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Jainism and the other new schools

The Mahajanapadas, Buddhism and Jainism · Part 3 / 3 · Fact-checked on 8 November 2026 · how we check

Written with AI from the sources listed at the bottom of this page, then fact-checked by a separate AI.

The twenty-four tirthankaras and Parshvanatha's four vows; the life of Mahavira; the Jain view of soul, karma and liberation; the five vows and the three jewels; strict ahimsa and its social effects; anekantavada and syadvada; the councils and the Agamas; the Shvetambara–Digambara split and the spread of Jainism; the Ajivikas, the materialists and other teachers; and Buddhism and Jainism compared.

Part 2 traced Buddhism; this part turns to its close neighbour, Jainism, and to the other teachers who argued in the same towns. Both faiths grew from the shramana stream, rejected the authority of the Vedas and the value of sacrifice, and offered liberation through personal effort rather than ritual. Yet Jainism took a far stricter road, especially on non-violence, and unlike Buddhism it never left India but survived there unbroken to this day. We look at the line of teachers Jains revere, the life of Mahavira, the Jain view of soul and karma, the vows and the three jewels, the idea that truth has many sides, the councils and texts, the great split into two sects, and the Ajivikas and materialists. A comparison of Buddhism and Jainism closes the chapter.

Jains do not see Mahavira as the founder of a new religion but as the last of twenty-four tirthankara teachers, 'ford-makers' who build a crossing over the river of rebirth for others to follow. The first is Rishabhanatha, also called Adinatha, whose symbol is the bull. Only the twenty-third, Parshvanatha, is widely accepted by historians as a real person; tradition makes him a prince of Varanasi who lived about 250 years before Mahavira, and his symbol is the snake. Parshvanatha taught four vows: not to injure living beings, not to lie, not to steal and not to own property. Mahavira, the twenty-fourth, whose symbol is the lion, added a fifth vow, celibacy.

Vardhamana, later called Mahavira, 'the great hero', was born at Kundagrama near Vaishali in the Vajji country. His father Siddhartha headed the Jnatrika clan, and his mother Trishala was a Lichchhavi princess, so he belonged to the same world of gana-sanghas as the Buddha. Jain tradition dates his death to 527 BCE, though historians debate the dates. At thirty he left home and spent twelve years in hard austerity and silence, wandering without possessions. In his thirteenth year of seeking, under a sal tree by the Rijupalika river, he attained kaivalya, perfect knowledge, and became a Jina, 'conqueror' of the senses and passions; his followers came to be called Jainas after this title, and Buddhist texts call him Nigantha Nataputta, 'the one free of bonds, of the Jnatrika clan'. He taught for about thirty years in Magadha, Videha and Anga, and died at seventy-two at Pava, now Pavapuri in Bihar.

Jain thought rests on a simple but demanding picture of the world. Everything that exists is either jiva, living soul, or ajiva, non-living matter. Souls are countless and are found not only in people and animals but in plants, and even in earth, water, fire and air. Every soul is by nature pure, all-knowing and blissful, but it is weighed down by karma, which Jains imagine as fine particles of matter that stick to the soul whenever it acts with desire or anger, much as dust sticks to an oiled cloth. Liberation means first stopping new karma from flowing in, and then burning off the karma already gathered through austerity and self-control. A soul freed in this way rises to the top of the universe and dwells there in endless bliss. There is no creator god in this scheme; the tirthankaras are honoured as perfected souls who showed the way, not as gods who grant favours.

