From a sociological perspective, Jainism can be viewed as a cultural system encoding the procedures of a complex mode of life in which the ideology of the path to freedom from rebirth (mokṣa) represents a realm of value functioning in unresolved tension with another, complementary realm of value, that which privileges living in the world in a state of moral and material well-being.¹ No doubt this understanding of Jainism is valid for a substantial part of the tradition’s past. However, the signific…