Jainism

Definition
by Cristian Violatti
published on 03 February 2013

Jainism, along with Buddhism and Charvaka, is considered part of the heterodox systems (also
referred to as heresies) of Indian philosophy. Its philosophy is grounded in the doctrine of of the
Yajur-Veda but it was systematized by Vardhamana (also known as Mahavira) who substituted
the authority of the Vedas with logic and experience and also reinterpreted most of the key ideas
available in Indian philosophy at that time.
Vardhamana was born into the Kshatriyas caste (the warrior rulers caste) in northeastern India in
about the 6th century BCE, a time of profound political and social change. Tradition says
Vardhamana was born as a prince, the second son of the king, and lived a life of luxury and
wealth but from an early age he was interested in spiritual matters and soon became dissatisfied
with the life that surrounded him: increasing inequalities, warfare and social conflict. Around the
age of 30, when his parents died, he gave up his kingdom and royal privileges and for the next 12
years he wandered around as an ascetic, someone who denies him or herself physical pleasures in
a quest for spiritual progress mainly through fasting and meditation. At the age of 42,
Vardhamana gained full enlightenment and became a Jaina, conqueror, and he was known as
Mahavira, a title meaning the great hero, and became the leader of Jainism.
Jains see the world as a river of suffering and misery and ford-finders find a way to cross it.

According to Jain tradition, Vardhamana was the 24th and the last Tirthankara, ford-finder.
Jains see the world as a river of suffering and misery and ford-finders find a way to cross it: they
do not build the bridge, they simply get across it and the the rest have to follow the path. The
word Jain means a follower of the Jainas. During the rest of his life, Vardhamana taught others
about what he had learned. He accepted the doctrine of samsara (reincarnation), but with a small
change, which, nevertheless, made a big difference to his approach to life. It was widely accepted
by Indian society that animals, humans and gods had a soul, but Vardhamana went even further,
claiming that nearly everything is alive. Everything is made up of Jiva living intelligence,
trapped in matter. Living beings (almost everything, according to Vardhamanas view) were
divided in different categories.

Beings with five senses, including humans and major animals.

Beings with four senses, they cannot hear (wasps, flies, butterflies)

Beings with three senses, they can neither hear nor see (ants, moths, fleas)

Beings with two senses, they can only taste and touch (worms, leeches, shellfish)

Beings with only one sense, they only have the sense of touch (plants, microscopic
organisms, wind, fire, water)

This last category is the largest and what all these beings have in common is that they can all feel
pain: their entire existence is to be able to feel pain. This view on living beings could be
summarized with the words of an Indian scholar:
Thus the whole world is alive. In every stone on the highway a soul is locked, so tightly
enchained by matter that it cannot escape the careless foot that kicks it or cry out in pain, but
capable of suffering nevertheless. When a match is struck a fire being, with a soul which may
one day be reborn in a human body, is born, only to die a few moments afterwards. In every drop
of rain, in every breath of wind, in every lump of clay, is a living soul.
(Pruthi, p.50)
An ancient Jain document invites us to imagine the infinite number of times that we were hunted
as deers, gutted as fish, beaten again and again when we were iron and chopped into pieces when
we were trees. Jainism believes in an infinite number of eternal souls, caught in this eternal cycle
of agony and misery. There was a way out of this cycle according to Vardhamana, and this was
explained through his vision of karma (cosmic justice) and moksha (liberation). Karma was
almost a material quality: cruel actions and thoughts attracted heavy karma, while kind acts made
the soul lighter, so it could move up the ladder of existence. By not causing suffering, ones soul
could eventually be free from samsara. It is interesting to note that Vardhamana came from the
warrior caste, where there was always the element of military and political conquest. Instead,
Vardhamana proposes spiritual conquest through arduous discipline and commitment.

Vardhamana
Jainism attempts to be rational and consistent: the metaphysics leads to the ethics. In other
words, if it is believed that the whole world is alive and nearly everything is capable of feeling
pain, then the Jain way of living makes sense. Vardhamana would allow mosquitoes to feed on
his blood and while other ascetics would carry sticks with them to scare off the dogs,
Vardhamana would allow the dogs to bite him. This principle of extreme non-violence is known
in Jainism as Ahimsa non-violence, a key term in this tradition. Vardhamana takes this
principle so far that in time he decides to wear no clothes since during its manufacturing process
a number of beings had to suffer. Large, bad karma comes when large animals are eaten, small
karma comes when small animals are eaten and no karma comes when nothing at all is eaten. At
the age of 72, consistent with his ideas, Vardhamana took the Ahimsa doctrine to the extreme,
finally starved himself to death and achieved nirvana (liberation).
Jainsm has a set of five vows: nonviolence, truth-speaking, non-stealing, no sexual immorality
and non-attachment to worldly things. Self denial, self mortification and austerity are the ways
by which the karma of all past actions is exhausted and one can get into nirvana after death. This
is explained in a Jain text:
As a large pond , when its influx of water has been blocked, dries up gradually through
consumption of water and evaporation, so the karmic matter of a monk, which has been acquired
through millions of births, is annihilated by austerityprovided there is no further influx.
(Campbell, p.234)

