ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of the present schools, orders and sects within both the Svetambara- and the Digambara-denomination and to bring together the available demographic data on the current Jain monastic traditions. The majority of the Jain laity retains an ambiguous social identity midway between the Jain mendicant communities and the wider ‘Hindu’ society. The chapter also provides an overview of the current divisions of the Jain mendicants, their numbers and main demographic shifts between 1987 and 2002 is to a significant extent based on the data compiled in B. U. Jain’s Caturmas Suci publications of 1987, 1990, 1996, 1999 and 2002. Today, almost all Murtipujaka mendicant groups are samvegi orders. The chapter shows the regional distribution and the number of ascetics of the Sramana Sangha, which is now the largest organised group amongst the Sthanakavasi mendicants, from 1987–1996.
