Religion

Jainism

JY-niz-um

Dharmic

Origin 600 BCE to 400 BCE

Jainism holds that the universe is uncreated and eternal, that every living thing is a soul, jiva, and that souls are bound in rebirth by karma, understood not as a moral ledger but as a fine material substance that action attracts and that adheres to the soul. Liberation is the stripping away of that accumulation, and it is achieved by conduct: nonviolence, truthfulness, not taking what is not given, chastity and non-possession. Jains do not regard the tradition as founded. They hold it eternal, taught afresh in each age by a series of twenty-four Tirthankaras, of whom Mahavira, a contemporary of the Buddha, was the last. Adherents number in the low millions and are concentrated in India.

History & Origin

Jain tradition holds its teaching to have been renewed in the current cosmic cycle by a succession of twenty four tirthankaras, the last being Mahavira in the sixth century BCE, though the tradition itself is presented as eternal rather than founded by him.

Facts

Belief

Supreme Being

Jain cosmology has no creator god; liberated souls, jinas or tirthankaras, are venerated as having achieved omniscience and freedom from karma, but none is held to have created the universe. 2

Theology

Non-theistic: no creator god is central 1

Transgression Category

Himsa, injury to living beings, is Jainism's principal category of wrongdoing, and avoiding it in thought, word and deed is the tradition's foremost ethical demand. 2

Reach

Adherents Today

from 4,000,000 4

This fact read 4,451,753, which is India's own 2011 census count of Jains in that country alone, not a worldwide figure. Jains also live in Britain, North America, East Africa and elsewhere, and the atlas's own article on the community today already states the census figure correctly as an India-only count. Corrected to the bottom of the four to five million range given by Encyclopaedia Britannica and by current published population estimates.

Adherents Today

to 5,000,000 4

This fact read 4,451,753, which is India's own 2011 census count of Jains in that country alone, not a worldwide figure. Jains also live in Britain, North America, East Africa and elsewhere, and the atlas's own article on the community today already states the census figure correctly as an India-only count. Corrected to the top of the four to five million range given by Encyclopaedia Britannica and by current published population estimates.

Adherents Today

Encyclopaedia Britannica estimates worldwide Jain adherents at roughly 4 to 5 million, a range consistent with both the 2011 Census of India's national count of about 4.45 million and the World Religion Database's higher 2021 global estimate of about 5.3 million, which extrapolates for the Jain diaspora outside India that a national census cannot capture. 4

Origins

Origin Period

600 BCE to 400 BCE 1

Origin Period

Jain tradition reckons the lineage of Tirthankaras far older 1

Place of Origin

The middle Ganges plain of north-eastern India 1

Founder

Jain tradition counts him the last of twenty-four Tirthankaras rather than a founder 1

Founder

Mahavira (Vardhamana) 1

Practice

Practice Status

Living, and practised in varied local forms 5

the subject's own accountJain scripture and philosophy are published and taught openly, including to non-Jain scholars, and Jain temples generally welcome visitors. No closed initiatory core withholding outside description is documented for the tradition as a whole; monastic ordination is a public rite of renunciation rather than a secret transmission.

Trajectory

Membership Over Timethe subject's own account

India's 2001 Census of India counted 4,225,053 Jains, 0.41 percent of the national population, an actual census count under the country's religion-community tables. 8

Membership Over Timethe subject's own account

India's 2011 Census of India counted 4,451,753 Jains, but only 0.37 percent of a larger national population, so the Jain share of India fell even as the raw count grew from 2001. 8

Membership Over Time

The World Religion Database, edited by Gina A. Zurlo, estimates the worldwide Jain population at approximately 5.3 million as of 2021, noticeably higher than India's own census count alone because it extrapolates the global diaspora that a national census by definition cannot count. 9

Membership Figure As Ofthe subject's own account

2001-01-01 8

Membership Figure As Ofthe subject's own account

2011-01-01 8

Membership Figure As Of

2021-01-01 9

Basis of the Membership Figurethe subject's own account

National Census 8

Basis of the Membership Figure

Scholarly or Demographic Estimate 9

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 1

Legal Status

India: notified a national minority 27 January 2014 under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 3

The Government of India notified the Jain community as a national minority on 27 January 2014 under Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, making Jains the sixth community to hold that status after Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis, a recognition that secures Jain-run educational institutions specific constitutional protections under Article 30 even though the notification followed decades of Jain organisations petitioning for recognition as a religion distinct from Hinduism rather than a Hindu sect.

