Santhara, more formally sallekhana, is a vow taken at the end of life: the gradual withdrawal from food and drink by a person whose death is already near through causes they did not choose. It is one of the most consistently misreported elements of Jainism, and it is the subject of unresolved litigation in India.
This page describes the vow as the tradition sets it out, the conditions it requires, the legal history with dates, and the doctrinal reason the tradition does not accept the equation with suicide. It is a description, not guidance, and it deliberately contains no account of how the vow is undertaken.
Before anything else
This page is about a religious vow with defined conditions, taken at the end of life with the permission of an ascetic teacher and in the knowledge of a person's family and sangh. It is not about anybody's distress and it is not a page anyone should read as an option. If you are having thoughts of ending your life, please talk to someone. In India, the government helpline Tele-MANAS can be reached on 14416.
The names
Sallekhana is the term used in the classical literature. It is usually read as the thinning out or scouring of both body and passions, the second half being the part that is generally dropped in summaries.
Santhara is the common Prakrit-derived word in Shvetambara usage, and it is also the word for the bed of straw on which the vow is kept. Samadhi-marana and sanyasana-marana, death in equanimity, are the standard terms in Digambara literature. Samlehna is a variant form.
The vocabulary matters because English coverage reaches for “fast unto death”, which describes the outward form and none of the conditions.
Where it appears in the texts
The vow is not a late development or a local custom. It is present across the earliest layers of the literature of both traditions.
| Text | Tradition | What it carries |
|---|---|---|
| Acharanga Sutra | Shvetambara Agama | Three named forms of the vow: bhaktapratyakhyana, ingitamarana and padapopagamana, distinguished by the degree of movement permitted |
| Bhagavati Sutra 2.1 | Shvetambara Agama | The account of the ascetic Skanda Katyayana |
| Tattvartha Sutra 7.22 | Both | Sallekhana as the concluding item of the householder’s discipline, adopted when death is very near |
| Sarvarthasiddhi on 7.22 | Digambara commentary | Pujyapada’s answer to the suicide objection |
| Ratnakaranda Shravakachara | Digambara | Samantabhadra’s treatment of the vow within the layman’s conduct |
| Bhagavati Aradhana | Digambara | An extended treatment of death in equanimity |
The vow is also attested archaeologically. Nishidhi memorial inscriptions in Karnataka, a large number of them at Shravanabelagola, record individual deaths kept in this manner across many centuries, giving names and, in some cases, the length of the observance.
The conditions
This is the part that is almost always omitted, and without it nothing else on the page makes sense. The vow is not available at will, and the tradition’s own texts constrain it tightly.
Death must already be near. The Tattvartha Sutra permits it when death is imminent, and the classical conditions given are calamity, severe famine, extreme old age, and incurable disease from which recovery is not expected. The vow is a response to a death that is already arriving. It is not a means of causing one.
It requires permission. It is taken from an ascetic teacher, with full knowledge of that teacher, and it is not a private decision.
It is declared, not concealed. The vow is publicly stated to the family and the sangh. Concealment would defeat it.
No instrument is used. Nothing is administered, no poison, no weapon, no assistance of any kind. Reduction of intake is the whole of it.
Passion must be absent. The vow is invalidated by the mental states that accompany it going wrong, and the tradition enumerates those states as aticharas, transgressions of the vow: the desire to go on living, the desire to die quickly, the recollection of affection for friends, the recollection of pleasures enjoyed, and the longing for enjoyment in a future birth.
Read that list again. The desire to die is itself a transgression of the vow. A vow that is broken by wanting death cannot be a technique for obtaining it, and this is the point on which the entire doctrinal argument turns.
Why the suicide comparison fails, on the tradition’s own terms
The objection is old. It is raised inside the literature, not only outside it, and it is answered there.
Pujyapada’s Sarvarthasiddhi, commenting on Tattvartha Sutra 7.22, puts the objection directly and answers it: it is argued that this is suicide, since life is voluntarily given up; it is not suicide, because there is no passion. The distinction is kashaya, passion. A person who ends their life by poison or weapon does so swayed by attachment, aversion or infatuation. A person keeping this vow, on the tradition’s account, does so free of desire, anger and delusion, and if those are present the vow is not being kept.
Three consequences follow, and they are what the equation misses.
The criterion is the mental state, not the outcome. Jain ethics locates culpability in the passions behind an act rather than in the physical result of it. This is the same principle by which the tradition treats unintentional harm as real but less culpable, and it is applied consistently rather than invented for this case.
The conditions rule out the situations suicide arises from. Despair, isolation and concealment are the ordinary circumstances of suicide, and the vow requires their opposites: it is permitted only when death is near for reasons outside the person’s control, it requires an ascetic’s permission, and it requires public declaration.
Wanting to die voids it. A stated transgression of the vow is the wish for a quick death. No comparable structure exists in an act motivated by the wish to die.
None of this is offered here as an argument about Indian law, which is a separate question and is set out below on its own terms. It is an account of what the doctrine holds, which is what a page on a Jain site owes its readers.
Scale
The practice is rare. Jitendra Shah of the L. D. Institute of Indology has estimated an average of about 240 such deaths a year across India. A recorded count for the decade 1993 to 2003 gives 260 in the Shvetambara community and 90 in the Digambara.
Against a Jain population of several million, those figures describe something uncommon, undertaken overwhelmingly by the very old and the terminally ill.
The legal history
Stated as a sequence of facts.
2006. Advocate Nikhil Soni filed a public interest litigation in the Rajasthan High Court, D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 7414 of 2006, contending that the practice amounted to suicide and that those facilitating it were abetting it, and that it was not protected by the right to freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution.
