JAINISM. - J. is a philosophical-religious movement that formed, it seems, around the 8th century B.C. in northeastern India, as a reaction to Brahmanic orthodoxy, and was later consolidated in the 6th century B.C. through the work of a reforming ascetic named Vardhamāna, called Mahāvīra (v.; "Great Hero").
I. GENERALITIES
The followers of the sect, who originally called themselves Nirgrantha ("without bonds"), later assumed the name Jaina, derived from the appellation Jina ("Victor") given to the prophets of the sect. These, called Tirthankara or Tirthankara ("those who make the law"), are considered by the Jains as the revealers and protectors of the Jain doctrine, inasmuch as their work is limited to periodically re-establishing among men, in its purity, the law that exists ab aeterno. Thus there is a long series of 720 Tirthankaras who have succeeded one another and will succeed one another in time and space to guarantee the survival of the doctrine in the world. Indeed, for the Jains, men are distributed among ten regions of the universe, which is subject to three ages (past, present and future), and in each of these inhabited regions there is, for each age, the manifestation of 24 Tirthankaras. The last of the 24 prophets who have succeeded one another in the present age in the region we inhabit is precisely Mahāvīra. He therefore cannot be considered the founder of a new religion, but rather the reformer of a sect that had already existed for a long time. Indeed, even the 23rd Tirthankara, his predecessor Pārva, who according to the Jain texts lived 250 years before Mahāvīra, seems to have been a real person and the true founder of J.
II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SECT
On the death of Mahāvīra, the leadership of the sect, which according to some texts was already then most flourishing, was taken by the first of his disciples, Gautama, and afterwards by Sudharma, who had survived the master. Under these and their successors the sect continued to prosper and flourishing schools were founded, but divergences and schisms also began.
These conflicts culminated in the 1st century A.D. in the split of the Jains into two rival sects, the Śvetāmbara and the Digambara. To understand the causes of this schism, however, one must go back to the 4th century B.C. The texts relate that the pontiff of that time, Bhadrabāhu, foretelling a terrible famine in northern India lasting 11 years, persuaded a part of the community to emigrate to Mysore. Meanwhile the hardships of life forced the Jains who remained in the north to violate one of Mahāvīra's precepts, that of the nudity prescribed for ascetics. It thus happened that the emigrated Jains, who had remained faithful to the tradition, on their return disapproved of the conduct of their northern coreligionists, and, since no agreement had been reached, the schism occurred: the northerners took the name Śvetāmbara (clothed in white) and the emigrants that of Digambara (clothed in air, that is, naked). This account has been regarded as historical even by Jacobi, since it is quite plausible, and the period designated coincides precisely with grave economic disturbances that occurred in northern India as a consequence of political struggles.
III. THE CANONICAL BOOKS
But if officially the schism was attributed to such a futile reason, in reality there were other and far more serious grounds for disagreement between the two groups, above all as regarded the canonical literature. The Digambara in fact do not admit the authenticity of the canonical books, which the Śvetāmbara trace back, if not actually to Mahāvīra, at least to his most direct disciples.
These latter would have handed down the master's teachings by memory, dividing them into 14 groups called Pārva, from which 11 summaries called Aṅga were later drawn. The Pārva, always transmitted orally from one pontiff to another, were little by little almost entirely forgotten, so that in 312 B.C. the Jaina of the north were forced to convoke a council at Pāṭaliputra (Patna) to gather what remained of the Pārva into a twelfth Aṅga. This too, however, gradually went lost, so that after many centuries, at the Council of Valabhi (5th century A.D.) the canonical literature of the Jaina was found reduced to only the 11 Aṅga, which, after careful revision, were finally put in writing, together with other later collections. Thus arose the Siddhānta ("Code of liberation"), comprising 45 treatises, of which the 11 Aṅga form the most ancient part. The Digambara, having refused to recognize the work carried out by the Council of Pāṭaliputra, declared both the Pārva and the Aṅga lost and adopted as canonical books three great treatises of the celebrated master Puspadanta and other more recent works. Around the Siddhānta drawn up in Ardhamāgadhi (a language presumed to have been used by Mahāvīra in his teaching), an enormous exegetical literature soon formed, both in Prakrit and in Sanskrit. The doctrine was popularized and made accessible to the people by means of collections of allegorical tales, hymns and dramas with a religious background. A typical example of this allegorical-didactic literature, full of good intentions but exceedingly tedious and devoid of artistic value, is the Upamitibhavaprapāṇā kathā ("The allegorical tale of human life") written in the 10th century by Siddhāri (published in the Bibliotheca Indica, edited by P. Peterson and H. Jacobi, Calcutta 1914, and translated in the first three chapters by A. Ballini, in Giornale della Soc. asiat. ital., vols. XVII-XXIII).