Giving

Standing Giving Expectationthe subject's own account

Jain doctrine names four kinds of gift under the heading chaturvidha dana: ahara-dana (food), aushadhi-dana (medicine), abhaya-dana (protection or freedom from fear) and shastra-dana (knowledge, historically the gift of scripture or its teaching). The first of these, offering food to a wandering mendicant who by vow owns no cooking vessel, is formalized beyond a general ethic into one of the vows a lay Jain formally undertakes, atithi-samvibhaga-vrata, "the vow of sharing with a guest," grounded in the earliest Jain textual and oral tradition. Maria Heim's Theories of the Gift in South Asia traces how Jain thinkers, alongside Hindu and Buddhist ones, worked through whether such giving is owed as duty or chosen as merit, because the Jain textual tradition itself holds it as both: a named vow formally taken, fulfilled without any fixed rate, quantity or schedule stated for how much a layperson must give, and gaining merit rather than carrying a stated penalty for falling short. No institution stands over the Jain laity to enforce the vow or to specify its scale; a Jain who gives little loses no formal standing, and the textual record itself sets no percentage. 6

How the Expectation Is Enforced

Obligation to Support, No Set Rate 7

Learn More

Ahimsa, and What It Requires

Ahimsa is usually translated as nonviolence, but the Jain version is a claim about what is alive rather than a rule about how to treat people. Every jiva, every soul, is an entity in its own right, and souls are held to be present not only in humans and animals but in plants and in the bodies of earth, water, fire and air. Beings are classified by how many senses they possess, from the one-sensed upward, and harm to a being with more senses is graver than harm to one with fewer, but nothing is outside the reckoning.

The practical consequence is a discipline of restraint rather than a prohibition that can ever be fully satisfied. Jains hold that living necessarily involves harm and that the obligation is to reduce it. Observant lay Jains are vegetarian; many avoid root vegetables, on the ground that uprooting the plant destroys it and disturbs the organisms in the soil; many filter water and avoid eating after dark. Occupations involving killing or large-scale destruction are traditionally avoided, which is part of why Jain communities have historically concentrated in trade, finance and the professions.

Ascetics take the same five vows in a stricter form: nonviolence, truthfulness, not taking what is not given, chastity and non-possession, held as mahavratas, great vows, where lay people hold them as anuvratas, lesser vows scaled to a life in the world. Monks and nuns of some orders sweep the ground before them as they walk and wear a cloth over the mouth to avoid harming very small creatures.

Ahimsa governs speech and thought as well as action, and it underwrites anekantavada, the doctrine that reality has many aspects and that any single account of it is partial, which Jains present as a kind of intellectual nonviolence, a refusal to do violence to another view by treating one's own as complete.

Digambara and Svetambara

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.

Many-Sidedness, and the Community Now

Jains are a small community. The Indian census of 2011 recorded about 4.5 million, roughly 0.4 per cent of the population, with the largest concentrations in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka, and a diaspora in Britain, North America, East Africa and elsewhere. Recorded literacy and income sit well above the Indian average, a pattern usually connected to the community's long concentration in commerce.

Its influence has been out of proportion to its size. The Jain elaboration of nonviolence entered wider Indian thought early and has been drawn on repeatedly since. Jain patronage produced major architecture, including the marble temples at Mount Abu, the hilltop complex at Shatrunjaya and the monolithic figure at Shravanabelagola, along with manuscript libraries that preserved works other traditions lost.

Anekantavada, the doctrine of many-sidedness, is the tradition's distinctive contribution to Indian philosophy. It holds that any statement about reality is made from a standpoint and holds only with respect to it, and it is formalised in syadvada, the practice of qualifying assertions accordingly. It is not relativism: Jains hold that there is a truth of the matter, and only that no single partial view captures it.

Contemporary questions include the maintenance of a mendicant order under modern conditions, since Jain ascetics travel on foot and do not use vehicles, and the legal status of sallekhana, the practice of fasting to death undertaken at the end of life or in the face of unavoidable decline. An Indian high court held it unlawful in 2015 and the Supreme Court stayed that ruling the same year. Jains distinguish it from suicide on the ground that it is undertaken without passion and requires the sanction of a teacher; the point remains contested outside the community.