Jainism may be considered extreme, but this extremism is directed to ones self and not to others.
We sometimes come across traditions where devotion is shown by killing other people or
persecuting them in the name of god. The devotion in Jainism is directed only to ones self.

Mandala of the Diamond World

In the Jain tradition there is a philosophical critique on ordinary epistemology. There are a
number of Jain philosophers that have done a lot of analysis concerning this issue and they
developed the idea of many sidedness, which acknowledges that the world is complex, and
there are multiple viewpoints possible, each of them partially valid, within a particular context.
Truths are relative to a certain standpoint. All judgments are tentative. Reality cannot be
comprehended from a single perspective. Human understanding is merely probable and partial,
and all predictions are relative because reality is multiple. Nothing is true in the strict sense of
the word, except from one point of view. Vardhamana is credited with a famous story that
ilustrates this idea: Six blind men laid hands on different parts of an elephant; he who held the
ear thought that the elephant was a great winnowing fan; he who held the leg said the animal was
a big, round pillar and so on.
According to Jainism, there are no gods. It is not necessary to assume a Creator or First Cause for then who created the creator or what caused the first cause? This view states that it is more
logical to believe the universe has always existed, and that it has undergone an infinite number of

changes. These changes are driven not by the influence of a deity but rather by nature itself. As a
result of a sky empty of gods, Jainism did not have any type of creation stories.
There are essentially two paths in Jainism in order to achieve nirvana. The ordinary path, which
seeks to reduce as much as possible the bad karma by living a good life and move up gradually.
There is also the extraordinary path (the one a monk or a nun would take), which seeks to end the
samsara in this life by taking the Ahimsa principle and the Jain vows to the extreme: no family,
celibacy, no attachment to a place, they beg for food, they usually wear no clothes, they suffer
insults without response and they may chose to starve to death. Because Vardhamana did not
believe in the concept of Brahman (World Soul or Infinite Being) the Jain interpretation of the
state of nirvana (liberation) is different from the traditional view in the orthodox Indian
traditions. In Jainism, nirvana is a state in which the soul, released from samsara, has four
attributes: infinite knowledge, infinite perception, infinite energy and infinite bliss.

About the Author

Cristian Violatti
Cristian Violatti studies Archaeology at the University of Leicester (UK) and he is one of the
editors of Ancient History Encyclopedia. Cristian is well travelled, having lived in numerous
countries all over the world.

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Jainism In Indian History

In the second chapter we traced the history of Jainism in its earlier centuries. The story is not
complete for, even if we had much more space and time, historians are still only slowly
unraveling the confused history of ancient India. In this chapter we shall sketch a few of the
developments in Jainism in the history of India. Obviously we can only touch on this subject.
One of the reasons why it is difficult to trace the history of Jainism quickly is that India for much
of the past 2000 years was not a single state but a large number of small, and some large, states
with shifting frontiers each with its own history.
The major event, of course, was the gradual extension of Jainism from its homelands in eastern
India into the south, and then into western India, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Unfortunately we know
little about how this actually happened. Doubtless Jain Monks, traveling as always on foot,
crossed India and made converts in the lands they passed through. Probably Jain businessmen,
then as now, took their faith to distant parts. Other travelers also might have helped. Certainly
Jainism had reached Gujarat more than 2000 years ago.
From the early fourth century A.D. until around 600 A.D. northern India, down as far as modern
Bombay, was under the control of the emperors of the Gupta dynasty. Doubtless the unified
control facilitated contacts across India. In the Gupta period Gujarat seems to have become the
most important center of Jainism in India if we are to judge from the fact that the great council,
when the holy scriptures were finally put into writing around 460 A.D., was held at Valabhi in
Gujarat. Some sixty or seventy years later Jain scriptures were read at a ceremony of mourning
for the death of the king's son even though the king himself was not a Jain. Apart from Gujarat,
Jainism was well established in many parts of India by the Gupta period: it was certainly already
present in Rajasthan by then.
An unusual account of India was given by a visitor from China who traveled there in the earlier
seventh century A: D . He has many references to Jains and it does appear that, at least in the
places which he visited, the Digambara were at that time the stronger section. However the
Svetambara were beginning to increase in Gujarat and Rajasthan, particularly because they
gained the support of the kings of Gujarat. Many great Jain scholars contributed to Jain learning
as well as to many other subjects. One of the greatest was the famous Acharya Hemacandra from
Gujarat (1089-1172 A.D.). The king of Gujarat, Kumarapala, was his staunch follower.
Hemacandra wrote very widely on a range of scientific and literary subjects, commentaries on
ancient texts, poetry, works on logic, yoga and grammar, and a lot more. He wrote a major work
on the duties of both lay people and monks.
Large number of sects developed amongst the Svetambara from the seventh century A.D.
onwards, traditionally they numbered eighty-four, though not many of them survive today. They
certainly attest to the vitality of Jainism in these centuries, a golden age for the faith.

