Home> Literature>>

  KALPASUTRA
 For  Shvetambara Jain is concerned the Kalpa Sutra is his most important sacred text. It is revered almost in the same manner by him as the Bhagavadgita is revered by an ordinary Hindu. The Kalpa Sutra in the present form is also the first text of the Shvetambara Church, not accepted by the Digmabaras. The writer of Kalpa Sutra is  Bhadrabahu. But the whole of the Kalpa Sutra cannot be ascribed to Bhadrabahu who, had died 170 years after Mahavira. The Kalpa Sutra has three sections. The first section contains the Jinacaritra, "the biographies of the Jinas." The main portion in this section is the biography of Mahavira. The second section of the Kalpa Sutra consists of the Ther avali, i.e. the list of the pontiffs, and also the name of the schools (gana), their branches (sakha) and names of the heads of the school. This list contains names of the heads of the school. This list contains names of the pontiffs up to Devarddhi nearly 30 generations after Bhadrabayhu. Thus this list could not have been compiled by Bhadrabahu himself.

    The third section of the Kalpa Sutra contains the Samacari, or Rules for the ascetics, namely, the rules for the rainy season (Pajjusan). It has been conjectured that this, the oldest section of the Kalpa Sutra was the work of Bhadrabahu. Indeed the complete title of the Kalpa Sutra is Pajjosanakappa, though this name fits only the third section. The other two sections according to the tradition, were added later by Devarddhi.
 

 Uttaradhyayana Sutra
The 'Uttaradhyayana Sutra' is one of the most important sacred books of the Shvetambar Jains, who venerate its antiquity and authority. From the style of its illustrations this manuscript copy is dated to the early 16th century. The main text is written in Ardhamagadhi Prakrit script accompanied by a Sanskrit commentary in smaller 'nagari' characters. The 'Uttaradhyayana Sutra', one of the four 'Mulasutras' of the Jain canon, is a work in 36 chapters, each a sermon on aspects of Jain doctrine and discipline.
 

SRICANDRA: 
SANKHITTA SANGHEYANI 
THE CONCISE COMPENDIUM OF COSMOGRAPHY
  The text is a much studied short summary of the fundamentals of  Jaina cosmography and geography, commonly known as the Sangrahaninirayana, Laghusangrahani, Sangrahaniratna or Trailokyadipika, the Illuminating Gloss on the Tripartite World.

 JAIN ANTHOLOGY OF DEVOTIONAL TEXTS
 This book is a manual for a Jain layman, with the abstruse concepts of  Jain belief rendered simple for everyday living. The detailed organisation of the Samavasarana Puja described and depicted, reflects broader Jain cosmological systems. Most of the illustrations depict the realms of the Jinas and the trees and plants found therein, including the sanctuaries of the 'five unsurpassable gods', beneath the 'crescent of perfection', a Samavasarana, the bejewelled throne room where the Jina imparts his teaching , and the symbols and attributions of a universal ruler with a wheeled palanquin.  The book was completed in Samvat 1884 (1826 AD) in Rupanagar.

SURYAPRAJNAPTI SUTRA
ASTRONOMY
 The Suryaprajnaptisutra, an astronomical work dating to the 3rd or 4th c. BC, constitutes on of the classics of the Jain Svetambara sect and gives information on the sun, moon and planets and their motions.