and belongs to no other tradition, though Jain and Buddhist vocabularies share the word tirtha.

Veerayatan was founded and led for more than five decades by a Jain Acharya, and its own hospitals and schools carry the names of Jain Tirthankaras, so linked to Jainism at the religion level.

Jainism has no equivalent category, and anekantavada makes a single authorised formulation of truth difficult to construct in the first place.

Liberation as the soul shedding karmic matter entirely and rising to the top of the universe, retaining its individuality and its omniscience.

A contemporary sramana movement; Jain sources record Makkhali Gosala as having travelled for a time with Mahavira before their traditions diverged.

Vaishali and Pawapuri are central to Mahavira's life and death.

Shravanabelagola holds the colossal Bahubali statue.

Jain tradition knows the mountain above as Ashtapada, where the first tirthankara Rishabhanatha attained liberation.

The Dilwara and Ranakpur marble temples are major Jain sites.

Mahavira passed fourteen rainy seasons in the valley, and Jain temples stand on the surrounding hills.

Jain tradition places the birth of Mahavira at Kundagrama, a settlement attached to the city.

The council held here under Devarddhigani settled the Svetambara Agamas and committed them to writing.

The swastika is one of the auspicious symbols (ashtamangala) of Jainism.

Fills the ten-year gap since 1973's Leicester temple, the most recent event already on Jainism's map, with the tradition's next "first outside India" milestone, one that also reflects the Digambara-Svetambara split already recorded as this tradition's earliest event.

Adds a specific, dated milestone in Jain history between Jagatchandra Suri founding the Tapa Gaccha at Anandpur in 1228 and Jains building their first temple outside India, in Zanzibar, in 1905, both already recorded here: the Mughal emperor Akbar's 1583 conferral of the title Jagadguru on Hiravijaya Suri and his farman protecting Jain life during Paryushan.

Adds a specific, dated milestone in Jainism's history between the Svetambara canon's redaction at Valabhi in 453 and Jagatchandra Suri founding the Tapa Gaccha in 1228, both already recorded here: Chavundaraya's 981 CE consecration of the colossal Gommateshvara statue at Shravanabelagola, still the center of Jain pilgrimage in Karnataka.

Adds a specific, dated textual milestone between the Digambara-Svetambara split and Jagatchandra Suri founding the Tapa Gaccha in 1228, both already recorded here: Devarddhi-gani Kshamashramana convening Svetambara monks at Valabhi to write down the surviving Agamas for the first time, gaps and all, rather than let further oral transmission erode them.

Closes a 38-year gap since 1988's Jains Consecrate The First Temple In The West At Leicester, the most recent event already on Jainism's map, with the Indian government's own recognition of Jains as a national religious minority.

Closes a 12 year gap since 2014's India Grants Jains National Minority Status, the most recent event already on Jainism's map, with the same national government acting again, this time to protect the community's own holiest site from development.

Adds a specific, dated institutional milestone between the ancient Digambara Svetambara split and the community's nineteenth century arrival in Zanzibar already recorded here: the founding of the monastic lineage that grew into Svetambara Jainism's largest surviving order.

Closes a two year gap since 2023's citation of India halting tourism at Sammed Shikharji, moving the map from a dispute over access to a holy site in India to the diaspora's own institutional life in North America.

Adds a milestone in Digambara Jain history between Devarddhi-gani redacting the Svetambara canon at Valabhi in 453 and Chavundaraya consecrating the Gommateshvara statue at Shravanabelagola in 981, both already recorded here: Jinasena's composition of the Adipurana at the Rashtrakuta emperor Amoghavarsha's court, a foundational text of Jain Sanskrit literature completed after Jinasena's death by his disciple Gunabhadra.

Adds a milestone in Jainism's history between the Digambara-Svetambara split and Devarddhi-gani's redaction of the Svetambara canon at Valabhi in 453, both already recorded here: Kushan-era donative inscriptions at Mathura's Kankali Tila mound, dated to Kanishka's fifth and seventh regnal years and conventionally placed in the early 80s CE, recording named lay donors including a gift of a Vardhamana image.

Adds a milestone in Jainism's history in the Deccan between Devarddhi-gani redacting the Svetambara canon at Valabhi in 453 and Jinasena composing the Adipurana at Amoghavarsha's Rashtrakuta court in 850, both already recorded here: Ravikirti, a Jain scholar and minister at the Chalukya court, completing and dedicating the Meguti Jain temple at Aihole in 634.

The Ahimsa hand, bearing a wheel on the palm, is a symbol of Jain non-violence.

Its own text: "used in Buddhist and Jain iconography, though the two traditions do not share the same eight emblems."

Its own text: "a symbol of purity and spiritual unfolding shared across Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism."