Jainism has had a significant influence in Gujarat. Practitioners of this religion believe that their 22nd tirthankara (propagators of Jain religion) attained salvation here. Many other monks have also got salvation; especially on the holy mountains of Girnar and Satrunjaya. The Vallabhi Council held in c. 5th century CE. Their canonical scriptures were written down during this council. King Vanaraja (c. 720-780 CE) of the Cavada dynasty was brought up by a Jain monk named Silaguna Suri.

History

Jain temples are found in Gujarat from as early as the 6th and 7th centuries CE. It was patronized by the Solankis and Chavadas. Northern Gujarat became a principle center of Jainism in the 13th century CE.

The earliest known Gujarat text Bharat-bahubali Ras, was written by a Jain monk. Of the most important people in Gujarat's Jain history were the Acharya Hemachandra Suri and his pupil, the Chalukya ruler Kumarpal.

Major Centers

Major ancient Jain centers include:

Jainism (/ˈdʒeɪnɪzəm/ or /ˈdʒaɪnɪzəm/), traditionally known as Jain dharma, is an ancient Indian religion that prescribes the path of Nonviolence (ahiṃsā) towards all living beings.Jain philosophy distinguishes the soul (consciousnesses) from the body (matter). Jains believe that all living beings are really soul; intrinsically perfect and immortal. Souls in transmigration (saṃsāra) are said to be embodied in the body like a prison and therefore, experience birth and death. Practitioners believe non-injury (ahimsa) and self-control are the means to liberation from the cycle of births and deaths. The liberated souls are worshipped as God in Jainism. Jain texts reject the idea of a creator or destroyer God and postulates an eternal universe.

Overview

Jain cosmology divides the worldly cycle of time into two parts or half-cycles. According to Jains, in every half-cycle of time, twenty-four tirthankaras grace this part of the Universe to teach the unchanging doctrine of right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. The word Tīrthankara signifies the founder of a tirtha, which means a fordable passage across a sea. The Tirthankara show the 'fordable path' across the sea of interminable births and deaths. Modern history records the existence of last tirthankara, Mahavira (6th century B.C.) and his predecessor Parshvanatha. Jain texts expound that Jainism has always existed and will always exist.

Gujarati (ગુજરાતી) may refer to anything of or relating to the western Indian state of Gujarat and may refer directly to the following articles:

Gujarati is a Unicode block containing characters for writing the Gujarati language. In its original incarnation, the code points U+0A81..U+0AD0 were a direct copy of the Gujarati characters A1-F0 from the 1988 ISCII standard. The Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam blocks were similarly all based on their ISCII encodings.

References

External Links

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_Unicode_in_creating_Gujarati_script

Gujarati /ɡʊdʒəˈrɑːti/ (ગુજરાતી Gujarātī [ɡudʒəˈɾɑːt̪i]) is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. It is part of the greater Indo-European language family. Gujarati is descended from Old Gujarati (circa 1100 – 1500 AD). In India, it is the chief language in the state of Gujarat, as well as an official language in the union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Gujarati is the language of the Gujjars, who had ruled Rajputana and Punjab.

According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 4.5% of the Indian population (1.21 billion according to the 2011 census) speaks Gujarati, which amounts to 54.6 million speakers in India. There are about 65.5 million speakers of Gujarati worldwide, making it the 26th most spoken native language in the world. Along with Romani and Sindhi, it is among the most western of Indo-Aryan languages. Gujarati was the first language of Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

History

Gujarati (also sometimes spelled Gujerati, Gujarathi, Guzratee, Guujaratee, Gujrathi, and Gujerathi) is a modern IA (Indo-Aryan) language evolved from Sanskrit. The traditional practice is to differentiate the IA languages on the basis of three historical stages:

Jain is a surname of northern Indian origin. It is found in Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, and reflects the Jain religious community. Notable people with the surname include:

See also

Jain vegetarian diet is practiced by the followers of Jain culture and philosophy. It is one of the most rigorous forms of spiritually motivated diet on the Indian subcontinent and beyond. The Jain cuisine is completely vegetarian and also excludes onions, potatoes, brinjals (eggplants) and garlic, similar to the shojin-ryori Buddhist cuisine of Japan.

The strictest forms of Jain diet is practiced by the ascetics; in addition to potatoes it may exclude other root vegetables. This food is called sattvic, which means that it is based on the qualities of goodness, lightness and happiness. On the other hand, onions, eggplant and garlic are considered "tamasic" as they are believed to have a quality of darkness, lethargy and a putrid smell.

Overview