-ˌnizəm noun
( -s )
Usage: usually capitalized
: a religion of India historically traceable to the jina Vardhamana Mahavira of the 6th century B.C. having scriptures, temples, a cultus, and a monastic class and being characterized by the belief that while gods control the realm of time and matter no being higher than an absolutely perfect human soul is necessary for the creation or moral regulation of the universe, and by the personal ideal of the kevalin worked toward through usually numerous lives in the pursuit of right knowledge, right faith, and right conduct including ahimsa and in veneration of the jinas often involving images — compare digambara , svetambara