Jainism Glossary Terms

acharya

An acharya is teacher or spiritual guide, one learned in the religious tradition and its texts.

Adinath

Adinath is the first of the 24 Jain Tirthankaras. He is said to have established the various institutions that form the basis of all civilized life: marriage, agriculture, the arts, and weaponry. After ruling for thousands of years, he divided his kingdom...

ahimsa

Ahimsa means non-violence and is a central ethical precept for Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists. For the Jain tradition ahimsa is especially important. It includes keeping a strict a strict vegetarian diet and avoiding occupations such as farming that may...

anekantavada

The Jain term anekantavada, which literally means “no-one-perspective-ism,” refers to an appreciation for the fact that a variety of apparently contradictory views may all hold validity. Because the Jain position is able to resolve the apparent...

aparigraha

In the Jain tradition, aparigraha means renunciation, literally non-acquisition or non-grasping. It means to avoiding all acquisitive attachments, even to people, since such possessive clutching inevitably leads to greed, jealousy, selfishness, and...

Bhagavan Mahavira

Mahavira is the religious seer whose teachings of compassion and renunciation have formed the basis of the Jain tradition. Mahavira, regarded as the last of the 24 Tirthankaras of the present age, is said to have been born in the 6th century BCE in modern...

Bhagavan Mahavira

Mahavira is the religious seer whose teachings of compassion and renunciation have formed the basis of the Jain tradition. Mahavira, regarded as the last of the 24 Tirthankaras of the present age, is said to have been born in the 6th century BCE in modern...

bhajan

A bhajan is a popular devotional song, usually in one of India’s vernacular languages, sung individually or in the company of other devotees.

brahmacharya

In the Hindu and Jain traditions, brahmacharya means the celibacy and self control undertaken by a student of sacred knowledge.

Chitrabhanu, Gurudev

Chitrabhanu (b. 1922) renounced home life at age 19 to become a Jain monk. His life as a mendicant followed traditional norms until 1970, when he returned to lay life so that he could fly to Geneva to participate in the second Spiritual Summit Conference...

Das Lakshan

Das Lakshan, the “Festival of the Ten Religious Qualities,” is a ten-day Digambara Jain observance which starts at the close of the monsoon season (September), immediately after the Shvetambara Paryushana Parva. On each day, one of the ten chapters of the...

deva

Deva or dev is a common term for god or celestial being. It is used variously by Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists to refer to the multitude of divine or celestial beings. Sometimes it is also used as an honorific, such as “Gurudev,” which would mean revered...

Dharma

Dharma means religion, religious duty, religious teaching. The word dharma comes from a Sanskrit root meaning “to uphold, support, bear,” thus dharma is that order of things which informs the whole world, from the laws of nature to the inner workings of...

Digambara

The Digambara tradition is one of the two major branches of Jain monasticism, the other being Shvetambara. Each has its own community of lay followers. The two monastic groups began to emerge as early as the 4th century BCE, although the split was not...

Divali

Divali (also called Dipavali or Diwali) is the autumn festival of lights in the Hindu and Jain traditions. In the Hindu tradition, the festival is in honor of the Goddess Lakshmi, the Goddess of Good Fortune, who is invited to be present. In the Jain...

Gandhi, Virchand Raghavji

Virchand Raghavji Gandhi (1864-1901) represented the Jain tradition at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. He proved to be a very eloquent spokesman for his tradition at the Parliament and on a subsequent lecture tour to major U.S...

International Mahavir Jain Mission

The International Mahavir Jain Mission is an organization founded by Acharya Sushil Kumar in 1975 to facilitate communication among Jain centers around the world. It has its headquarters at Siddhachalam, the Jain retreat center in Blairstown, New Jersey.

Jain meditation

Today the most widely practiced method of Jain meditation involves sitting or standing completely still for 48 minutes, letting go of all passions and negative mental attitudes, thereby attaining a sense of equanimity ( samayika). Another technique is...

Jain monk

(also: sadhvi; muni) Jain monks (sadhus) and nuns (sadhvis) are also called munis, literally the "silent" holy ones. Traditionally, they are supposed to move from village to village, accepting only wht food someone offers them along the way. They go by...

Jain temple

Each Jain temple is regarded as a replica of the assembly hall miraculously created by the gods for Mahavira upon his enlightenment. Hence, in entering a temple, a Jain has the sense of approaching the spot where a living Tirthankara sits in omniscient...

Jaina Association of North America

The Federation of Jain Associations in North America (JAINA) is an umbrella organization encompassing the approximately 60 Jain centers in the United States and Canada. Since its first meeting in 1981, JAINA has held conventions every two years in various...

Jainism

The term Jain or Jaina refers to the tradition of the Jinas, the “victorious ones” who have won spiritual liberation, and to those who follow it. The Jain tradition as we know it dates back some 2500 years to the life of the teacher Mahavira, said to be...

Jina

Jina means “victor,” one who has won spiritual liberation. The Jain teacher Mahavira, like the enlightened ones before him, was given the honorific title of Jina since, through his spiritual victory, he had conquered ignorance to realize the luminous...

jiva

Jiva means the life-force, the vital breath, or the soul. According to various Jain and Hindu traditions, every sentient being possesses a soul or jiva which is caught up in an ongoing cycle of birth and death, shedding the body time and again. The...

karma

Karma means action and the consequences of action, both in the world and for oneself. It is important in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions where rebirth is presupposed and karma shapes one’s ongoing life. Every action leaves an imprint. In the Jain...

kevalajnana

In the Jain tradition, kevalajnana or kaivalya is the supreme, omniscient knowledge of the self and the universe. A person who has attained such enlightenment, called a kevalin, can comprehend the past, present, and future states of all objects, not only...

Kumar, Sushil

Sushil Kumar (1926–1994) was born in a small village in India, became a Jain monk at age 15, and came to the United States in 1974 at the age of 48. He founded Siddhachalam, the first Jain religious retreat center in the United States, in 1983. He was...

Mahavira Jayanti

Mahavira Jayanti is the Birthday of Mahavira, the religious seer of the 6th century BCE, whose teachings of compassion and renunciation have formed the basis of the Jain tradition. In India, this day, which falls in either April or May, is a national...

Mahavratas

In the Jain tradition, the adoption of the Mahavratas, or “great vows,” is central to becoming a monk or nun. The vows include: ahimsa (nonviolence); satya (truth); asteya (not stealing); brahmacharya (chastity) and aparigraha (non-possession). The vow to...

mantra

A mantra is a sequence of spiritually-potent sounds or syllables used for meditation, prayer, or to accompany ritual enactments. Mantras are important in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. The repeated oral or mental recitation of a mantra is said...