Jain communities

The Jain in India are the last direct representatives of the ancient Shramana tradition.

Sangha

Jainism has a fourfold order of muni (male monastics), aryika (female monastics), Śrāvaka (layman) and sravika (laywoman). This order is known as a sangha.

Cultural influence

The Jain have the highest literacy rate in India, 94.1.% compared with the national average of 65.38%. They have the highest female literacy rate, 90.6.% compared with the national average of 54.16%.[1][2]

The sex ratio in the 0-6 age group is the second lowest for Jain (870 females per 1000 males).

Communities

There are about 110 different Jain communities in India. They can be divided into six groups based on historical and current residence.

• Oswal
• Khandelwal
• Varaiya
• Agarwal
• Porwad
• Bagherwal
• Humad
• Barar
• Gupta
• Jaiswal Jain
• Samaiya
• Mahatma Jain
• Palliwal[3]
• Veerwal

Major Jain communities:

• Jain Bunt are a Jain community from Karnataka, India.[4]
• Jain Komati is a small community scattered all over South and Central India and patrons of many Jain Institutions.[5][6]
• Saraks is a community in Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa. They have been followers of Jainism since ancient time.[7]
• Porwal community that originated in southern Rajasthan, India.[8]
• Parwar is a major Jain community from the Bundelkhand region, which is largely in Madhya Pradesh and Lalitpur District, Jhansi.[9]
• Agrawal Jain of Hisar, Haryana.[10]
• Bhabra of Punjab is an ancient merchant community from Punjab region which mainly follows Jainism.
• Sarawagi or Khandelwali originated from Khandela, a historical town in northern Rajasthan.[9]
• Bagherwal from Baghera (currently known as Ajmer district) a princely state in Rajasthan, a community of Digambar sect.
• Shrimal, originally from Rajasthan, Shrimal town in southern Rajasthan. The Shrimal (Srimal) Jain are part of the Oswal merchant and minister caste that is found primarily in the north of India.[11]
• Oswal are a Jain community with origins in the Marwar region of Rajasthan and Tharparkar district in Sindh.[12]
• Jaiswal are mainly located in the Gwalior and Agra region.[13]
• Navnat emerged as a result of blending of several smaller Jain communities in East Africa as well as in Gujarat itself in early 20th century.[14]
• Veerwal is a Jain community in the Mewar region in Rajasthan, India.
• Humad is the name of an ancient Jain community originally from Gujarat and Rajasthan, India.
• Varaiya is a Jain community with origins in the Madhya Pradesh, India.

Central India

• Jainism in Bundelkhand
• Jainism in Madhya Pradesh

Western India

• Jainism in Gujarat (Gujarati Jain)
• Jainism in Maharashtra (Marathi Jain)
  • Jainism in Mumbai

Northern India

• Jainism in Delhi
• Jainism in Uttar Pradesh
• Jainism in Rajasthan (Marwari Jain)

Southern India

• Jainism in Karnataka
• Jainism in Kerala
• Jainism in North Karnataka
• Jainism in Tamil Nadu (Tamil Jain)

Eastern India

• Jainism in Bengal
• Jainism in Nagaland

Diaspora

Virchand Gandhi made a presentation of Jainism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893, marking one of the earliest appearances of Jainism outside India.[15] The World Jain Congress was held in Leicester in 1988.[16]

• Jainism in Europe
• Jainism in America
• Jainism in Canada
• Jainism in East Africa - One of the oldest Jain overseas diaspora. Their number was estimated at 45,000 at the independence of the East African countries in the early 1960s.[17] Most members of the diaspora belonged to Gujarati speaking Halari Visa Oshwal Jain community originally from the Jamnagar area of Saurashtra.[17][18]

Population

The Jain population in India according to 2011 census is 0.54% i.e. 4,451,753 (Males 2,278,097; Females 2,173,656) out of the total population of India 1,210,854,977 (males 623,270,258; females 587,584,719).[19] The tabular representation of Jain population in the major states of India as per 2011 Census data released by the government is:

S. No.	State	Persons (total)	Persons (rural)	Persons (urban)	Male (total)	Male (rural)	Male (urban)	Female (total)	Female (rural)	Female (urban)
1	India	4,451,753	904,809	3,546,944	2,278,097	467,577	1,810,520	2,173,656	437,232	1,736,424
2	Maharashtra	1,400,349	269,959	1,130,390	713,157	140,476	572,681	687,192	129,483	557,709
3	Rajasthan	622,023	166,322	455,701	317,614	84,649	232,965	304,409	81,673	222,736
4	Gujarat	579,654	44,118	535,536	294,911	22,357	272,554	284,743	21,761	262,982
5	Madhya Pradesh	567,028	109,699	457,329	291,937	57,431	234,506	275,091	52,268	222,823
6	Karnataka	440,280	220,362	219,918	225,544	113,598	111,946	214,736	106,764	107,972
7	Uttar Pradesh	213,267	30,144	183,123	110,994	15,852	95,142	102,273	14,292	87,981
8	Delhi	166,231	192	166,039	85,605	94	85,511	80,626	98	80,528
9	Tamil Nadu	89,265	10,084	79,181	45,605	5,044	40,561	43,660	5,040	38,620

It is likely that the actual population of Jains may be significantly higher than the census numbers.