10 August 2015. A division bench of the Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur allowed the petition. The court held that the practice was not established as an essential religious practice protected by Article 25, and directed that it be treated as punishable under the Indian Penal Code, sections 309 and 306, attempt to commit suicide and abetment of suicide. The judgment is reported as 2015 CriLJ 4951.
31 August 2015. The Supreme Court of India, a bench of Chief Justice H. L. Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy, admitted appeals against that judgment, including one by the Akhil Bharat Varshiya Digambar Jain Parishad, granted leave, and stayed the High Court’s order.
Since then. The stay has remained in place.
1 July 2024. The Indian Penal Code was replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The new code carries no equivalent of section 309; abetment of suicide remains an offence.
This site takes no position on the litigation and offers no reading of what any of it means. The question is before a court and stating the record is as far as a religious calendar site should go.
Concerns raised in the litigation and in public debate have centred on capacity to consent, on the possibility of social pressure, particularly on the elderly and on widows, and on the publicity that sometimes surrounds such a death. Those are reported here as the concerns that were raised. They are not adjudicated here.
Where the traditions differ
Very little, on this subject, which is itself notable.
| Shvetambara | Digambara | |
|---|---|---|
| Usual term | Santhara | Samadhi-marana, sanyasana-marana |
| Principal sources | Acharanga Sutra, Bhagavati Sutra, Upasakadashanga | Ratnakaranda Shravakachara, Bhagavati Aradhana, Sarvarthasiddhi |
| Doctrinal position | The concluding item of the householder’s discipline | The same, with an extensive commentarial and aradhana literature |
| Memorial record | Textual and community records | Nishidhi inscriptions, especially in Karnataka |
The Tattvartha Sutra, which both traditions accept, carries the vow in the same place in the householder’s discipline. This is one of the few substantial subjects on which the two lines are effectively in agreement.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is santhara in Jainism?
Santhara, formally sallekhana and known in Digambara literature as samadhi-marana, is a vow taken at the end of life in which a person gradually withdraws from food and drink. It is permitted only when death is already near through causes such as incurable disease, extreme old age, calamity or famine, and it requires the permission of an ascetic teacher and public declaration to family and sangh. It appears in the earliest layers of the literature of both traditions.
↳ Is santhara the same as suicide?
The tradition holds that it is not, and the argument is doctrinal rather than defensive. Jain ethics locates culpability in the passions behind an act. Pujyapada's Sarvarthasiddhi, commenting on Tattvartha Sutra 7.22, raises the objection directly and answers that it is not suicide because there is no passion: an act done under attachment, aversion or infatuation is one thing, and an act from which those are absent is another. The classical list of transgressions of the vow includes the desire to die quickly, so wanting death defeats the vow rather than fulfilling it.
↳ Under what conditions is sallekhana permitted?
When death is already imminent for reasons outside the person's control. The conditions named in the classical texts are calamity, severe famine, extreme old age and incurable disease from which recovery is not expected. Beyond the circumstance, the vow requires the permission of an ascetic teacher, public declaration rather than concealment, the absence of any instrument or assistance, and the absence of passion, which the enumerated transgressions of the vow define negatively.
↳ Is santhara legal in India?
The position is unresolved. On 10 August 2015 a division bench of the Rajasthan High Court, deciding a public interest litigation filed in 2006, held that the practice was not protected by Article 25 and directed that it be treated as punishable under sections 309 and 306 of the Indian Penal Code. On 31 August 2015 the Supreme Court admitted appeals, granted leave and stayed that order, and the stay has remained in place. The Indian Penal Code was replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita with effect from 1 July 2024, which carries no equivalent of section 309.
↳ How common is santhara?
Rare. An estimate by Jitendra Shah of the L. D. Institute of Indology puts the average at about 240 such deaths a year across India, and a recorded count for 1993 to 2003 gives 260 in the Shvetambara community and 90 in the Digambara. Set against a Jain population of several million, that describes something uncommon and undertaken overwhelmingly by the very old and the terminally ill.
↳ Do Shvetambara and Digambara Jains differ on sallekhana?
Barely, which is unusual. The vocabulary differs, santhara in Shvetambara usage and samadhi-marana or sanyasana-marana in Digambara, and the principal sources differ accordingly. But the Tattvartha Sutra, accepted by both, places the vow at the same point in the householder's discipline, and the conditions and the doctrinal argument are substantially the same in both lines. The Digambara tradition additionally preserves an extensive epigraphic record in the nishidhi memorial inscriptions of Karnataka.
Related
- Pratikraman: turning back, and what happens in one
- Paryushan fasting: every level, explained properly
- What Jain astrology actually is
- Paryushana 2026: dates, practice and what actually happens
- Jain festivals 2026: the complete calendar
Sources. Tattvartha Sutra 7.22 for the placement of the vow in the householder's discipline and for the condition that death be near; Pujyapada's Sarvarthasiddhi on that verse for the answer to the suicide objection, in S. A. Jain's translation (Reality, Jwalamalini Trust, 1992). The three forms named in the Acharanga Sutra, the account in Bhagavati Sutra 2.1, Samantabhadra's Ratnakaranda Shravakachara and the Bhagavati Aradhana are cited as the classical textual base; the enumerated transgressions of the vow follow the standard list. Figures are attributed: the annual estimate to Jitendra Shah of the L. D. Institute of Indology, and the 1993 to 2003 count as recorded. Legal facts are from the record: D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 7414 of 2006, Nikhil Soni v. Union of India, decided by the Rajasthan High Court on 10 August 2015 and reported at 2015 CriLJ 4951; the Supreme Court's admission, grant of leave and stay on 31 August 2015 before a bench of Chief Justice H. L. Dattu and Justice Amitava Roy; and the commencement of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, on 1 July 2024. This page describes; it does not instruct, and it contains no account of how the vow is kept. No opinion is offered on the litigation. Corrections are seva: tell us.