Practice

Non-violence

Central to Jainism is the practice of non-violence or ahimsa. The dedicated Jain is constrained to reverence life and is forbidden to take life even at the lowest level. The obvious consequence of this belief is strict vegetarianism. Farming is frowned upon since the process would inevitably involve killing of lower forms of life. Ahimsa has been summed up in the following statement:

This is the quintessence of wisdom: not to kill anything (Ibid, Vol. 45, p. 247).

Self-Denial

Jainism is a religion of asceticism involving rigid self-denial. Salvation or liberation could be achieved only by ascetic practices. These practices for the monks are listed in the "Five Great Vows" and include the renunciation of: (1) killing living things, (2) lying, (3) greed, (4) sexual pleasure, and (5) worldly attachments.
The monks, according to Mahavira, were to avoid women entirely because he believed they were the cause of all types of evil:

Women are the greatest temptation in the world. This has been declared by the sage. He should not speak of women, nor look at them, nor converse with them, nor claim them as his own, nor do their work (Ibid., p. 48).

These five great vows could be fulfilled completely only by those Jains who were living the monastic life. Consequently, the laymen who practiced Jainism were given a more modified code to follow.