The Jain population in United States is estimated to be about 150,000 to 200,000.[20][21]

In Japan, there are more than 5,000 families who have converted to Jainism and is growing faster there.[22]

See also

• Legal status of Jainism as a distinct religion in India
• List of Jains
• Sarak

References

Citations

1. "Jains steal the show with 7 Padmas", The Times of India, 9 April 2015
2. "Literacy race: Jains take the honours", The Times of India, 7 September 2004
3. Carrithers, Michael; Humphrey, Caroline, eds. (1991). The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society. Cambridge University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-52136-505-5.
4. Kumar Suresh Singh 2004, pp. 387–391(Emigrant Bunts by P. Dhar).
5. "Jain Culture In Telugu Literature". jainsamaj.org. Archived from the original on 7 February 2016.
6. "Inscription on the last Jain temple in Telangana found". thehindu.com.
7. "Government of West Bengal: List of Other Backward Classes". Govt. of West Bengal. Archived from the original on 19 January 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2011.
8. K. S. Singh 2004, p. 1738.
9. Kumar Suresh Singh 2004, p. 565.
10. Patel, Aakar (6 February 2015). "A history of the Agarwals". Livemint. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
11. K. S. Singh 1989, p. 524.
12. Babb 2004, pp. 164–178.
13. "About Jaiswals". Jaiswal Samaj. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
14. Adam 2015, p. 299.
15. J. Gordon Melton & Martin Baumann 2010, p. 1555.
16. Dundas 2002, p. 246.
17. Gregory, Robert G. (1993), Quest for equality: Asian politics in East Africa, 1900-1967, New Delhi: Orient Longman Limited, p. 26, ISBN 0-863-11-208-0
18. Mehta, Makrand (2001). "Gujarati Business Communities in East African Diaspora: Major Historical Trends". Economic and Political Weekly. 36 (20): 1738. JSTOR 4410637.
19. Office of registrar general and census commissioner (2011), C-1 Population By Religious Community, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
20. Lee, Jonathan H. X. (21 December 2010), Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife, ABC-CLIO, pp. 487–488, ISBN 978-0-313-35066-5
21. Wiley, Kristi L. (2004), Historical dictionary of Jainism, Scarecrow Press, p. 19, ISBN 978-0-8108-5051-4
22. "Thousands of Japanese making a smooth transition from Zen to Jain". Hindustan Times. 23 February 2020.

Sources

• Adam, Michel (2015), Indian Africa: Minorities of Indian-Pakistani Origin in Eastern Africa, Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, ISBN 978-9987-08-297-1
• Babb, Lawrence A. (2004), Alchemies of Violence: Myths of Identity and the Life of Trade in Western India, Sage, ISBN 978-0-7619-3223-9
• Dundas, Paul (2002) [1992], The Jains (Second ed.), Routledge, ISBN 0-415-26605-X
• J. Gordon Melton; Martin Baumann, eds. (2010), Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices, One: A-B (Second ed.), ABC-CLIO, ISBN 978-1-59884-204-3
• Facets of Jainology : Selected Research Papers on Jain Society, Religion and Culture/Vilas Adinath Sangave. Mumbai, Popular Prakashan, 2001
• Shah, Natubhai (2004), Jainism, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-81-208-1938-2
• Singh, K. S. (1989), People of India (Rajasthan ed.), Popular Prakashan, ISBN 978-81-7154-769-2
• Singh, K. S., ed. (2004), People of India: Maharashtra, Mumbai, India: Popular Prakashan, Anthropological Survey of India, ISBN 978-81-7991-102-0
• Singh, Kumar Suresh (2004), People of India: Maharashtra, 1, Popular Prakashan, Anthropological Survey of India, ISBN 978-81-7991-100-6

External links

• Hukonchu.com - resource for Jain literature and religious information
• "Jainism in America" by Yashwant K. Malaiya
• Jain Jagruti Centre, Toronto
• Jain Temple at Palitana, Gujarat - Vidhya Vihaar