ABSTRACT
Jainism has had a major influence on all of Indian thought. The fundamental aim of Jainism is to awaken human beings to the plight of their suffering and to help them achieve liberation from this suffering. According to Jainism, the fundamental cause of human suffering is bondage of the soul by karmic matter. The beginnings of Jainism are lost in the dim reaches of antiquity, perhaps rooted in the Indus culture. Mahavira, twenty-fourth and most recent Ford-maker of the present age, was born at Kundagram in 599 BCE. Ahimsa, nonhurting, is the basis of Jain morality, for ultimately all questions of good and evil and right or wrong come down to whether or not the thought, speech, or action in question hurts any life-form. Jain emphasis on the importance of human knowledge led to important accomplishments in philosophy, logic, literature, architecture, art, mathematics, and the sciences, encouraging non-Jains to develop and refine their own systems and methods.
