Jainism

Jainism is an ancient religion from India that teaches a path of liberation based on a peaceful life of renunciation that should lead to omniscience (kevalajñāna). It arose from the sermons of Mahāvira in the region of Magadha around the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. The followers of Jainism have been a religious minority in India ever since.

The Jain path of purification consists of achieving the correct faith, understanding and conduct. The behaviour of Jain wandering monks and renunciants is guided by five vows: non-violence, truth, not taking that which has not been given, celibacy and non-attachment. The Jain ideal of non-violence (ahimsa) vwas popularized by Mohandas Gandhi when he called for India’s independence when it was a colony of the British Empire.

The followers of Jainism worship the ‘Jinas’, a word derived from Sanskrit and meaning ‘conqueror’ or ‘victor’, alluding to the path that consists of crossing a stream of rebirths by destroying karma through a spiritual life of asceticism. Mahāvira is considered the 24th Jina, positioning him as a continuation and transmitter of a spiritual lineage.

In the 1st century CE, the first schism occurred in the religious community over differences between the practices of the Śvetāmbara (‘white clad’) and Digambara (‘sky clad’, in reference to the fact that they did not even own clothes). The different groups have developed their own scriptures.

Jain Scriptures

Because they do not recognize the authority of the Vedas, Jainism and Buddhism have been regarded as heterodoxies of Hinduism. Unlike the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, written in Sanskrit, most of the scriptures of Jainism were written in different dialectal variants of Prakrit, a vernacular language derived from Sanskrit. In contrast, the modern texts have been written in northern Indian languages, such as Hindi (the official language of India, along with English, and one of the 22 languages recognized by the current Constitution) or Gujarati, and Dravidic languages from the south, such as Tamil or Kannada.

The Jain scriptures are considered to be of human origin, the product not of a revelation but of the teachings of those who attained liberation, the Jinas. The texts’ authority lies in the validity of this experience and the knowledge conveyed by the masters and spiritual guides. Until the late 19th century CE, they were hardly known inside or outside India; in fact, they were not studied, but venerated as sacred objects. The oldest conserved manuscripts date from the late 11th century CE.

The Jains believe that the first scriptures, transmitted by the Jinas to their disciples, were lost. More than a fixed or closed canon, they recognize a body of traditional texts considered authoritative. The Digambara texts include the essential teachings in the Satkhandagama and Kasayaprabhrta treatises, whilst, in 450 CE, the Śvetāmbara gathered their oral traditions in a set of texts grouped into five categories: Angas, Upāngas, Chedasūtras, Mūlasūtras, Prakīrnakas. The former wrote their scriptures in Jain Sauraseni, the latter in Ardhamāgadhī, both variants of Prakrit. One Jain summary written in Sanskrit and recognized by both groups is the Tattvartha sutra (ca. the 2nd and 5th centuries BCE).