The Jain Agamas

01Heard, then held in memory

Jain tradition says a Tirthankara speaks the meaning and the ganadharas weave it into sutras. Mahavira’s eleven ganadharas did this after his kevala jnana, and the line that survives comes through Sudharma Swami, who recites the Angas to his disciple Jambu. Each text opens the same way: “Thus have I heard, O long-lived one.” For centuries the monks carried it all by heart. A famine in Magadha scattered them, and a first council at Pataliputra under Sthulabhadra tried to recover what had been forgotten. The twelfth Anga, the Drishtivada, could not be recovered at all.

02Written down at Valabhi

Two more councils met in the 4th century CE, at Mathura under Skandila and at Valabhi under Nagarjuna, and their readings did not always agree. Then, 980 or 993 years after Mahavira’s nirvana by Jain reckoning, Devarddhi Gani Kshamashramana called the monks to Valabhi in Saurashtra once more and had the whole canon written on palm leaf. Where the Mathura and Valabhi readings differed, the scribes noted both. That written canon, finished in 453 or 466 CE, is what Shvetambara Jains read today, and its numbering of chapters and sutras still follows those Valabhi copies.

03Forty-five or thirty-two

Shvetambara Murtipujaka Jains count 45 Agamas: 11 Angas, 12 Upangas, 10 Prakirnakas, 6 Chhedasutras, 4 Mulasutras and 2 Chulikasutras. The Sthanakavasi and Terapanthi traditions, which worship without images, accept 32: the 11 Angas, the 12 Upangas, 4 Mulasutras, 4 Chhedasutras and the Avashyaka. The Angas stand first in every list, because they are held to come straight from the ganadharas. The rest are called angabahya, outside the limbs, composed by later elders who had the purvas in memory. A Sthanakavasi sadhvi and a Murtipujaka muni will read the Acharanga in the same words.

04The Digambara view

Digambara Jains hold that the Angas and Purvas given by the ganadharas faded away within a few centuries of Mahavira’s nirvana, as the monks who knew them passed on. They do not accept the Valabhi canon. In its place they revere the Shatkhandagama of Pushpadanta and Bhutabali, the Kashayapahuda of Gunadhara, and the works of Acharya Kundakunda such as the Samayasara and Pravachanasara. Later Digambara acharyas arranged their scripture in four anuyogas: the lives of the great souls, the shape of the universe, conduct, and the nature of substances. Both paths agree on the teaching itself: ahimsa, anekanta and the three jewels.

05The Acharanga and the six kinds of life

The Acharanga is the first Anga and, by its language, among the oldest. Its first book teaches care for the six kinds of living beings: earth, water, fire, air, plants and moving creatures. A monk does not dig the earth, does not stir cold water, does not fan the air or light a fire, because life dwells in each. One line from it is taught to every Jain child: all beings love life, like pleasure and hate pain. The ninth chapter, the Upadhanashruta, describes Mahavira’s own years of austerity in Lada country, beaten and set upon by dogs, never answering harm with harm.

06Gautama asks, Mahavira answers

The Bhagavati Sutra, fifth of the Angas, is the largest. Its pages are a long conversation. Indrabhuti Gautama, the first ganadhara, rises, bows and asks: what is a soul, how does karma bind, what happens to a being after death, how long do the hells last? Mahavira answers each one, often beginning “Goyama!” Many answers are given in the method later called syadvada, from one standpoint this, from another that. The book also records the lives of other teachers of the time, among them Gosala Mankhaliputra, the Ajivika, and Mahavira’s long dealings with him.

07The last sermon and the first lesson

Two texts outside the Angas are known by heart more than any other. The Uttaradhyayana, in 36 chapters, is held to be Mahavira’s last sermon, given at Pava on the night of his nirvana. In its tenth chapter, the Leaf of the Tree, every verse ends with the same refrain to Gautama: do not be careless for a single moment. The Dashavaikalika was composed, Jain tradition says, by Acharya Shayyambhava for his young son Manaka, who had only months to live, so that he could learn the whole of a monk’s conduct quickly. Its first verse is the first verse many monks ever learn.

08How the Agamas are kept today

The great Jain bhandaras of Patan, Jaisalmer and Khambhat still hold palm-leaf Agamas copied in the 11th to 15th centuries, some of the oldest dated manuscripts in India. Monks and sadhvis study them with four layers of commentary, the niryukti, bhashya, churni and tika, and Acharya Abhayadeva’s 11th-century commentaries on nine Angas are still the standard. Before a monk reads a sutra aloud he observes the yoga, a course of fasting and discipline set for that text. Lay Jains hear the Agamas in the daily pravachan at the upashraya and in svadhyaya at home.

09Printed editions and translations

The Agamodaya Samiti printed the Agamas with commentaries from 1915 onward under Acharya Sagaranandasuri. Muni Punyavijaya spent decades comparing palm-leaf copies in the bhandaras and began the critical Jain Agama Series. The Terapanth sangha at Ladnun, under Acharya Tulsi and Acharya Mahapragya, published the whole canon with Hindi translation and notes. Outside India, Hermann Jacobi’s English versions of the Acharanga, Kalpa Sutra, Sutrakritanga and Uttaradhyayana (1884, 1895) were the first many readers saw. Today a Jain family can read any Anga in Hindi, Gujarati or English.