Jainism

1 entry

Originates In Language

Language

Doctrinal Status

Kind of realm

Siddhashila

Jainism

Spread History

Marker size and shape show how established Jainism was there: a small filled dot for an arrival, a larger one for an established or dominant presence, and a hollow, distinct marker where it was suppressed or nearly disappeared, never simply absent.

1 event has a recorded place with no map coordinate yet, so it is not marked above: Chavundaraya Consecrates the Gommateshvara Statue at Shravanabelagola (Shravanabelagola).

View the Full Spread Map

Jain Monks Migrate South To Karnataka In A FamineKarnataka, 324 BCE to 297 BCE, Arrived
The Digambara-Svetambara Split Is CompletedIndia, 1 to 454, Established
Kushan-Era Inscriptions at Mathura Date Jainism's Earliest Named CommunityIndia, 82, Established
Devarddhi-gani Redacts the Svetambara Canon at ValabhiIndia, 453, Established
Ravikirti Dedicates the Meguti Jain Temple at AiholeKarnataka, 634, Established
Jinasena Composes the Adipurana at Amoghavarsha's Rashtrakuta CourtKarnataka, 850, Established
Chavundaraya Consecrates the Gommateshvara Statue at ShravanabelagolaShravanabelagola, 981, Established
Jagatchandra Suri Founds the Tapa GacchaRajasthan, 1228, Established
Akbar Confers the Title Jagadguru on Hiravijaya SuriIndia, 1583, Established
Jains Build The First Temple Outside India In ZanzibarTanzania, 1905, Established
Zanzibar's Revolution Displaces Its Jain TempleTanzania, 1964, Suppressed
Idi Amin's Expulsion Scatters East Africa's JainsUganda, 1972, Suppressed
Jains Consecrate The First Temple In The West At LeicesterUnited Kingdom, 1973 to 1988, Established
Acharya Sushil Kumarji Founds Siddhachalam, The First Jain Tirtha Outside IndiaUnited States, 1983 to 2012, Established
India Grants Jains National Minority StatusIndia, 2014, Established
India's Government Halts Tourism at the Jain Site of Sammed ShikharjiIndia, 2023, Established
JAINA Holds Its Twenty Third Biennial Convention in ChicagoUnited States, 2025, Established

Denominations of Jainism

Correspondences & Relations

Pantheons

Jain

Connections

Also Functions As

Ellora Caves

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

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Associated With

Ashtamangala

Source Introduction to Tibetan BuddhismJohn Powers

Bhadrabahu

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

Source Bhadrabahu (reference article)Wikipedia contributors

Chaturmasya

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

Source Encyclopedia of HinduismDenise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.)

Gujarat

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

India

Jainism originated in and remains centered in India.

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Indo-Iranian

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

Lotus (Padma)

Source An Introduction to HinduismGavin Flood

Mathura

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

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Mauryan Empire

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Jain influences from his Gujarati childhood, particularly on ahimsa.

Muhpatti

Prakrit

The Jain canon is preserved in Ardhamagadhi and other Prakrits.

Rajoharan

Sthanak

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

World Parliament of Religions

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

Founded By

Mahavira

Why this is disputed. Jain tradition itself does not call Mahavira a founder: it holds the faith eternal and names him the twenty-fourth and last of a lineage of tirthankaras, a reformer and reviver rather than an originator. Parshvanatha, the twenty-third tirthankara, has independent evidence placing him roughly two and a half centuries earlier, which some historians accept as pointing to an older tradition Mahavira inherited rather than began.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of World ReligionsJohn Bowker (ed.)

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Abhinandananatha

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Abhisheka

Source A Survey of HinduismKlaus K. Klostermaier

Acharya

Source An Introduction to HinduismGavin Flood

Acharya of the Shvetambara Terapanth

The Terapanth is a Svetambara Jain tradition; its single-Acharya governance is a documented distinguishing feature within Jainism.

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Agamas

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Ahimsa

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Ahimsa (Nonviolence)

Source Tattvartha SutraUmaswati

Ahimsa (nonviolence)

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Ahimsa Hand

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Ahimsa in the extreme

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Ahimsa: Non-Violence (1987)

A documentary built specifically to chronicle Jain philosophy and practice, drawing its whole structure from interviews with living Jain leaders rather than treating Jainism as one example among several.

