Ahimsa
Non-violence
Not to harm any living being in thought, word or deed, nor to cause or approve harm done by others.
In daily lifeSpeak without cruelty online, eat with awareness, and disagree without humiliating anyone.
उपदेश
Mahavir’s teachings
The five great vows and eight core teachings that run through everything he taught.
उपदेश
Mahavir’s core teachings
Eight threads that run through everything he taught, each one a practice rather than a belief.
Ahimsa
अहिंसाReverence for every form of life, practised as care in what we think, say, eat and do.
Anekantavada
अनेकान्तवादTruth is many-sided. Hold your view firmly enough to live by, loosely enough to learn.
Aparigraha
अपरिग्रहFreedom comes from needing less. Attachment, not ownership, is what binds.
Self-discipline
संयमSamyama, restraint of the senses, is not denial. It is how attention becomes your own again.
Compassion
करुणा · मैत्रीFriendship toward all beings and forgiveness asked and given, every year, without exception.
Equality
समताEvery soul has the same potential. Mahavir welcomed women and people of every caste into his community.
Truth
सत्यWords should be true, needed and harmless. A true word spoken to wound is still a kind of violence.
Inner freedom
मोक्षNo one can free you but yourself. Each soul is its own liberator, by its own effort.
पंच महाव्रत
The five great vows
Monks and nuns take them in full as the mahavratas. Lay followers keep gentler forms, the anuvratas, suited to life in the world.
Satya
Truthfulness
To speak only what is true, and to speak it in a way that is beneficial and free of harshness.
In daily lifeHonesty that is also kind: no half-truths at work, no rumours passed on as fact.
Asteya
Non-stealing
Not to take anything that is not freely given, whether goods, credit, time or ideas.
In daily lifePay fairly, credit other people’s work, and respect their time as you would their property.
Brahmacharya
Self-control
Complete celibacy for monks and nuns; faithfulness and restraint of the senses for householders.
In daily lifeBe the one who decides, not your impulses, whether the pull is a screen, a craving or a habit.
Aparigraha
Non-possessiveness
Limiting what one owns and, more deeply, releasing the attachment that makes us cling.
In daily lifeBuy less, share more, and notice when wanting has quietly turned into needing.
Jain tradition holds that Parshvanatha taught a fourfold restraint and that Mahavir made celibacy an explicit fifth vow.
The journey to peace begins within.
Mahavir did not ask anyone to follow him blindly. He asked them to look inward, as he had. Take one quiet minute now: breathe slowly, and let one thought from this page settle.