Jainism

The subject of the study is "Jainism". The main purpose of the study is to deal with the main beliefs, worship and historical process that Jaina religion contains in its traditional structure. For this purpose, in this study, the experiences, belief doctrines and basic worships of Jainism in the historical process are discussed. The historical process of Jainism has been processed, considering the historical background before Mahavira. The purpose of starting the process in this way is to try to convey the conditions under which the Jain religion was born and what are the factors affecting its basic beliefs. The lives of the guides named Tirthankara, who lived before Mahavira and had common features with Mahavira, are important in terms of showing that Jainists' beliefs are based on a deep heritage. This legacy can be mentioned behind the Jainists who owned claiming their religion after Mahavira's death. Even though the Jainist community experienced divisions and split into two sects, the religion has survived until today. This situation shows that Jainism owns the organization established by Mahavira. After the official separation of the two sects, the corpus of holy books was divided according to the acceptance of the sects. Jainism has drawn the framework of religion with the events it has experienced in the historical process. While the doctrine of the sharing of religion by the Svetambara and Digambara sects did not cause a great difference, it caused them to differ in terms of practices. Jainism also benefited from the Hindu logic system while forming its basic belief doctrines. Jain Religion has formed its basic belief doctrine by accepting jiva atoms from the essence of existence. In the second part, while giving place to the teachings of Jainism, firstly the jiva atom and then the other teachings developed by the ahimsa rule were tried to be conveyed. The subject of the third section is practices. The field in which Jainism embodies its beliefs is practices. This section has been handled by considering the organizational structure of Jainism and the time of practice of worship. Practices such as puja, image worship and yoga, which constitute the content of worship, were evaluated within the framework of Jaina understanding. The process of the Jainists from their birth to their death is explained by considering the cultural and social environment. For this reason, the last subject of the third chapter was the religious introductory rites.