Jainism

Abstract Jainism is increasingly included in world religions textbooks, studied alongside Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and so on. This is a new development, and one that is widely celebrated among scholars of the tradition, as well as among Jain communities themselves. It is argued that after many years of misidentification as a minor sect of Hinduism or Buddhism, the Jain tradition is finally being recognized for its distinctiveness and rightly studied as a tradition of major influence. Through the example of Jainism, the chapter reflects on some of the dominant critiques of the world religions’ paradigm, including the paradigm’s often naive treatment of religion as a naturalized category. But, arguing from anthropology’s methodological insistence on studying lived experience, it also takes aim at the view that the distinction between religion and non-religion is an arbitrary one. It concludes with a call for a greater presence of the anthropological voice in the study of religion.