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Jaina Community-A Social Survey
day, it is obvious that unless strenuous efforts are made by the Jainas to remove these causes, their proportion to general population will not appreciably increase.
2. REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF JAINA POPULATION
The Jaina community is spread all over India right from Kashmir to Kerala and from Gujarat to Nagaland. The total Jaina population and the percentage distribution of Jaina population according to 1971 census and the percentage of the Jaina population to the total population, according to 1961 and 1971 censuses, in the States and Union Territories are given in Appendix II.? From this Appendix it is evident that even though the Jainas have dispersed over the entire country, they show signs of concentration in certain States only. The percentage distribution, in the descending order, of the Jaina population in States and Union Territories as per 1971 Census is given in Table 6.
From Table 6 it is clear that the Jainas are concentrated largely in the Western Region of India. The Maharashtra State has got the maximum population of the Jainas among the different States and Union Territories of India and this State accounts for more than one-fourth (i. e., 27.02 per cent) of the total population of the Jainas. Maharashtra is followed by Rajasthan (19.72 per cent), Gujarat ( 17.34 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (13.25 per cent) and these four States account for more than three-fourths (i. e. 77.33 per cent) of the total population of the Jainas. The States of Mysore (8.40 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (4.79 per cent ) stand next in importance from the point of view of concentration of the Jaina population. Thus in these six States 90.52 per cent of the Jainas are concentrated and the rest 9.48 per cent of the Jainas are scattered over the remaining 23 States and Union Territories of India.
This distribution of the Jaina population brings out one fact clearly that the Jainas are concentrated in the Hindu dominated areas and are very sparsely populated in the areas dominated by the Muslims. Jainism is more near to Hinduism than to any other prominent religion in India and this might have resulted in the Jainas choosing the Hindus as their neighbours.
A very remarkable feature of the distribution of the Jaina population is the practical dearth of the Jainas in the Eastern Region
