Jaina Sūtras II: Uttarādhyayana and Sūtrakṛtāṅga
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- Hermann Jacobi
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Anonymous or composite
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 32 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~140,000 words · 686 passages
Cite this work
- APAJaina Sutras. (n.d.). Jaina Sutras, Part II: Uttaradhyayana and Sutrakritanga (SBE XLV) [Jaina Sūtras II: Uttarādhyayana and Sūtrakṛtāṅga] (Hermann Jacobi, Trans.). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jaina-sutras/jaina-sutras-part-ii-uttaradhyayana-and-sutrakritanga-sbe-xlv
- MLAJaina Sutras. Jaina Sutras, Part II: Uttaradhyayana and Sutrakritanga (SBE XLV) [Jaina Sūtras II: Uttarādhyayana and Sūtrakṛtāṅga]. Translated by Hermann Jacobi. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jaina-sutras/jaina-sutras-part-ii-uttaradhyayana-and-sutrakritanga-sbe-xlv.
- ChicagoJaina Sutras. Jaina Sutras, Part II: Uttaradhyayana and Sutrakritanga (SBE XLV) [Jaina Sūtras II: Uttarādhyayana and Sūtrakṛtāṅga]. Translated by Hermann Jacobi. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jaina-sutras/jaina-sutras-part-ii-uttaradhyayana-and-sutrakritanga-sbe-xlv.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The second part of the Jaina texts translated by Hermann Jacobi for the 'Sacred Books of the East': the Uttaradhyayana and the Sutrakritanga.
Context and history
Jainism is one of the oldest living religious traditions of India, contemporary with Buddhism and independent of it. The Uttaradhyayana is a collection of teachings in verse, traditionally held to be Mahavira's last words, and includes narratives and dialogues; the Sutrakritanga is more doctrinal and given over in large part to setting out and refuting the rival doctrines of the age, which makes it a historical source of the first rank for what was being thought in India in the fifth century BC. The two central notions are ahimsa — radical non-violence, extended to every living being — and anekantavada, the thesis that reality has many aspects and that no one-sided assertion captures it whole. Part one is in the corpus separately.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
the Uttaradhyayana, Lecture XXIII, how the union of the old and the new church was effected, is of much interest in this respect. Kesi and Gautama, the representatives and leaders of the two branches of the 6"aina church, both at the head of their pupils, meet in a park near 5ravasti ; the differences in their creed concerning the number of great vows, and the use or disuse of clothes are explained away without further discussion, and full harmony with regard to the fundamental ethical ideas is satisfactorily established by the readiness with which allegorical expressions of the one speaker are understood and explained by the other. There seems to have been some estrangement, but no hostility between the two branches of the church ; and though the members of the older branch invariably are made to adopt the Law of Mahavira, ' which enjoins five vows,' it may be imagined that they continued in some of their old practices, especially with regard to the use of clothes, which Mahavira had abandoned. On this assumption we can account for the division of the church in 5vetambaras and Digambaras, about the origin of which both sects have contradictory legends^. There was apparently no sudden rupture; but an original diversity (such as e. g. subsists now between the several Gakk/ias of the ^vetambaras) ripened into division, and in the end brought about the great schism. The records in the Buddhist Canon are not repugnant to our views about the existence of the Niga;///^as before Nataputta; for the Nigaw/Z/as must have been an important sect at the time when Buddhism took its rise. This may be inferred from the fact that they are so frequently mentioned in the Pi/akas as opponents or converts of Buddha and his disciples ; and as it is nowhere said or even merely implied that the Niga«//^as were a newly-founded sect, we may conclude that they had already existed a considerable time before the advent of the Buddha.…