We believe that a kinder world begins with the choices we make every day. Our mission is to inspire compassion through education, advocacy, and community — one meal, one conversation, one heart at a time.
At a glance
Overview
Jainism is a tradition where the utmost ethical principle is ahimsa, or non-violence. For centuries, vegetarianism has served as the moral baseline for the community, excluding meat, eggs, fish, and seafood. The Jain worldview recognizes that all lives are interdependent and that humans have no right to take the life of other sentient beings, extending this care even to certain plant lives like root vegetables.
While dairy has traditionally been part of the Jain diet, a growing number of practitioners now recognize veganism as the necessary modern extension of ahimsa. This shift is driven by the understanding that modern dairy and silk production involve inherent harm and exploitation that contradict the core Jain values of compassion and harmlessness.
The Jain community emphasizes that animals possess souls, consciousness, and emotions just as humans do. By adopting a vegan lifestyle, Jains honor the fundamental right of all beings to live free from subjugation and pain, aligning their daily consumption with the ancient wisdom of the Tirthankaras.
Today, Jain vegan advocacy is flourishing through education in pathshalas, all-vegan temple meals, and environmental activism. By addressing the nexus of animal welfare and climate change, Jains continue to serve as a model for a lifestyle rooted in non-possessiveness (aparigraha) and universal lovingkindness.
Principles
The fundamental ethical pillar of Jainism, requiring the avoidance of harm to all living beings in thought, word, and deed. It is the uncompromising moral foundation for a plant-based lifestyle.
The understanding that all lives are interconnected and support one another. Humans have a duty to minimize their footprint and do the least harm possible to their fellow living souls.
The practice of limiting one's possessions and consumption. This principle is directly linked to environmental protection and reducing the exploitation of animals for human pleasure.
The belief that all living beings—including animals, insects, and plants—possess a soul (jiva) that seeks happiness and fears pain just as human souls do.
A deep, active empathy for the suffering of others. As demonstrated by Prince Neminath, true compassion requires taking action to free those who are enslaved or destined for slaughter.
The practice of sustaining the body only with food that is not tainted by bloodshed or suffering, ensuring the body remains a healthy vessel for spiritual liberation.
“One should not injure, subjugate, enslave, torture, or kill any living being including animals, plants, or insects — Respect for all living beings is Non-Violence.”
— Ächäränga Sutra – Bhagawän Mahãvira
“Animals have souls, they have consciousness, they are our kith and kin, they are our ancestors. They wish to live as much as we do; they have feelings and emotions.”
— Prince Neminath (as recounted by Satish Kumar)
“I forgive all living beings; may all living beings forgive me. I am a friend to all life; I bear no ill will against anyone.”
— Pratikraman Sutra (Vanditu)
“As I like to be happy and do not like to be in pain, all living beings like to be happy and do not like to be in pain.”
— Jain Yogasastra, Hemachandracharya
“You have taught us how to nourish the body with only that food which issues straight from the benevolent earth, which is not tainted with the pain of bloodshed.”
— Jain Pratikraman Sutra-Sadhu Kriya
In practice
For the Jain community, vegetarianism has long been a defining characteristic. However, modern activists argue that the traditional inclusion of dairy no longer aligns with ahimsa due to the cruelties of industrial farming. Because Jains already exclude meat and eggs, the transition to veganism focuses primarily on eliminating dairy and silk.
Jain children and educators are increasingly using cultural shows and workshops to illustrate how dairy and leather production harm animals. This educational push aims to show that a truly harmless life in the modern world requires moving beyond the moral baseline of lacto-vegetarianism.
In practice
The story of Prince Neminath serves as a powerful scriptural precedent for animal advocacy. Upon seeing animals caged for his wedding feast, the prince was so moved by their cries and their fear of death that he abandoned his royal life to become a monk.
Neminath’s realization—that animals are our 'kith and kin' and have a fundamental right to live—remains the heart of Jain veganism. It challenges the notion that animals are slaves or meat for human pleasure.
In practice
Traditionally, Jains avoid wearing leather or silk into temples. Modern advocates are extending this by encouraging the use of non-leather belts and synthetic alternatives. In ritual worship (puja), there is a growing movement to replace ghee and milk with water or plant-based oils.
Temple celebrations are also changing. Many Jain centers in the US and UK now serve exclusively vegan meals during public functions, ensuring that the food served is 'not tainted with the pain of bloodshed.'
In practice
Jain principles like aparigraha (non-possessiveness) offer vital solutions to the climate crisis. Animal agriculture is recognized as having a greater impact on global warming than all forms of transportation combined.
The Jain Declaration on Nature highlights the tradition's long-standing concern for the environment. By adopting a vegan diet, Jains mitigate the destruction of habitats and the extinction of species, fulfilling their duty to protect all forms of life.
In practice
The Pratikraman Sutra outlines specific acts of violence toward animals that must be avoided to maintain spiritual purity. These guidelines serve as a checklist for ethical living.
By avoiding these five deeds, a practitioner ensures they are not contributing to the physical or emotional suffering of sentient beings.