How does one stop karma? Through conduct. Mahavira's five vows are ahimsa (non-injury), satya (truthfulness), asteya (not stealing), aparigraha (non-possession) and brahmacharya (celibacy). Monks and nuns take them in their full form as the great vows, the mahavratas; lay followers take milder versions, the anuvratas, suited to family life. Alongside the vows stand the triratna (three jewels): right faith, right knowledge and right conduct, which together make up the path to liberation. One way to picture them is as the three legs of a stool: faith without knowledge, or knowledge without conduct, cannot hold a person up. Jainism prizes austerity, especially fasting, as the fire that burns away karma. Its strictest form is sallekhana, a slow and voluntary fast at the end of life undertaken by a monk or lay follower under guidance; Jain tradition holds that Chandragupta Maurya ended his life this way at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka.

ahimsa in Jainism goes much further than in Buddhism. Because souls live even in the tiniest creatures, Jain monks carry a soft brush to sweep insects from their path, strain their drinking water, and some cover their mouths with cloth; they do not eat after dark, when small beings could be harmed unseen. These rules shaped Jain society. Farming means ploughing the soil and killing creatures in it, so Jain householders generally kept away from the plough and took up commerce, money-lending and crafts, and Jain merchant communities became wealthy patrons of temples and learning. Suppose two shopkeepers sit side by side, one Buddhist and one Jain: both refuse to kill, but the Buddhist may accept meat offered to him, while the Jain will avoid anything that involved taking a life. This strictness kept Jainism a smaller faith, but it also gave it a disciplined community that has endured.

Jainism's most original idea about knowledge is anekantavada, the doctrine that reality is many-sided. Any object has countless aspects, and an ordinary person can grasp only some of them at a time, so no single statement captures the whole truth. Jains illustrate this with the story of the blind men and the elephant: one touches the trunk and says it is like a snake, another a leg and says it is like a pillar, another an ear and says it is like a fan. Each is partly right and none is wholly right. From this follows syadvada, the method of qualifying every claim with 'in some respect' (syat), worked out as a sevenfold scheme of statements: a thing is, in some respect; is not, in some respect; both is and is not; and so on. The practical lesson is tolerance in argument, since a rival view may hold a part of the truth.

Like Buddhist teaching, Mahavira's words were first kept in memory. Jain tradition records a first council at Pataliputra around 300 BCE, presided over by Sthulabhadra, which arranged the teachings into twelve Angas. A second council at Vallabhi in Gujarat in the fifth or early sixth century CE, under Devardhi Kshamashramana, finally wrote down the canon that the Shvetambaras accept. These texts, together called the Agamas, are in Ardhamagadhi, a Prakrit, the spoken language of the region, not in Sanskrit; later Jain scholars also wrote extensively in Sanskrit and in regional languages such as Kannada. The use of Prakrit is the Jain parallel to the Buddha's choice of the people's speech: both faiths wanted to reach ordinary listeners, not only the learned.

The great division in Jainism has a traditional origin story. Around 300 BCE a long famine struck Magadha, and the monk Bhadrabahu led a group south to Karnataka; Jain tradition says Chandragupta Maurya went with him. The monks who stayed behind under Sthulabhadra began to wear white garments. When the southern group returned, they held that true monks must give up even clothing. Over the following centuries the two groups became the Shvetambara ('white-clad') and the Digambara ('sky-clad', that is, naked) sects. Digambara monks remain unclothed, hold that a woman must be reborn as a man before she can reach liberation, and do not accept the Agamas fixed at Vallabhi, believing the original texts were lost; Shvetambaras wear white, accept that women can be liberated, and keep that canon. Jainism spread to Kalinga, where King Kharavela was a patron, to Karnataka, where the colossal Gommateshwara statue stands at Shravanabelagola, and to Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Buddhists and Jains were not the only voices. The Buddhist Samannaphala Sutta names six rival teachers of the Buddha's day, one of whom is Mahavira himself as Nigantha Nataputta. Makkhali Gosala, who had once wandered with Mahavira, led the Ajivikas and taught niyati, the belief that every event is fixed by fate, so human effort cannot change one's course through rebirths. The Ajivikas lasted for centuries: Ashoka and his grandson Dasharatha gave them rock-cut caves in the Barabar and Nagarjuni hills in Bihar. Ajita Kesakambali, a materialist, taught that the body is only a mix of four elements and that death ends everything; this current of thought later became known as Lokayata or Charvaka, and it rejected rebirth, karma and the Vedas alike. Purana Kassapa denied that deeds bring merit or sin, Pakudha Kachchayana spoke of eternal elements that no act could destroy, and Sanjaya Belatthiputta refused to give a firm answer to any question.

