Jainism Vs Buddhism Research Paper

Jainism and Buddhism are two religions who share the same parent faith of Hinduism, but diverged into their own separate beliefs. These two religions share the same Aryan background culture from Eastern India. They both seemed to arise with the rejection of orthodox Brahmanic Hinduism. I will explain how Jainism and Buddhism share many similarities with each other, but also analyze the vastness of their differences.

Jainism and Buddhism both emerged from the common parent religion of Hinduism. Whereas they kept some of the integral pieces of Hinduism, they also rejected some of the orthodox beliefs in the Hindu religion. For example, Buddhist and Jain spiritual seekers, Buddha and Mahavira, rejected the authority of the Vedas (Fisher, 2013).

The differences however, are considerable. First, Jainism is much older than Buddhism. There have been Jain artifacts found in the Indus Valley civilization dating back to 2500 BCE (Fisher, 2013). The major teachers for Buddhism and Jainism, were Buddha and Mahavira, who were teaching their practices simultaneously. However, Buddha was the founder of Buddhism, while Mahavira was the last of twenty-four Tirthankara’s in the Jain cosmology (Fisher, 2013). Differentially, Jains believe the universe to be without beginning or end; it is in a continuous cycle of progress and decline (Fisher, 2013). During the decline is where Tirthankara’s are needed to guide the people and instill in them the virtues and beliefs of

To each cause, there is an effect. Both of these religions believe in this cause and effect relationship, though to exceedingly different degrees. Jains take a rather extreme position on Karma. They believe that unintended or unconscious actions can lead to negative Karma (Fisher, 2013). Buddhists however, believe that it is the intention of the mind behind the action that is what influences Karma (Goldstein, 2008). Therefore, if the intention doesn’t exist, it will not influence