In practice
Jainism is built upon the foundational principle of ahimsa, or non-violence, which serves as the ultimate moral guide for all conduct. This teaching is not merely a passive avoidance of harm but a proactive commitment to universal lovingkindness. The Jain community recognizes that all life is interdependent, encapsulated in the concept of 'Parasparopagraho Jivanam'—the idea that all souls are bound together by mutual support and interdependence.
While textual authority is not the sole basis for Jain practice, a vast body of written teachings, songs, and prayers consistently emphasizes that humans have no right to take the lives of other sentient beings. Because every living being possesses a soul and a desire to live, the Jain path encourages practitioners to consume in a way that causes the least possible harm to the world around them.
In practice
The Ächäränga Sutra, containing the teachings of Bhagawän Mahãvira, explicitly states that one should not injure, subjugate, enslave, torture, or kill any living being, including animals, plants, and insects. This comprehensive view of life forms the basis for the Jain vegetarian diet and the growing movement toward veganism, as practitioners seek to align their modern habits with these ancient mandates.
Furthermore, the Pratikraman Sutra outlines specific acts to be avoided to maintain a life of non-violence. These include tying animals in ways that cause pain, confining them in cages where they lack freedom, and depriving them of adequate food or shelter. By reflecting on these traditional lessons, many Jains are finding that the modern dairy and egg industries inherently involve these prohibited acts, leading to a natural transition toward a plant-based lifestyle.
In practice
The commitment to ahimsa extends beyond the plate and into the wardrobe. Traditionally, Jains have avoided wearing leather, especially when entering temples, as it represents the skin of a slaughtered animal. In recent years, this practice has expanded to include a discouragement of silk, as the production process involves the destruction of silkworms.
Community leaders and educators often use cultural shows and workshops to teach children about the harm caused to animals in the production of leather and silk. Some practitioners have even taken the step of purchasing non-leather belts and accessories to give away, ensuring that others in their community have accessible alternatives that do not require the exploitation of living beings.
In practice
Prayer in Jainism is often a reflection on the equality of all souls. The 'Khamemi Savve Jiva' is a widely sung prayer for forgiveness, where the practitioner asks for forgiveness from all living beings and offers friendship to all life. This ritual of seeking and granting forgiveness helps dissolve the ego and reinforces the practitioner's bond with the animal kingdom.
Modern Jain teachers, such as Gurudev and Pramodaben Chitrabhanu, emphasize that the purpose of eating is to sustain the body in health for the sake of spiritual liberation and service. When food is 'tainted with the pain of bloodshed,' it is seen as a hindrance to this spiritual goal. Therefore, choosing food that issues straight from the earth is considered the purest way to nourish the body.
In practice
The transition toward veganism is being led by a diverse group of Jain scholars, monks, and activists. In India, Muni Ji Shri Vihar Sagarji Maharaj has emerged as a rare monastic voice speaking in favor of veganism. In the West, organizations like the Young Jains of America and JAINA have integrated vegan education into their conventions and youth studies, recognizing that modern animal agriculture presents new ethical challenges that traditional lacto-vegetarianism may not fully address.
Jain-run animal sanctuaries, such as Luvin’ Arms in Colorado and various bird hospitals in India, serve as living examples of ahimsa in action. These spaces not only provide refuge for animals but also educate the public on the inherent value of every life, moving the community from a philosophy of 'not killing' to one of active protection and care.
Food
Traditional Jain diet excludes meat, eggs, fish, and root vegetables (like onions and potatoes).
Vegan Mithai: Traditional sweets made with plant-based milks and oils instead of dairy.
Paryushan: The annual festival of forgiveness where vegan options are increasingly prioritized.
Vegan Day (Oct 2): Celebrated in Jain centers with all-vegan meals and speakers.
Thanksgiving Jaap: A modern tradition of reciting prayers for animals.
Lacto-vegetarian options are common, but there is a push for 100% vegan temple catering.
Vegan versions of traditional sweets (mithai) using nut milks and plant-based fats.
Emphasis on 'Rainbow Food'—a variety of plant-based whole foods that avoid root vegetables.
Serving exclusively vegan meals at temple anniversaries and the festival of Paryushan.
Use of plant-based proteins to sustain the body for 'Sadhu Kriya' (spiritual duties).
Arguments
These are not arguments against religion; they are arguments made by practising Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Pagans and Quakers about what their own commitments imply once industrial animal agriculture is described honestly.
Every scripture quoted on these pages was written in a world of small herds, named animals and visible slaughter. None of them contemplated seventy billion land animals a year in windowless sheds. Believers who go plant-based rarely claim to have found a hidden vegan verse — they argue that the old rule of mercy, applied to a genuinely new system, produces a new answer.
Common to every tradition covered here.
Kosher and halal law, and the Hindu and Buddhist expectations around the life of a cow or a bird, all presuppose an animal that was fed, watered, rested and handled without cruelty before death. Industrial rearing violates that precondition long before the knife. A growing number of rabbis, imams and pandits argue that the requirement therefore fails at the farm even where the slaughterhouse is certified.
