History & overview · every faith gets one
Non-violence taken to its logical end.
The path of the Jinas — conquerors of the self. Absolute non-violence, many-sided truth, and liberation earned by one's own austerity: no creator god, no savior, no excuses. Among the oldest living religions of renunciation.
The founding
Its founding is bound to Mahavira (24th Tirthankara) — c. 550 BCE.
What it holds
Reality. An eternal universe of countless souls, each capable of liberation.
The divine. There is no creator and no god who answers. The twenty-four Tirthankaras are liberated souls who taught the way out and then left the world entirely — they cannot hear a prayer and cannot intervene, and Jains know this and worship them anyway, on the reasoning that the devotion changes the devotee. Below them, most Jain temples also house yakshas and yakshis who are held to act, and much popular practice is addressed to those..
Death and after. Rebirth, until the soul rises free of karma.