In this introduction
Jainism is one of the three great Indian traditions alongside the Hindu darśanas and Buddhism. Its last great teacher (tīrthaṅkara, “ford-maker”), Mahāvīra (Vardhamāna, traditionally 599–527 BCE, perhaps a little later), was an older contemporary of the Buddha. Like the Buddha, he rejected the authority of the Vedas and the sacrificial religion of the Brahmins; unlike the Buddha, he affirmed an eternal soul (jīva) — infinite in number, each one of them.
Three ideas that matter to every philosopher
Ahiṃsā — non-violence. Every living being, down to insects and even, in some sense, plants and elements, has a soul. To harm any is to bind karma to one’s own soul. Jain monks sweep the path before them to avoid treading on insects, and some wear cloths over their mouths. Gandhi, raised in Gujarat among Jains, drew on this ethic directly.
Anekāntavāda — many-sidedness. Reality is complex and has infinitely many aspects; every statement captures only one point of view. The parable of the blind men and the elephant — one touches the trunk and says “a snake”, another the leg and says “a pillar”, another the ear and says “a fan” — is told in Jain (as well as Buddhist and Hindu) sources to show that dogmatists each hold a part of the truth.
Syādvāda — the doctrine of “maybe”. Every proposition should be qualified by syāt, “in some respect”. From this the Jains developed a sevenfold logic (saptabhaṅgī): in some respect it is; in some respect it is not; in some respect it is and is not; in some respect it is inexpressible; and combinations of these. Some modern logicians have compared it to many-valued and paraconsistent logic.
Karma as matter
For Jains, karma is not just a moral law but a subtle matter that sticks to the soul when it acts with passion, weighing it down. Liberation (kevala, omniscience, and then mokṣa) comes by stopping the inflow of karma and burning off what has accumulated, through right faith, right knowledge and right conduct — the “three jewels” — and austerity. The liberated soul rises to the top of the universe and dwells there in omniscient bliss.
Where to begin
- Mahāvīra — the life and the teaching.
- Jainism — the whole tradition, from the tīrthaṅkaras to Gandhi.
- Anekāntavāda — the elephant and the blind men, and the sevenfold logic.
- Tattvārtha Sūtra — the one text both sects accept.
- Kundakunda and Hemacandra — the mystic and the polymath.
Map of Influence
who answered whom, inside this roomThinkers & Authors
3Mahāvīra
The twenty-fourth and last tīrthaṅkara of Jainism — a prince of the eastern Gaṅgā plain who renounced everything at thirty, practised twelve years of extreme austerity, attained omniscience, and taught a path of radical non-violence, truth and non-possession for thirty years.
Kundakunda
The most revered Digambara Jain teacher — author of the Samayasāra, which distinguishes the absolute standpoint, from which the soul is pure consciousness untouched by karma, from the conventional standpoint, from which it is bound.
Hemacandra
The Jain polymath of 12th-century Gujarat — grammarian, poet, logician, lexicographer, historian and royal adviser — called “the omniscient of the Kali age”, who persuaded a king to ban animal slaughter.