In Chapters 4 and 5 of the text, Jainism and Hinduism are explained. Jainism's key concepts are reincarnation, karma, the vow of non-injury of life, and the five vows of the Jainist monk. Jainism's karma brings back the consequences of one's actions to the individual that committed the actions, so the objective of the Jain's existence is primarily to avoid karma. The vow of non-injury of life is taken to the extreme, and the text even mentions the straining of water to avoid harming an insect that might have fallen in. Every act that hurts any other creature(even an insect(is one that can visit retributionary karma back on the perpetrator. The Jainist lives in poverty, in an ascetic lifestyle that seeks no pleasure. In addition, the person consists of soul and matter, and as long as karma is operating within the person, the soul and matter are bound to each other and the person cannot be free. He must continue to go through lives until the karma is remedied, and then he can finally be free.
Hinduism also uses the concept of karma but it couples it with the caste system, in which people are relegated to a particular caste in the hierarchy of castes. Higher-caste people have luxurious lives, while those of the lowest castes must work in jobs that bring them into contact with polluting elements such as dead bodies. There is no intermingling of castes, at least in modern Hinduism. There are conflicts between Hindus and Muslims that create dissension.
The author treats Jainism and Hinduism differently in the sense that his discussion of Jainism is more from the perspective of the Jainist believer and his discussion of Hinduism is external to the believer and looking in at him. This makes it difficult to compare the two religions based on the text. In Jainism, it is the way the individual lives his life, striving to ensure that he harms no one and avoids getting into any personal entanglements with wo...