Source American Archive of Public Broadcasting, "Ahimsa: Non-Violence" Catalog Record

Ajitanatha

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Ajiva

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Ambika

Anantanatha

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Anekantavada

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Anuvrata (Jain Lay Vows)

Aparigraha

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Aparigraha (Non-Possession)

Source Tattvartha SutraUmaswati

Aranatha

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Arham

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Arihant

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Aryika

Asteya (Non-Stealing)

Source Tattvartha SutraUmaswati

Avasarpini and Utsarpini

Ayambil

Source Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in IndiaJohn E. Cort

Bahubali and Bharata

The Bahubali and Bharata narrative is foundational Jain hagiography, commemorated at Shravanabelagola and recounted in Jain Puranic literature.

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Bhadrabahu

Source Bhadrabāhu (Wikipedia)

Bhagavati Sutra

Source The Svetambara Jain AgamasAnonymous (Jain tradition)

Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (Jaipur Foot)

BMVSS was founded in 1975 explicitly to commemorate the 2500th anniversary of the nirvana of Bhagwan Mahavira, Jainism's twenty-fourth Tirthankara, and its founder has stated the organization's work continues his teaching of compassion for all beings, so linked to Jainism at the religion level.

Source 50 Years of BMVSS: How the Jaipur Limb Parent Company Rehabilitated 2.3 Million Since Inception (The Federal)The Federal (staff report)

Bhaktamara Stotra

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Brahmacharya (Chastity)

Source Tattvartha SutraUmaswati

Brahmi

Early Jain inscriptions, including cave epigraphs, were written in Brahmi script.

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Butter Lamp

Source Encyclopedia of HinduismDenise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.)

Candle and lamp lighting

Jain households light the diya at dusk and in quantity at Diwali.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Celibacy / Monasticism

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Chakravartin

Source The Princeton Dictionary of BuddhismRobert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.

Chandraprabha

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Cremation

Source Garuda PuranaAnonymous

Das Lakshana Parva

Source The Jaina Path of PurificationPadmanabh S. Jaini

Dashavaikalika Sutra

Source The Svetambara Jain AgamasAnonymous (Jain tradition)

Dharma

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Dharma Wheel

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Dharmanatha

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Digambara

Digambara Monastic Order

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Dilwara Temples

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Diwali

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Dushama

Dushama-dushama

The sixth and harshest ara of the avasarpini, still to come, after which the ascending utsarpini half begins the same six ara in reverse.

Source Cycles of Time (Jainpedia)No individual author named; content credited to Professor Nalini Balbir

Showing 1 to 50 of 182 in Objects and Practices of This Tradition, page 1 of 4.

Originated In

India

Source New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia: Jainism

Position On

Heresy

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

Moksha

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

Principal Tradition Of

Bihar

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Deccan

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Gujarat

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Indian Subcontinent

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Karnataka

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Rajasthan

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Tamil Nadu

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Uttar Pradesh

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Related To

Ajivika

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

Reveres

Source Sudharmaswami (Wikipedia)

Sumatinatha

Suparshvanatha

Umaswati

Source Umaswati (Wikipedia)

Vasupujya

Vimalanatha

Sacred to This Deity

Bihar

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

India

Source India (Wikipedia)

Karnataka

Shravanabelagola holds the colossal Bahubali statue.

Lake Manasarovar

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

Source Kailas Histories: Renunciate Traditions and the Construction of Himalayan Sacred GeographyAlex McKay

Rajasthan

The Dilwara and Ranakpur marble temples are major Jain sites.

Rajgir

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

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Vaishali

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

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Valabhi

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

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Shared Myth-Motif

Swastika

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

Source The Science of the SwastikaBernard Mees

Spread Events

Acharya Sushil Kumarji Founds Siddhachalam, The First Jain Tirtha Outside India

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.

Source About Siddhachalam (Siddhachalam.org)

Akbar Confers the Title Jagadguru on Hiravijaya Suri

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.

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Chavundaraya Consecrates the Gommateshvara Statue at Shravanabelagola

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.

Source Shravanabelagola (Karnataka Tourism, Government of Karnataka)

Devarddhi-gani Redacts the Svetambara Canon at Valabhi

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.

Source Devarddhi-gani: Canon Redaction at Valabhi (Jainpedia)

Idi Amin's Expulsion Scatters East Africa's Jains

Source Jainism In Africa (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

India Grants Jains National Minority Status

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.

