Causes of the rise of Jainism

# Vedic religion had become highly ritualistic.

# Jainism was taught in Pali and Prakrit thus was more accessible to the common man as compared to Sanskrit.

# It was accessible to people of all castes.

# Varna system had rigidified and people of the lower castes led miserable lives. Jainism offered them an honourable place.

# About 200 years after the death of Mahavira, a great famine in the Ganga valley prompted Chandragupta Maurya and Bhadrabahu (last Acharya of the undivided Jain sangha) to migrate to Karnataka. Jainism spread to Southern India after that.