What it contains

1. 1
   Acharanga आयारंग

   First Anga, in two books. The first teaches care for the six kinds of living beings and ends with the Upadhanashruta, the oldest account of Mahavira’s austerities. The second gives rules for begging, walking, speaking and dwelling.

2. 2
   Sutrakritanga सूयगडंग

   Second Anga, in two books. Mahavira answers the other schools of his day, which the commentators count as 363 views. It also tells of Ardraka, a prince who came to Mahavira from far away.

3. 3
   Sthananga ठाणंग

   Third Anga. Teachings are grouped by number, in ten chapters: things that are one, things that are two, up to things that are ten. Monks use it as a handbook of lists.

4. 4
   Samavayanga समवायंग

   Fourth Anga. It carries the numbered lists on past ten into the hundreds and beyond. It also describes the contents of all twelve Angas, which is how Jains know what the lost Drishtivada once held.

5. 5
   Vyakhyaprajnapti (Bhagavati Sutra) विवाहपण्णत्ति

   Fifth Anga and the largest, in 41 shatakas. Thousands of questions are put by Gautama Swami and others and answered by Mahavira, on the soul, karma, the worlds and time. Its reverent name, Bhagavati, means the blessed one.

6. 6
   Jnatadharmakatha नायाधम्मकहाओ

   Sixth Anga, in two books of kathas and parables. It opens with Meghakumara, a prince who became a monk and was reminded of his past life as an elephant who sheltered a hare. The parables include the two tortoises, one careless and one patient.

7. 7
   Upasakadasha उवासगदसाओ

   Seventh Anga. It tells the lives of ten lay followers of Mahavira, beginning with Ananda of Vanijagrama. Through them it lays out the twelve vows of a shravaka, still the model for Jain householders.

8. 8
   Antakriddasha अंतगडदसाओ

   Eighth Anga: lives of those who ended rebirth in that very life. Among them is Gajasukumara, younger brother of Shri Krishna, who stood in meditation while burning coals were heaped on his head. Sthanakavasi Jains read its eight sections aloud over the eight days of Paryushana.

9. 9
   Anuttaraupapatikadasha अणुत्तरोववाइयदसाओ

   Ninth Anga: lives of 33 monks reborn in the five highest heavens, one birth away from liberation. Dhanya the monk is described with his body worn thin by fasting until it rattled as he walked.

10. 10
    Prashnavyakarana पण्हावागरणाइं

    Tenth Anga. In the text that survives it teaches the five doors through which karma flows in, violence, falsehood, theft, unchastity and possessiveness, and the five that close them. These are the five great vows seen from both sides.

11. 11
    Vipakasutra विवागसुय

    Eleventh Anga, in two parts of ten kathas each. The Duhkhavipaka shows the bitter fruit of cruel deeds; the Sukhavipaka shows the sweet fruit of generous ones, beginning with Prince Subahu.

12. 12
    Drishtivada (lost) दिट्ठिवाय

    Twelfth Anga, in five divisions, which held the fourteen Purvas. Jain tradition holds it was lost after Sthulabhadra, the last to learn the Purvas, and Digambaras say its fragments survive in the Shatkhandagama.

13. 13
    The twelve Upangas उवंग

    Each Upanga is paired with an Anga. They include the Aupapatika, the Rajaprashniya with King Paesi’s questions on the soul, the Jivajivabhigama, the Prajnapana, the Surya-, Chandra- and Jambudvipa-prajnaptis on cosmology, and the five short texts of the Nirayavali group.

14. 14
    The ten Prakirnakas पइण्णग

    Short miscellanies, accepted by the Murtipujakas. Several teach how to meet death with calm through sallekhana and fasting, among them the Chatuhsharana, Aturapratyakhyana and Bhaktaparijna. Lists of the ten differ between authorities.

15. 15
    The Chhedasutras छेयसुत्त

    Texts on monastic discipline and atonement: the Nishitha, Vyavahara, Brihatkalpa and Dashashrutaskandha, with the Mahanishitha and Jitakalpa in the 45. The eighth chapter of the Dashashrutaskandha is the Kalpa Sutra.

16. 16
    The Mulasutras मूलसुत्त

    The root texts every new monk learns first: the Uttaradhyayana, the Dashavaikalika, the Avashyaka with the six daily duties, and the Pindaniryukti on accepting alms. Some lists give the Oghaniryukti in place of the last.

17. 17
    The Chulikasutras: Nandi and Anuyogadvara नंदी, अणुओगदार

    Two appendices that close the canon. The Nandi Sutra praises the Tirthankaras and the line of elders and sets out the five kinds of knowledge. The Anuyogadvara teaches the method of explaining any sutra.

Famous verses

धम्मो मंगलमुक्किट्ठं अहिंसा संजमो तवो। देवा वि तं नमंसंति जस्स धम्मे सया मणो॥

Dharma is the highest good: ahimsa, self-restraint and austerity. Even the devas bow to one whose mind is always in dharma.Dashavaikalika Sutra 1.1

सव्वे पाणा पियाउया सुहसाया दुक्खपडिकूला अप्पियवहा पियजीविणो जीविउकामा। सव्वेसिं जीवियं पियं॥

All beings are fond of life; they like pleasure and turn from pain, they shrink from being killed and long to live. To every one of them, life is dear.Acharanga Sutra 1.2.3

समयं गोयम मा पमायए॥

Gautama, do not be careless for even a moment.Uttaradhyayana Sutra 10 (Drumapatraka), refrain of each verse