Source Jains in India Get Minority Status (Al Jazeera)

India's Government Halts Tourism at the Jain Site of Sammed Shikharji

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.

Source Sammed Shikharji Eco Sensitive Zone Tourism Stay (Press Information Bureau, Government of India)

Jagatchandra Suri Founds the Tapa Gaccha

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.

Source Gaccha (Encyclopedia.com)

Jain Monks Migrate South To Karnataka In A Famine

Source Digambara (Encyclopaedia Britannica)The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

JAINA Holds Its Twenty Third Biennial Convention in Chicago

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.

Source JAINA Convention 2025 (JAINA)

Jains Build The First Temple Outside India In Zanzibar

Source Zanzibar Derasar (Jain Treasures)Jain Treasures

Jains Consecrate The First Temple In The West At Leicester

Source Jainism In The United Kingdom (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Jinasena Composes the Adipurana at Amoghavarsha's Rashtrakuta Court

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.

Source Paul Dundas, The Jains (Routledge, Second Edition)Paul Dundas

Kushan-Era Inscriptions at Mathura Date Jainism's Earliest Named Community

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.

Source Vincent A. Smith, The Jain Stupa and Other Antiquities of Mathura (Archaeological Survey of India, 1901)Vincent A. Smith

Ravikirti Dedicates the Meguti Jain Temple at Aihole

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.

Source The Jain Temple of Meguti (Archaeological Survey of India, Dharwad Circle)

The Digambara-Svetambara Split Is Completed

Source Digambara (Encyclopaedia Britannica)The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Zanzibar's Revolution Displaces Its Jain Temple

Source Zanzibar Derasar (Jain Treasures)Jain Treasures

Symbolized By

Ahimsa Hand

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

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Ashtamangala

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

Source Introduction to Tibetan BuddhismJohn Powers

Lotus (Padma)

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

Source An Introduction to HinduismGavin Flood

Theological Position

Nontheism

Worship Of

Ambika

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Chakreshvari

Source The JainsPaul Dundas

Padmavati

Source Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in IndiaJohn E. Cort

In the Other Atlases

Origin Of

Jain Vegetarianism (Jain Dietary Law)

Also in Food and Drink Atlas: which originated in this subject.

Sources

1. The Jains

Paul Dundas, Routledge, 2002View the Source

2. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India

John E. Cort, Oxford University Press, 2001View the Source

3. International Religious Freedom Report

United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source

4. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)

Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source

5. Wikipedia, Jainism (source)

Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia

6. Wikipedia, "Dana (Religion)"

Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia, 2026Lead section

Quote, Lead section

Dana is a Sanskrit and Pali word that connotes the virtue of generosity, charity or giving of alms, in Indian religions and philosophies. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, dana is the practice of cultivating generosity.

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7. Giving Alms (Jainpedia)

Jainpedia, the Institute of Jainology (jainpedia.org)Article body

Quote, Article body

Lay people offering food or alms to mendicants is a basic aspect of the broader concept of giving, dana, in Jain belief and the most valuable in practice.

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8. Religion Data of Census 2011: Jains

Centre for Policy Studies India, 2016View the Source

9. World Religion Database

Gina A. Zurlo (editor), Brill, hosted by the Association of Religion Data ArchivesView the Source

Encyclopedia of Religion

Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. JainismView the Source

Census of India 2011

Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, 2011Population by religious community, 2011View the Source

The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions

John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997View the Source

Bhadrabahu (reference article)

Wikipedia contributorsLead section

Quote, Lead section

He was the last Shrutakevali. He is widely known as the spiritual guru of Chandragupta Maurya.

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Enthroned Jina, Probably Neminatha, accession 2008.279 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Metropolitan Museum of ArtObjects and Practices of This Tradition: Enthroned Jina, Probably Neminatha (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008.279), accession 2008.279View the Source

Tirthankara Suparsvanatha in Kayotsarga, Harvard Art Museums (2012.193)

Harvard Art MuseumsObjects and Practices of This Tradition: Tirthankara Suparsvanatha in Kayotsarga (Harvard Art Museums), Harvard Art Museums 2012.193View the Source

Small Image of Kunthunatha, Brooklyn Museum (34.738)

Brooklyn MuseumObjects and Practices of This Tradition: Small Image of Kunthunatha, the Seventeenth Tirthankara (Brooklyn Museum), Brooklyn Museum 34.738View the Source

