Jainism

This is Vardhamana. He created the religion Jainism… Or rather, he is considered to be the founder of the religion called Jainism. But the teachings of the religion are so much older than that, and the Jains themselves say that many things happened before the lifetime of Vardhamana. But we’ll get around to that. Vardhamana lived around the same time as Buddha.

Vardhamana was born a prince, but withdrew from the world to meditate and live in poverty with very little food - in asceticism. Withdrawing from society was not an unusual thing on the Indian subcontinent of those days. It was almost a trend to do so. This was related to many people being annoyed with the priests - the brahmins. The brahmins claimed that doing as they said was the only way to reach freedom from rebirth.

The brahmins also performed animal sacrifice. Many people turned against these two things. So they chose to withdraw from society and live simple, poor lives, to instead try to find the truth on their own. Vardhamana was one of them. By meditating and living in asceticism, eventually he found his truth.

He concluded: That there is no creator god. In other words, no god has created the world. Everything that exists —the whole universe —has always existed. That all living things have a soul. And every soul is God - but doesn’t know it.

But how is it possible to be God and not know this? Well, how we have acted in this life, or in previous lives affects how our life is today - this is called karma. Karma holds the soul bound and then the person can’t see clearly, and can’t understand that they themselves are God. So one needs to be victorious in defeating karma, to become a victor. And since the word for a victor in Vardhamana’s language is ‘jain’, the religion is called: Jainism.

The goal in Jainism is to liberate oneself from rebirth. Just like in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. According to Jainism you do this by having: The right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. And right conduct is: To cause no harm to any living beings. This principle of nonviolence - ahimsa - has also come to influence Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism.

But Jains take it one step further. Jains are vegetarians. The Jain monks often carry mouth masks so as not to inhale insects by mistake. Many of them also go barefoot to lessen the harm if they step on anything. Right conduct also means to only speak the truth to others, as well as to oneself.

To not steal. To live in chastity. To most Jains this means to have sex only within marriage. Jain nuns and monks are not allowed to have sex at all. To hold no attachments.

To ordinary people, this means that they should not become too attached to material things. For Jain nuns and monks it means to own nothing at all — in some groups, not even clothes. Vardhamana is said to have lived, towards the end of his life, completely naked. Vardhamana is most often called Mahavira by his followers —which means the strong one —since he’s said to have been strong enough as a child to hit and hurt a monster. Jains themselves don’t consider Mahavira as the founder of Jainism but as someone continuing and reviving much older teachings - and truths.

Mahavira is considered as an enlightened leader and teacher, but not as the first. No, he is considered to be the 24th and last in a series of highly enlightened beings - Tirthankara. Among earlier Tirthankara there are giants as well as humans. All Tirthankara have reached enlightenment and realised that they are God. By following the teachings of the Tirthankara it becomes easier to others to also realise this.

According to the Jains.