IV. THE THREE JEWELS: FAITH, KNOWLEDGE, CONDUCT
Like almost all Indian religions, Jainism too affirms that the world is suffering and sets out to lead men to liberation, to nirvāṇa, combating false beliefs (mithyātva) with the teaching of the true doctrine (samyaktva). In order to be able to uproot from the soul the love of existence and to annul the personality that chains man to the series of rebirths (sāṃsāra), the Jaina must possess three elements that constitute the essence of the doctrine, the so-called "three jewels" (Triratna): right faith (samyagdariāna), right knowledge (samyagjñāna) and right conduct (samyakcaritra).
Since Jainism is an atheistic system, right faith does not at all imply a belief in any principle that creates and preserves the universe. It consists simply in believing in the law revealed by the Tirthankara and taught by the masters of the community. Objects of faith and veneration for the Jaina are also the Supreme Beings, Arhat (blessed) and Siddha (perfect), whose soul has reached nirvāṇa; as well as the masters and ascetics, who bear witness to the truth of the law, the former by teaching and the latter by example. Naturally the first place in the scale of these venerable beings belongs to the Tirthankara, whom the people have ended up regarding in the manner of true divinities, to whom offerings are made and graces are asked. For educated persons, on the other hand, all these Beings are merely superior souls regarded with respect, and the temples and images dedicated to them serve only to remind men of the merits of these their benefactors. Thus Jainism seeks to justify the practices of worship very widespread among the people, which are in contrast with its fundamental atheism.
The second of the jewels, right knowledge, comprises the whole body of metaphysical, logical and cosmological doctrines, which will serve as the basis for Jaina ethics. The followers of Mahāvīra start from a conception of being completely different from that of the Brahmans or the Buddhists: they affirm in fact that Being is not one, eternal and immutable as is said in the Upaniṣad, nor non-existent, according to the well-known Buddhist theory, but maintain instead that being, or rather substance (draṣya), is indeed characterized by eternal existence, since it is uncreated and permanent, but is neither one nor immutable, since it manifests itself through various qualities and modes that are transient and subject to destruction. Being is therefore indeterminate and in continuous becoming. To clarify this concept, called anekāntavāda (theory of indeterminacy), the Jaina have recourse to the example of the potter who fashions a bowl from clay: the substance, which is permanent, passes from one form of existence, the rough one, to another form: there is therefore the destruction of one mode of existing and the production of another, while the substance remains. Jainism postulates the existence of 6 kinds of substance, divided into two categories: on the one hand the jīva (soul, vital principle), which represents the animate substance; on the other the inanimate substances (ajīva) comprising matter (puāgala), space (bhāla), time (kāla), dharma and adharma. The jīva is immaterial, eternal, formless, characterized by consciousness (cetanā), and is therefore opposed to matter, which is also eternal but corporeal and perceptible by the senses. As the atoms of matter are infinite, so too the souls are infinite in number, since everything that exists, from man to the infinitesimal particles of earth, possesses a soul. Space gives the soul and matter the place in which to exist, dharma makes them capable of movement and adharma allows them to remain motionless. This particular conception of dharma and adharma is proper only to Jainism. The essential attribute of the soul, consciousness, manifests itself through two activities: perception and knowledge. With perception (darśana) one has a general notion of things, vague and indeterminate; with knowledge (jñāna), on the other hand, the soul comprehends things in their details, has an analytical knowledge of them. Consequently two are the methods of knowledge admitted by Jainism: one synthetic, called syādvāda, which is characteristic of this system, the other analytical, called nayavāda. The term syādvāda may be translated as "theory of possibility", inasmuch as the Jaina wish to demonstrate that, since the essential nature of things cannot be known, because substances are indeterminate (anekāntavāda) and attributes vary, there remains for us only to consider them now from one point of view and now from another; therefore every affirmation made with regard to something is possible only from a certain point of view: of one and the same object one can say, for example, "this is an inkwell" or "this is not a glass", etc. This method of knowledge, called synthetic, inasmuch as it considers a thing as a whole, is completed by the analytical method, which considers things under a single aspect or examines a single attribute to the exclusion of the others.
As the specific attribute of the soul is consciousness, that of matter is corporeity, which makes it capable of assuming different aspects and fit to be perceived by the senses, by virtue of its 4 qualities (gūṇa): tangibility, taste, smell and colour. The infinite atoms (aṇu) that compose it associate into compounds (skandha) similar to molecules, from whose union bodies derive. These skandha can be gross (sthūlo), giving rise to the most voluminous and heavy bodies, or subtle (sūkṣma) like those that constitute karma and the vital powers.
