The big idea: Jains hold that the soul is weighed down by karma understood as a subtle physical substance — and that liberation is achieved by stopping new karma arriving and shedding what has already stuck.
The tradition traces itself through a line of twenty-four tirthankaras — "ford-makers", those who make a crossing possible. The twenty-fourth, Mahavira, taught in northern India and is the figure the guide names.
Jains do not describe Mahavira as founding the tradition. They describe him as the most recent teacher of something without beginning.
Digambara
- "Sky-clad" — its monks renounce clothing entirely
- Holds that a woman must be reborn as a man to attain liberation
- Holds that the original scriptures were lost
Svetambara
- "White-clad" — its monastics wear simple white cloth
- Holds that women can attain liberation, and that one tirthankara was a woman
- Preserves a canon of scriptures
Karma here is not what it is next door: In Hindu and Buddhist accounts karma is chiefly a law connecting action to consequence.
Jain teaching describes karma as a fine material substance that sticks to the soul and weighs it down. Getting this right is one of the clearest ways to show you have studied Jainism rather than assumed it.
Free preview
This is the free notes preview
You're reading the free notes. Aimnova Pro unlocks the full study experience — and you can try it with your first topic free to keep:
- FlashcardsLock in vocabulary and key terms with spaced repetition.
- Practice questionsAnswer exam-style questions and get instant AI marking.
- Mock exams & past-paper vaultSit full mocks and see exactly how examiners award marks.
- Personalised study planA daily plan built around your exam date and weak areas.
The guide's first question: Jains hold that human beings are caught in samsara — the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth — and that it is characterised by ignorance and suffering.
Jiva
- The soul — the living principle
- Jain teaching holds it is pure and knowing by nature
- Every living being has one, down to the smallest
Ajiva
- The world of matter — the non-living
- What the jiva becomes entangled in
- Karma is understood as belonging to this side
Karma
- A fine material substance drawn to the soul by action
- It weighs the jiva down within ajiva
- Collected through the whole of a life
Notice how physical the picture is. The soul does not simply incur a debt; it becomes heavy.
That image explains everything about Jain practice. If karma is weight, then the way out is to stop adding it and to burn off what is there — which is exactly what asceticism is for.
Memorize terms 3x faster
Smart flashcards show you cards right before you forget them. Perfect for definitions and key concepts.
The two outcomes
A favourable or unfavourable rebirth
The ordinary outcome, shaped by the karma collected. Jain cosmology describes many realms of rebirth, and human birth is held to be the one from which liberation becomes possible.
Moksha — liberation of the jiva from the ajiva
The guide's own wording. The soul, freed of karmic matter, rises and remains in its own nature — pure, knowing and unbound. Jain teaching describes it as rising to the top of the universe.
Weighed down and round again, or light and free.
How Jainism answers the guide's three questions, in its own terms.
Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in full study mode.
Kevala, on the way: The guide also names kevala — a pure, omniscient consciousness.
Jain teaching describes it as attained when the karma obscuring knowledge is destroyed. A person who attains it is a kevalin, and it comes before final liberation rather than instead of it.
The guide names four things: following Mahavira's teachings, the Five Great Vows, asceticism, and attaining kevala — with the Twelve Great Vows given for monks and nuns.
The Five Great Vows
- ahimsa — non-violence, not harming any living being. The guide singles it out, and Jains treat it as the first principle from which the rest follow
- Satya — truthfulness
- Asteya — not taking what is not given
- Brahmacharya — chastity
- Aparigraha — non-attachment to possessions
Who takes which vows — the guide is loose here: The guide lists the Five Great Vows generally and the Twelve Great Vows for monks and nuns.
In Jain tradition it runs the other way: the five mahavratas are taken in their full form by ascetics, while lay Jains take them in a limited form, the anuvratas, within a set of twelve vows. Say what each group actually does and you cannot be marked down either way.
Ahimsa in practice
- Vegetarianism, and for many Jains avoiding root vegetables
- Some monastics sweep the path ahead of them
- Some wear a cloth over the mouth
- Occupations that involve harm are avoided
Asceticism in practice
- Fasting, sometimes at length
- Renunciation of possessions and comfort
- Bodily austerity, understood as burning off karma already collected
- Ascetics undertake this far beyond what lay Jains do
The sentence that ties it together: "Because Jains understand karma as a substance that weighs the soul down, practice aims both to stop new karma arriving — through ahimsa and the vows — and to shed what is already there, through asceticism."
That single sentence answers most "explain" questions on Jainism.