The JAINA Convention in North America

The biennial convention organised by the Federation of Jain Associations in North America, widely known by the name JAINA, is the largest gathering of Jains outside the Indian subcontinent and a landmark in the life of the community across the continent. Held once in every two years and hosted in turn by different cities, the convention draws together thousands of Jains from across North America and beyond, uniting the many local congregations into a single great assembly and sustaining the tradition far from the lands of its origin.

The federation itself was established to serve as an umbrella organisation binding together the numerous Jain centres and congregations scattered across the United States and Canada. As Jain families settled across North America over recent generations, they built temples and community centres in many cities, and the federation arose to connect these dispersed communities, to preserve and promote the tradition among them, and to give the community a common voice and shared institutions. The biennial convention is the most visible expression of this unifying purpose.

The gathering brings together devotees, scholars, ascetics or spiritual teachers, community leaders and families of every age for several days of programmes devoted to the many dimensions of Jain life. Lectures and discourses expound the teachings of the tradition, workshops explore the application of Jain values to modern life, and sessions address the questions of ethics, non-violence, vegetarianism and spiritual practice that the tradition raises. Cultural programmes, exhibitions and performances celebrate the artistic and devotional heritage of the community, and the convention becomes a festival of both learning and celebration.

A particular concern of the gathering is the transmission of the tradition to the younger generation growing up in North America, far from the temples and communities of the ancestral homeland. Programmes designed for children, youth and young adults seek to convey the teachings and values of Jainism in a form that speaks to those raised in a new setting, and the convention provides an occasion for young Jains from across the continent to meet one another, to form bonds across the dispersed community, and to strengthen their connection to the tradition. In this way the gathering serves the long-term continuity of the faith in its new home.

The convention also addresses the broader engagement of the community with the society around it. Jainism's message of non-violence, its commitment to vegetarianism and its concern for the environment and the welfare of all living beings are presented not only to the community itself but as contributions to the wider world, and the gathering considers how the tradition may make its values known and useful beyond its own membership. Charitable and humanitarian initiatives are advanced, and the community's institutions are strengthened for the work ahead.

The JAINA convention thus stands as a central institution of Jain life in North America, a recurring occasion on which a community dispersed across a vast continent gathers to renew its bonds, deepen its learning, celebrate its heritage and secure its future. In its regular return every two years it sustains the sense of a single community among congregations separated by great distances, and it embodies the determination of Jains in the modern world to preserve and to pass on a tradition many centuries old in the conditions of a new land.