Devout Jain monks sweep the ground and veil their mouths to spare tiny life

Most religions ask their followers not to kill. Jainism takes that idea further than almost any other tradition, all the way down to the level of the microscopic.

The principle is ahimsa, non-violence, and Jains hold that every living thing, including insects and one-sensed beings in air, water, and soil, has a soul worthy of protection. For ordinary lay Jains this shapes a strict vegetarian diet. For initiated monks and nuns, it reshapes the smallest physical habits.

Many carry a soft woolen broom called a rajoharan, and use it to gently sweep the ground before they sit or lie down, “in order to avoid harming insects and minute forms of life,” as scholarly sources describe it. They are not clearing dirt; they are clearing living creatures out of harm’s way.

Some also wear a small cloth over the mouth, the muhpatti or mukhavastrika. Britannica describes it plainly as “a piece of cloth held over the mouth to protect against the ingestion of small insects.” Jain teaching adds another reason: to shield the tiny “wind-bodied” beings believed to live in the air from the force and heat of human breath.

The goal is a life in which even an exhale or a careless step does no harm.

The practices vary between Jain sects, and the most rigorous monks combine the broom, the mouth-cloth, and great care over food and water. Together they form one of the most thoroughgoing ethics of non-harm found in any faith, a discipline that treats the unseen world as fully alive.