History in Jainism

Jainism does not present itself as founded. It holds that its teaching is beginningless, revealed afresh by each Tirthankara in each cycle - so Mahavira reformed and transmitted a tradition rather than starting one.

Historically, Parshvanatha is generally accepted as a figure of around the ninth century BCE, and Mahavira as a contemporary of the Buddha in the fifth to sixth. The community divided over questions of monastic practice - principally whether an ascetic may wear clothing - into the Svetambara and Digambara traditions in the early centuries CE. Jain communities went on to shape the commercial, literary and architectural history of western and southern India in ways out of all proportion to their numbers, and the temple libraries they endowed are why so much early Indian literature survives at all.

36 questions in this topic