In south India, from the fifth century onwards for some seven hundred years, Jains also received
the patronage of royalty and many kings favored them in one way or another. Great poets and
writers flourished. Under royal patronage Jinasena wrote a great unfinished epic which was
completed by his pupil Gunabhadra in the year 897 A.D. This long work includes much moral
teaching on the duties of a Jain and is much respected by the Digambara scholars. In the south
one of the great centers of Jainism was Sravana Belgola, noted for its colossal Jain image, still an
important center of pilgrimage today, and in earlier times a center for Jain influence across the
southern regions. Jainism flourished during this period with large numbers of adherents in all
classes of society.
However Jainism began to lose ground eventually. The development of popular personal
religious movements in Hinduism with a warm devotion to a god led many away from the
religion of Mahavira. The Hindu followers of both Vishnu and Siva increased in numbers and the
contest between the newly revived Hindu cults and the Jains became strong, then bitter and
finally in some cases led to violence against the Jains. Although we must not overstress this (for
Hinduism and Jainism have coexisted happily nearly always), Jainism in south India did suffer a
decline from which it never recovered, at least to its earlier strength. Dedicated and faithful Jains
continued to practice their religion with enthusiasm, as they do today, but their numbers were
fewer.
In the north, too, Jainism lost ground. From the thirteenth century A.D. the Muslim conquests in
north India affected Jains badly. At times Jain temples (and Hindu ones as well) suffered damage
or destruction by the conquerors. At the same time there seems to have been a decline in
religious fervor and practice. Numbers declined and Jainism became confined mainly to the
merchant and business class. However, again we must not overstress the decline.; Jainism did
decline in numbers, and at times in standards, Jains continued to produce great scholars and
many devoted saints. Jains, as a pacific group in society, valued for financial and business
acumen, enjoyed a fair measure of tolerance and, indeed, were not infrequently employed in
important government positions. Temple building and the arts continued to flourish. In the
sixteenth century the Mogul emperor Akbar, the greatest Mogul ruler, although a Muslim, had
close contacts with a Jain monk Hirvijaya Suri. Akbar called Hirvijaya to his court in 1582 and
the monk and the emperor had long conversations on questions of religion and philosophy.
Inspired by these the emperor was moved to impose restrictions on the killing of animals in his
domains and himself gave up his favorite sport of hunting.
While the Muslims dominated north and central India, in the south the great Hindu empire of
Vijayanagar ruled from the early fourteenth century to the late sixteenth century A.D. Here the
Jains were protected by the rulers and many took an important part in public life, in government
and the army, as well as in finance, trade and learning. In view of the Jain insistence on nonviolence, it may become as a surprise to some to learn that Jain laymen have sometimes been
prepared to hold military positions. The question whether the rules of ahimsa, non-violence,

permit the necessary defense of one's country is usually answered by the argument that a
measure of necessary harm is unavoidable for the lay person, though of course strictly precluded
for the monk or nun. In all honesty, however, we may well question whether the military exploits
of some Jain rulers in Indian history have not strayed beyond the bounds of unavoidable
violence.
The building of temples and the installation of images has long been a tradition of Jainism but
one development has been the emergence of a branch of the Svetambara Jains which does not
accept the worship of images. The Sthanakvasi sect originated in the late seventeenth century,
though its roots are traced back as far as 1394 in another group which rejected images. Although
the majority of Jains adhere to the ancient rituals and images, the Sthanakvasi, who meet in plain
meditation halls, have attracted many adherents and have produced many learned and pious
members.
Paul Marett