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History & Doctrinal aspects of Jainism : 47 and finally renouncing the worldly pleasures to at the age of 30 to realize the true nature of self. For 12.5 years, he practiced extreme physical, mental and speech penance by leading a secluded life outside the town limits and mostly meditated upon his self to understand and experience the real nature of his soul. He experienced the real self/soul and attained omniscience at the age of 42. Since then he started preaching his philosophy for 30 years. He attained liberation (nirvāṇa) at the age of 72 on the last day of waning moon in the Indian calendar month of Kārtika (approx October-November) at Pāvā in the state of Bihar, He was given several names like Vardhamāna, Vīra, Ativīra, Sanmati and lastly Mahāvīra. Buddha was a contemporary of Mahāvīra and hailing from the same region. After the nirvāṇa of Lord Mahāvīra, Jainism moved towards southern and western India where the Jain monks observed/practiced some changes in their ethico-spiritual practices giving rise to several sects and sub-sects. The major sects and sub-sects as prevailing today are: • Digambara: Bīsapantha, Terahpantha, • Śvetāmbara: Mārtipūjaka, Sthānakavāsi Terāpantha From the demography and philosophy of Jains, we see them concentrated in big cities of India where economic progress was easier to achieve. The latest census of India conducted in 2006-7 shows Jains as a small minority of 4.8 million persons living primarily in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi (including adjoining western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana). Further this small minority is most literate (more than 98 percent) and economically prosperous. Similarly we see a number of Jains (almost 100000) migrating to USA, Canada, Europe and other parts of the world to test their academic and business acumen. Most of them are now well established.
Vast corpus of Jain scriptural texts offer detailed discussions of all aspects of their ontology, philosophy, religion, metaphysics, ethics, karma doctrine, mysticism, epistemology, rituals etc. The original texts are written in Prākęta while later ones are in Sanskrit and other