The conception of karma as something material is characteristic of the Jains: subtle matter, inasmuch as it flows over the soul and forms with it a kind of chemical combination, becomes karma and imprisons the soul in matter, dimming its splendor and imposing a material body upon it. This amalgam between matter and soul can be of 8 kinds, depending on the effect it produces: it can obscure in the individual the vision of things, hinder his moral progress, establish the social condition in which he will live, the duration of his life, etc. The result of this combination between the soul and subtle matter is the kārmanāśarīra, a subtle body that attaches itself to the soul and accompanies it in its successive rebirths, determining the state of the individual. Simultaneously with this process of absorption of karma, however, a process of discharge (nirjārā) also takes place in the soul, whereby the karma that has already produced its effect is expelled from the soul. When the soul succeeds in discharging all the karma already absorbed without taking on new karma, it returns to its essential splendor and liberation takes place. Since every particular karma is caused by actions performed by the individual, there are good and bad karmas that bring about pleasant or painful consequences. But whether good or bad, karma always brings about a rebirth, keeping the soul bound to matter. Hence the necessity of destroying the karma already accumulated and at the same time preventing the assumption of new karma. To achieve this result it is necessary to possess the third jewel, right conduct (samyakcaritra), comprising the precepts of Jain morality, which, aiming at the absolute annihilation of matter, are of an inhuman severity. Jain morality is founded on 5 principal precepts or vows (vrata), common to monks and laypeople, which forbid the Jain to commit murder, lie, steal, have sexual relations and be covetous. The observance of these precepts is made possible by the three controls (gupti), by meditation, by isolation, etc., which separate man from the world and give him perfect mastery over all his acts and his functions.
An enormous mass of minute disciplinary rules was devised by the Jains in order to avoid the assumption of new karma, while for the elimination of that already assumed, external ascetic practices (fasting, which extends even to voluntary death by starvation, segregation, yoga practices, etc.) and internal ones (penance, devotion to superiors, meditation, etc.) are of value. For the Jains, therefore, the ideal state for attaining liberation is the monastic one, to which women too are admitted; but since not everyone can withdraw from the world and have the strength to follow such severe rules, Jainism softened its prescriptions for the laity (śrāvaka = hearers). While the 5 principal precepts remained binding for them as well, they were nevertheless interpreted with greater latitude, especially the last two. The process of liberation thus came to be slowed down for the lay devotee.
Jainism, like Buddhism, affirms that the only condition in which it is possible to attain liberation is the human one: therefore even the gods, who are merely souls that have risen to a happier condition for having acted well, are forced to descend again to earth in order to be able to liberate themselves. Jainism, which had to accept part of the Brahmanic pantheon as a natural concession to popular mentality, thus sought not to disown its atheistic foundation. In the universe as the Jain conceives it, the gods occupy the upper part (ardhya); the middle part (madhya), divided into ten regions, is reserved for men, while the lower part (adhya) is the world of the hells, where the souls of the wicked are reborn. Above everything, even above the gods, stand the liberated souls, in a kind of empirical [space], conceived in the form of an open umbrella, overarching the universe, where, for lack of the condition that regulates motion (dharma), they remain motionless in eternal beatitude.
V. DIFFUSION
The severity of the discipline imposed on the Jains, which extends to the smallest acts of life, and the cardinal concept of non-violence (ahimsa), by which the destruction of any form of life is forbidden, could not favor a great diffusion of this religion, which was an impediment to any human activity in conflict with the first precept. It is therefore no wonder that the J. is found spread only in certain particular castes (merchants, bankers, jewelers) and that the number of its adherents is progressively diminishing. Even in ancient times, despite the hyperbolic figures given by some texts, its proselytes cannot have been too numerous: the J. remained confined to certain regions of India, whose borders it never crossed. Indeed, this religion, so austere, lacked the sense of love and pity for human suffering and the missionary zeal that led Buddhism to the conquest of the Asian masses.
In present-day India the Jains constitute a small community (1,450,000), though a very powerful one because of its economic standing. They are spread above all in the region of Bombay, in Gujerat, in Rajputana and, to the south, in Mysore and the region of Madras. Bengal, the land of origin of the J., now counts only a few faithful. Given the favorable economic position of the Jains, their temples and monasteries are extremely rich, some of which rank among the masterpieces of Indian architecture. The principal ones are: in the north, the sanctuaries of Mount Abu in Rajputana, of the Satrunjaya and Girnar mountains of Gujerat, which date back to the 13th century etc., and the temples of the principal cities (Delhi, etc.); in the south the most famous and venerated place is Sravana Belgola, in Mysore. The Jains finance many social institutions (schools, orphanages, etc.) and propaganda institutes, which spread their doctrines through texts and periodicals. Among the magazines, the Jaina Gazette is published in English.