Jaina Tirthankara Chandraprabha Standing in Meditation, Art Institute of Chicago (1996.699)

Art Institute of ChicagoObjects and Practices of This Tradition: Jaina Tirthankara Chandraprabha Standing in Meditation (Art Institute of Chicago), Art Institute of Chicago 1996.699View the Source

Smithsonian Folkways and Internet Archive Records for Jain Puja (Religious Music of Asia)

Ethnic Folkways Library / Smithsonian Folkways Recordings; Internet ArchiveObjects and Practices of This Tradition: Jain Puja (Religious Music of Asia, 1967), folkways.si.edu/religious-music-of-asia; archive.org/details/lp_religious-music-of-asia_various (track 6)View the Source

Umaswati (Wikipedia)

Reveres: Umaswati, Infobox: religion
Jainism
Objects and Practices of This Tradition: Umaswati, Lead sentence
Vācaka Umāsvāti, also spelled as Vācaka Umasvati and known as Vācaka Umāsvāmī, was an Indian scholar, possibly between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, known for his foundational writings on Jainism.

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India (Wikipedia)

Sacred to This Deity: India, Introduction

Quote, Sacred to This Deity: India, Introduction

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia.

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Bhadrabāhu (Wikipedia)

Objects and Practices of This Tradition: Bhadrabahu, Infobox, religion field

Quote, Objects and Practices of This Tradition: Bhadrabahu, Infobox, religion field

Jainism

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New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia: Jainism

New Advent, Catholic EncyclopediaOriginated In: India, Opening

Quote, Originated In: India, Opening

A form of religion intermediate between Brahminism and Buddhism , originated in India in pre-Christian times, and has maintained its heretical attitude towards Brahminism down to the present day.

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Sudharmaswami (Wikipedia)

Reveres: Sudharmaswami, Lead
All the current Jain acharyas and monks follow his rule.
Objects and Practices of This Tradition: Sudharmaswami, Lead
All the current Jain acharyas and monks follow his rule.

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Open Questions (1 open question)

Does Jainism have a therapeutic practice of its own, distinct from charitable medical giving?

The facet detector reports Jainism as carrying no Practice of kind Therapeutic while its Dharmic peers do. Jain fasting is ascetic rather than curative, and bhaishajya dana, the giving of medicine, is one of the four danas and so is charitable. Triage on 2026-07-29 could not name a Jain practice whose purpose is healing.

What would resolve this A survey of the Shvetambara and Digambara prescriptive literature and of modern Jain institutional practice for a named healing observance, together with a ruling on whether Jain animal hospitals and the pinjrapole count as a therapeutic practice or as charity.

Jain studies, South Asian religious historyDivinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition

Essays About This Entity (10 essays)

Ahimsa Crosses Three Religions at Three Different Depths

Takes it furthest: the governing vow, organising ascetic practice down to sweeping the ground and filtering water

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Vegetarianism Crosses Three Religions at Three Different Depths

Kept strictly and without qualification, to avoid harming any creature

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Ellora's Three Traditions Share One Cliff at Three Different Depths

Carries the caves' other finding, that worship still continues there today

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Acharya Names Three Different Offices Under One Borrowed Word

The highest office in the community, holding power to ordain, expel and settle discipline

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Trailokya Crosses Three Religions With Three Different Maps of the Same Shape

Keeps the layered shape as a cosmological division into lower, middle and upper worlds

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Candle and Lamp Lighting Reaches Seven Traditions, and One Treats the Flame as a Presence, Not an Offering

Jainism: the diya lit at dusk and in quantity at Diwali

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Monastic Vows Are Three Different Legal Transfers Wearing One English Name

The five great vows in absolute form, hair plucked out by hand rather than shaved

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Fasting Reaches Six Religions, Named and Grouped Three and Three

Carries the live edge alone, with no specific practice named in either record

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One Family of Four Religions Converges on Four Different Concepts, Not One

One of the four religions all four concepts converge on

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Meditation Reaches Four Religions With Four Different Techniques Under One Word

One of the four religions; no denominational note yet on file, an open gap

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Community

0 members · 5 organizations

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Organizations In This Tradition

Jain Center of AmericaElmhurst Verified
Jain Centre LeicesterLeicester Verified
Jain Society of Metropolitan ChicagoBartlett Verified
Jain Society of TorontoScarborough Verified
JAINA (Federation of Jain Associations in North America)San Ramon Verified

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