In asking the question, ‘Is there a popular Jainism?’, we are looking for practices within Jaina society that can be considered inconsistent with the main teachings of the religion, but so thoroughly assimilated with them now that they are no longer perceived as alien. In sociology, this study has taken the form of an examination of the ‘great’ and ‘little’ traditions within a culture, and we are familiar with the notable research done in this field by such pioneers as M. Srinivasan and Louis Dumont, which has dealt with various creeds within Hinduism. Considerable advance has been made in applying this method to the study of the Theravada Buddhists of Sri Lanka, and to a lesser extent of Burma, by such younger scholars as H. Bechert, G. Obeyesekere, and R. F. Gombrich. In the latter's Precept and Practice, a study of traditional Buddhism in the rural highlands of Sri Lanka, published nearly two decades ago, Gombrich has ably dealt with the kind of questions which we are asking here, with reference to Jainism. There is certainly a great deal of similarity between the Theravadins and Jainas, both due to the large number of mendicants within their respective communities as well as to the many practices engaged in by lay people that can be traced to brahmanical elements introduced in ancient times. A critical study of Jaina society following the leads of Gombrich's study of the Theravadins would yield very similar results, but the gap between Jaina ‘precepts’ and ‘practices’ would probably be much smaller.