The Jain five vows and the Buddhist five precepts both address harm, truthfulness, taking what belongs to others and sexual conduct. Their fifth commitments differ. The Jain list includes limiting or giving up possessions and attachment. The Buddhist list includes abstaining from intoxicants. The texts also explain what the commitments do in different ways. Tattvārtha Sūtra 7.1–3 · Abhisanda Sutta, AN 8.39
The Jain vows and degrees of renunciation
The Tattvārtha Sūtra lists five forms of restraint. They concern violence, falsehood, theft, sexual conduct and attachment to possessions. The next verse distinguishes limited observance, called aṇuvrata, from complete observance, called mahāvrata. Lay Jains can undertake limited vows, while monks and nuns take the great vows. The degree of renunciation shapes how a person lives out the commitment. For example, the fifth commitment can mean setting limits on possessions in lay life or undertaking far more complete renunciation as a mendicant. Tattvārtha Sūtra 7.1–3 · Jainpedia on the great and lesser vows
The text also gives ways to support observance. Care in moving and in obtaining food and necessities can help with nonviolence, or ahiṃsā. The point is to pay attention to actions that can harm living beings even in the course of ordinary activity. The commitment therefore has implications for how people move and obtain what they need, as well as how they respond to a deliberate act of injury. Tattvārtha Sūtra 7.1–3
Why an early Buddhist discourse calls the precepts gifts
The Abhisanda Sutta describes five acts of abstention. The disciple refrains from killing, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech and the use of intoxicants. The discourse calls each restraint a gift. By giving up killing, a person gives others safety from the harm that person might otherwise cause. The text repeats the pattern for the other precepts and describes the disciple as sharing in the freedom from harm that the practice supports. Abhisanda Sutta, AN 8.39
What the fifth commitments bring into focus
The fifth Jain vow, aparigraha, asks about what one holds and how attached one is to it. A householder deciding how much property to keep can put the vow into practice by setting a limit. The fifth Buddhist precept addresses an action, the use of intoxicants, and the discourse places that restraint in the same pattern of offering safety as the other four. The two fifth commitments show why similar lists need to be read in their own settings. Tattvārtha Sūtra 7.1–3 · Abhisanda Sutta, AN 8.39 · Jainpedia on the great and lesser vows
Conclusion
Both texts explain how repeated restraint changes a person’s relations with others. The Jain text distinguishes degrees of renunciation and gives practical ways to sustain a vow. The Buddhist discourse describes the decision to abstain as a gift of safety. Those emphases help explain both the overlap between the lists and the different commitments each places fifth. For the wider Jain setting, see our introduction to Jainism.
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