Our Missions

Mission 1: The Visible Jain

हमारा धर्म दिखना चाहिए

Jainism is a religion of the mind. Karma, anekantavada, the fourteen gunasthanas: our tradition built the most detailed map of inner life any faith has ever drawn. We are rightly proud of that.

But hear an uncomfortable number. Two-thirds of Jains say we have a lot in common with Hindus. Only 19 percent of Hindus say the same about us. We see everyone. Almost nobody sees us.

It was not always so. Around 50 BCE, ordinary Jain families carved their names into ayagapata tablets at Mathura, some of the earliest devotional art in India. A Jain library in Jaisalmer preserves the oldest dated painted manuscript in the country. Jain merchants built Dilwara and Ranakpur instead of building palaces. And our tradition remembers Bhagwan Rishabhanatha, the first Tirthankara, as the teacher of the 72 visible arts: writing, craft, agriculture, commerce. The very first thing the first Jain teacher gave humanity was material civilization.

Somewhere, we stopped. Today a Sikh wrist carries a kara and a Hindu forehead carries a tika, and a Jain carries nothing that says who we are. Our homes hold no ashtamangala on the door, no Jain flag at Paryushan, no ghar derasar in the corner. And when the symbols disappear from a home, the questions disappear with them. A child who never asks “what does this mean?” never gets to hear the answer. That is how values die: not by argument, but by absence. The census already shows it: the lowest population growth of any community in India, and two hundred thousand fewer Jain children in a single decade.

Let us be clear about what we are not saying. Aparigraha is not negotiable, and our Sthanakvasi and Terapanthi families, who worship without idols at all, are honoring a truth we share: the object is never the point. Bhava, the feeling behind it, is the point. But that is exactly why the object matters. A murti, a dhaaga, a swastika drawn in rice is not a possession. It is a daily reminder wearing the shape of a thing, an anchor that holds the value in place for the next generation to find.

What we commit to: every symbol on this site explained, so you can explain it to your children. Guides to the ashtamangala, the Jain flag, the lanchhanas, the ghar derasar. The meaning behind every dhaaga, tika, murti and mantra, told properly. Wear the identity. Keep it in the home. Let them see it, so they can ask, so you can answer, so it survives.

Mission 2: Jainism Without Denial

स्वीकार पहला व्रत है

It is difficult to practice Jainism today the way Bhagwan Mahavira practiced it. Let us say that plainly, without shame, because the tradition itself said it first.

The householder’s path was never the monk’s path. The five great vows of ascetics were scaled, by the tradition itself, into anuvratas for laypeople, and “anuvrata” literally means “small vow.” In 1949, Acharya Tulsi built an entire movement on this insight, inviting people of every religion to take small ethical vows with no ritual load at all. And Jain karma theory itself teaches that bhava-bandha, the bondage of intention, comes before the bondage of the act. The state of your mind binds karma before your hands do anything. Values were always the engine. Practice is how values breathe.

So no, we will not tell you that eating after sunset makes you a failed Jain. But we will tell you the one thing that does break the path: denial.

Our tradition is perhaps the only one on Earth that made confession of mistakes an obligatory daily practice. Pratikraman, twice a day in the devout rhythm, fortnightly at Pakkhi, yearly at Samvatsari, when every Jain says to every living being: Michhami Dukkadam. And the shastras name the enemy precisely. Maya-shalya, the thorn of concealment: hiding your faults, from others and from yourself. The texts say that until this thorn is pulled out, no vow counts. Not one.

That is the whole mission in one line. Missed the fast? Say so. Lost your temper? Name it. Ate what you had decided not to? Accept it, without excuse and without self-hatred, and if feasible, decide not to repeat it. “Padhamam nanam tao daya,” says the Dashavaikalika Sutra: first comes knowing, then comes compassion. Seeing yourself clearly is where all of it starts.

What we commit to: guidance that never uses guilt as a tool. Modern, honest versions of the small vows. A one-minute daily practice of acceptance for people who cannot do a full pratikraman. And the standing reminder that a Jain who fails and admits it is on the path, while a Jain who fails and denies it has left it.

Mission 3: Claim Your Story

हमारा इतिहास, हमारी विरासत

Many Jains grow up half-embarrassed about our relationship with the wider Sanatana world, unsure whether Rama and Krishna are “ours” or “theirs,” whether respecting them is somehow un-Jain. This mission exists to replace that confusion with knowledge, because the real history is astonishing.

Jainism never denied the epics. It claimed them. Somewhere between the 1st and 5th century CE, the monk Vimalasuri wrote the Paumachariya, the Jain Ramayana, one of the earliest surviving Ramayanas after Valmiki. In it, Rama is one of our own 63 great souls, a Baladeva so committed to nonviolence that he kills no one, and he attains moksha. In the Jain Mahabharata tradition, the Pandavas end their lives as Jain monks, and three of them attain liberation on Shatrunjaya, the hill our families still climb barefoot.

And Krishna? In our tradition, Krishna is family in the most literal sense: the first cousin of Bhagwan Neminatha, the 22nd Tirthankara. Our Harivamsha Purana, written in 783 CE, tells his whole story. And our tradition holds something no other tradition would dare: that Krishna’s soul will one day become a Tirthankara of the next cosmic age. Even Ravana’s soul, our texts say, is destined for eventual Tirthankarahood. In the Jain universe, nobody is beyond redemption.

We also honor the honest difference, because respect built on blur is not respect. Jainism accepts the devas as real, Indra himself celebrates every kalyanaka of every Tirthankara, and Jains have venerated Saraswati so long that the oldest Saraswati statue ever found anywhere is a Jain one. But our acharyas never accepted a creator of the world, and never outsourced the soul’s freedom to any god. “If God created the world, where was he before creation?” asked Jinasena in the 8th century. The gods, for us, are respected fellow travelers in samsara. The way out was shown by the Jinas, and walking it is up to us.

Two traditions that have argued like siblings for 2,500 years, and celebrated, built, and survived together for just as long. Shared Diwali, shared goddesses, shared pilgrim geography, one shared civilization, two answers to its deepest question. You cannot pass on what you do not know.

What we commit to: the stories of all 24 Tirthankaras with their real lessons. The Jain Ramayana and the Jain Krishna, told properly. The honest history, patronage and persecution both. Scripture, tradition, and scholarship always labeled as what they are. Begin with the birth stars of the 24 Tirthankaras.

A Fourth Mission, for Everyone

अनेकांतवाद: इस युग की सबसे ज़रूरी जैन देन

The internet’s disease is one-sidedness. Every feed rewards certainty, outrage, and the refusal to imagine that the other person might hold a piece of the truth. Jainism’s oldest intellectual doctrine is the exact antidote: anekantavada, the many-sidedness of reality. No single viewpoint, our acharyas taught, can hold the whole truth of any real thing. It is ahimsa applied to the mind: refusing to do violence to the part of the truth you cannot see from where you stand.

We believe this is the Jain gift the modern world needs most, and you do not need to be Jain to receive it. Wherever this site can teach a reader to say “from one standpoint” before an opinion, we will.