Jainism

Tradition·Founded c. 550 BCE·est. ~4–5 million worldwide

Vedic Religion → Jainism

Branch
Community of Jainism

The sub-orders.

Svetambaras split three ways: Murtipujak, who worship images; Sthanakvasi, who from the fifteenth century rejected images and meet in plain halls; and Terapanth, founded in 1760, which is unusual in having one acharya over the entire order and which invented the semi-monastic samani rank specifically so that nuns could use vehicles and teach abroad.

How you joinBirth or affiliation to a particular acharya
Who leadsSvetambaras divide into Murtipujak, who worship images; Sthanakvasi, who from the fifteenth century rejected image worship and meet in plain halls; and Terapanth, founded 1760, which is unusual in having a single acharya over the whole order and which created the semi-monastic samani rank so that nuns could travel abroad by vehicle
The unitThe sub-orders inside each
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

The Svetambara branch subdivides further and the subdivisions turn on images. Murtipujaks worship images in temples and constitute the largest group. The Sthanakvasi movement, tracing to Lonka Shah in the fifteenth century and formalised in the seventeenth, rejected image worship as unsupported by the canon and worships in plain halls — sthanaks — with samayika and scriptural study in place of puja. The Terapanth, founded by Acharya Bhikshu in 1760 as a breakaway from the Sthanakvasi, is organisationally unique in Jainism: a single acharya heads the entire order, which gives it an unusual coherence, and its recent acharyas — Tulsi and Mahaprajna — ran large public programmes including the Anuvrat movement for lay ethics and Preksha Meditation. Terapanth also created the samana and samani ranks, semi-monastics who keep most but not all mendicant rules and are permitted to use vehicles, which solved the problem that full mendicants cannot leave India on foot and has made Terapanth disproportionately visible in the diaspora and in interfaith settings.

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