The traditional gentle picture — milk freely given, eggs simply gathered — described a household animal. Modern dairy involves annual insemination and the removal of calves; modern laying involves the killing of male chicks. Traditions that permit dairy on the grounds that it costs the animal nothing are, on their own logic, obliged to look at what it costs her now.
Feeding the stranger appears as an obligation in nearly every tradition: langar, iftar, the parish supper, prasadam, the Sabbath table. A plant-based table is the most inclusive one available — no guest is excluded by kashrut, halal, caste custom, allergy or conscience. Communities that make the switch usually discover that hospitality got easier, not harder.
Animal agriculture is a leading driver of deforestation, freshwater use and greenhouse emissions. Traditions that teach the earth is entrusted to us — from Laudato Si' to the Zoroastrian duty to keep water and soil unpolluted — increasingly treat diet as part of that trust rather than a private preference.
Several traditions treat the body as something held in trust: Adventists have taught a plant-based diet for over a century, and their longevity data is among the most studied in nutrition science. Where scripture asks believers to guard their health, well-planned plant-based eating is one of the few dietary patterns with strong evidence behind it.
Action
Objections
Every community raises roughly the same questions. None of them are unreasonable, and none of them are new. Here is how practitioners inside these traditions usually answer.
Usually, yes — permission is not the same as a command, and almost every tradition frames that permission as a concession hedged with conditions: gratitude, restraint, avoidance of cruelty, limits on when and how. Plant-based believers argue that when those conditions can no longer be met, the permission no longer applies in practice.
Most traditions with a sacrificial history no longer practise animal sacrifice, and their own reformers argued against it long ago — the Hebrew prophets, early Christian teachers, Buddhist and Jain critiques of Vedic ritual. Choosing plants is generally presented as continuing that internal argument, not rejecting the tradition.
Congregations that start with food rather than doctrine report the opposite. Adding good plant-based dishes to a shared meal excludes nobody; removing everything at once and lecturing about it divides quickly. Every kit recommends the first approach.
Nearly every kit includes plant-based versions of the specific festival foods of its tradition, developed by cooks from inside that community, precisely because the meaning of the dish lives in the occasion and the recipe rather than the animal.
Slaughterhouse work is among the most dangerous and most exploitative employment in industrialised countries, intensive farms concentrate pollution in the poorest neighbourhoods, and grain fed to livestock competes with human food. Faith-based advocates tend to present this as one justice question, not two.
Major dietetic associations state that well-planned plant-based diets are appropriate at every stage of life, including pregnancy, infancy and old age, with attention to vitamin B12 and a few other nutrients. Communities usually ask a dietitian to review the menus they serve.
Many have simply never been asked. The kits behind these pages exist because clergy requested material they could read, check against their own sources and preach from. Bringing one of them to a leader is a normal and welcome request, not a challenge.
No tradition here demands perfection, and several explicitly warn against the pride that chases it. The consistent counsel is direction of travel: one meal, one meeting, one festival at a time.
Get started
Almost every advocacy kit recommends the same unglamorous sequence. It works because it starts with hospitality rather than argument.
Make a single monthly gathering fully plant-based, cooked by people who cook well. Nothing persuades like a good lunch that nobody expected to enjoy.
Plant milk beside the tea urn, a vegan option on every table, labelled clearly. No announcements required.
A rabbi, imam, priest, monk, granthi or Friend who eats this way and can explain it from your own sources carries further than any outside campaigner.
Run a short study series on the passages about animals in your own scripture. Let people reach their own conclusions with the sources in front of them.
Review what the community buys: leather, silk, wool, down, animal-tested products, and the charities it supports. Small procurement changes outlast enthusiasm.
Resources
Questions
Shared threads
Long before anyone used the word vegan, every tradition on this page had a word for refusing to cause needless harm. Those words are not interchangeable — each carries its own history, law and practice — but placed side by side they show how widely shared the underlying instinct is.
| Word | Tradition | What it asks of us |
|---|---|---|
| Ahimsa | Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism | Non-injury in thought, word and deed — the first vow, and the measure against which every other practice is judged. |
| Tza'ar ba'alei chayim | Judaism | The prohibition on causing distress to living creatures, a Torah-level obligation that overrides considerable convenience and cost. |
| Rahma | Islam | Mercy — the attribute by which God is named at the opening of almost every chapter of the Qur'an, and which the Prophet extended explicitly to animals. |
| Stewardship / dominion as care | Christianity | Responsibility for creation modelled on a shepherd rather than an owner: the animals are entrusted, not surrendered. |
| Daya | Sikhism | Compassion as one of the five virtues, expressed daily in langar — a free meal served to anyone, traditionally meat-free so that nobody is excluded. |
| Metta / karuna | Buddhism | Lovingkindness and compassion cultivated deliberately towards all sentient beings, including those who end up on plates. |
| Testimony of peace | Quakers | A refusal to participate in violence that many Friends have extended from war to the systematic killing of animals. |
| Asha / good thoughts, words, deeds | Zoroastrianism | Alignment with truth and right order, including care for the good creation of water, earth, plants and animals. |
Swipe sideways to read the full table.