Jainism is an ancient religious and philosophical tradition of India. Jains are the sixth largest religious community of India. There are more than three million Indian Jains. As a wealthy religious community, Jains have had a powerful influence on the life and history of the Indian subcontinent. There are also communities of Jains in East Africa (mainly Kenya), Europe (mainly England), and the United States and Canada.

The Jain religion takes its name from the Jina (meaning victor or conqueror), a title given to 24 great teachers called Tirthankaras (ford-makers). These teachers demonstrated and taught the Jain path of purity and peace which leads to the highest spiritual liberation. Jainism may have begun in the Indus Valley civilization around 3000 B.C. Little is known about the first 22 teachers. The last two, Parsva (about 877-777 B.C.) and Mahavira (about 599-527 B.C.), lived and taught in northeastern India. They gained considerable followings.

Mahavira ("Great Hero"), the last of these great teachers, lived at the same time as the Buddha. Like Buddha, Mahavira rejected the two Hindu notions of the social system of caste (divisions in the Hindu social system) and the rituals of sacrifice. He was a prince, but left his home at the age of 30 to become an ascetic (a religious person who practises self-denial). He plucked out his hair, discarded his clothes, and wandered for 12.5 years, fasting and practising severe penances in his search for truth.

At the age of 42 he attained enlightenment (a state of divine experience, or understanding ultimate truth). For the next 30 years he travelled across northern India, teaching an austerely ascetic path to purity and peace. The Kalpa Sultra, a Jain book that records the lives of the teachers, records that he died at Pava (modern Bihar) at the age of 72. He left more than 500,000 followers, including 50,000 monks and nuns.