Introduction Jainism is a religious system based on the insights of twenty-four enlightened ‘conquerors’ who taught the way to salvation. The twenty-four are more commonly known as tirthankaras for they crossed the turbulent ocean of the material world to reach the safe shore of enlightenment and perfect bliss. Jains hold that other men and women can achieve enlightenment, but the twenty-four tirthankaras are revered for their special qualities and attributes, most notably their ability to instruct their contemporaries and help them to achieve emancipation. Jainism is a system of practices for enlightenment; all other aspects (temples, idols, rituals, clothing and food customs, the extensive cosmology) are subsidiary. History In India, Jainism appeared several thousand years ago, but the exact date tracked back to life and teaching of Parshvanatha. The major division within Jainism that between the Shvetambars and Digambars–was firmly established by the fifth century; and according to Jain tradition this was not the first but the eighth major schism to have occurred within the fold. Schisms have occurred with impressive regularity, and new groups continue to appear, so that today there is quite a range of contending traditions practising and preaching subtly different versions of Jainism (Sanghivi 54). Temple worship has always been controversial in Shvetambar Jainism, and there is a fairly continuous tradition of organized opposition. which goes back at least to the fifteenth century, when the Gujarati layman Lonka Shah claimed to have discovered in ancient texts that the practice was illegitimate. He founded a new sect, the Lonka Gacch, from which the Sthanakvasis and Terapanthis of today are descended. These traditions are influential, although they have fewer followers than the Mandir Margi traditions (Sanghivi 58). The Terapanth especially is skilful at projecting itself as a modern movement, and as representative of Jainism as a whole in national and international religious fora. So the Mandir Margi schools, such as the Tapa Gacch and Khartar Gacch, maintain their practice of temple worship against the opposition from these traditions, as a deliberate and sustained choice. The renouncers, although they are restricted by their monastic vows in the role they may play in temple ritual, are none the less vociferous in providing, in print and in their sermons, powerful intellectual justifications for the practice, and replies to the arguments of rival schools (Cort23, 31). The Shvetambar Terapanth was founded in the eighteenth century in western Rajasthan, by a disillusioned Sthanakvasi renouncer who is now known to his followers as Acarya Bhikshu. Like the tradition he came from, Bhikshu was opposed to the worship of temple idols, but he also objected to the way Sthanakvasi renouncers lived in halls built specially for their use, and prescribed instead that his disciples should sleep in the homes of lay followers. He had some distinctive teachings about non-violence, and the relation of Jainism to social ethics, which will be discussed below (Sanghivi 61). The Terapanth has come to have a distinctive organization too. Whereas in all other S