In Jainism, jivas are all the living beings that can be found in the earthly realm. This is a central concept because the fundamental Jain principle of ahimsa (nonviolence) extends to all jivas.
In Jain thinking, a jiva is a soul attached to a body. Since a soul is of flexible size, the same soul can fit inside an ant's body as a human's. According to the Jain scriptures, there are 8.4 million species of jivas. They fall into two main categories: immobile single-sensed and mobile and multi-sensed. And within these categories are subcategories, as follows:
A. Immobile and single-sensed
- Earth-bodied (clay, sand, metal)
- Water-bodied (dew, fog, ice, rain, ocean)
- Fire-bodied (flames, hot ash, lightening)
- Air-bodied (wind and cyclones)
- Plant-bodied (trees, seeds, roots)
- a. One-souled (trees, branches, seeds)
- b. Multi-souled (root vegetables)
B. Mobile and multi-sensed
- - Two-sensed: touch and taste (shells, worms, microbes)
- Three-sensed: touch, taste and smell (lice, ants, moths)
- Four-sensed: touch, taste, smell, sight (scorpions, crickets, spiders, flies)
- Five-sensed: touch, taste, small, sight and hearing (humans and animals)
- - a. Infernal (in one of the hells)
- b. Non-human
- c. Celestial (in one of the heavens)
- d. Human