Putting Buddhism and Jainism side by side ties the chapter together. Both were led by Kshatriya teachers from the gana-sangha world of the middle Ganga plain; both rejected Vedic authority, sacrifice and the idea that birth decides worth; both accepted karma and rebirth and set no creator god at the centre; both used the people's languages and built orders of monks, nuns and lay followers. They differ in four ways that questions test. On the soul, Jainism sees countless eternal souls in all things, while Buddhism denies a permanent self. On method, Jainism demands severe austerity, while the Buddha chose a middle way. On non-violence, Jain rules are far stricter. On history, Buddhism spread across Asia and faded in India, while Jainism stayed in India and survived. Seen against the Mahajanapadas and Magadha of part 1, these movements were the religious answer of a new urban, trading society; the Mauryas, who come next, would give one of them an empire's support.

Exam traps

• Mahavira is the 24th and last tirthankara, not the founder of Jainism; Rishabhanatha is the first and Parshvanatha the 23rd.
• Parshvanatha taught four vows; Mahavira added the fifth, brahmacharya (celibacy).
• Jain three jewels: right faith, right knowledge, right conduct. Do not confuse them with the Buddhist three jewels (Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha).
• Mahavira was born at Kundagrama near Vaishali and died at Pava (Pavapuri); the Buddha died at Kushinagar.
• Anekantavada is the many-sidedness of reality; syadvada is the 'in some respect' method of stating it. Both are Jain, not Buddhist.
• Digambaras ('sky-clad') keep monks unclothed and reject the Vallabhi canon; Shvetambaras ('white-clad') wear white and accept it.
• Niyati (fate) is the Ajivika doctrine of Makkhali Gosala; the Barabar caves were given to the Ajivikas, not to Buddhists or Jains.
• The Jain Agamas are in Ardhamagadhi Prakrit; the Buddhist Tripitaka is in Pali.

Recap

• Jainism counts 24 tirthankaras: Rishabhanatha first, Parshvanatha 23rd (four vows), Mahavira 24th (added celibacy).
• Mahavira: born at Kundagrama near Vaishali, Jnatrika clan, mother a Lichchhavi; kaivalya after 12 years of austerity; died at Pava.
• Every thing holds souls; karma is fine matter clinging to the soul; austerity sheds it; there is no creator god.
• Five vows: ahimsa, satya, asteya, aparigraha, brahmacharya (mahavratas for monks, anuvratas for lay people); three jewels: right faith, knowledge, conduct.
• Strict ahimsa led lay Jains into trade rather than farming.
• Anekantavada and syadvada: truth is many-sided, so every claim holds only 'in some respect'.
• Councils at Pataliputra (Sthulabhadra) and Vallabhi (Devardhi Kshamashramana); Agamas in Ardhamagadhi.
• Shvetambara and Digambara split, traced to Bhadrabahu's move to Karnataka; patrons included Kharavela; Shravanabelagola is a major centre.
• Other schools: Ajivikas (Gosala, niyati, Barabar caves) and materialists (Ajita Kesakambali, Charvaka).
• Both faiths rejected Vedic ritual and accepted karma; they differ on the soul, austerity, strictness of non-violence and spread.

Practice questions

Sources

• Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (Ministry of Culture): material on Jainism, Buddhism and the religious movements of the sixth century BCE — https://ccrtindia.gov.in
• Archaeological Survey of India: site notes on the Barabar and Nagarjuni caves, Shravanabelagola, Udayagiri–Khandagiri and Vaishali — https://asi.nic.in