Samavayanga Sutra (c. 3rd-4th century BCE) is the 4th amongst the 12

Anga Anga (Sanskrit: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan tribe of eastern South Asia whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The members of the Aṅga tribe were called the Āṅgeyas. Counted among the "sixteen great nations" in Buddhist texts ...

s of the Jaina canon. The

sutra ''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aph ...

is believed to have been composed by

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...

Sudharmaswami Sudharmaswami ( sa, Sudharmāsvāmī or Sudharman; 607 BC – 507 BC) was the fifth ganadhara of Mahavira. All the current Jainism, Jain acharyas and monks follow his rule. Life Sudharmaswami was the spiritual successor of Indrabhuti Gautama ...

. This ancient manuscript is the holy book of the Svetambara sect. This text contains the essence of

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

religion, defined and catalogued systematically. Written c. 300 BCE, it is a part of the collection of texts containing Lord Mahavira’s teachings, collectively termed as Agama Sutras.

Subject matter of the Agama

Samavayanga Sutra contains elements of mathematics and astronomy. One of the interesting aspects of this text is its portrayal of Monasticism and spirituality in the terms of numerology. Mathematics - The Samavayanga Sutra seems to be in continuation of the Sthananga Sutra and follows the numeric method of describing substances from 1 to 1 billion. Astronomy – It contains discussion on

Mount Meru Mount Meru (Sanskrit/Pali: मेरु), also known as Sumeru, Sineru or Mahāmeru, is the sacred five-peaked mountain of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the centre of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritu ...

, the jyotishcakra, the Jambudvipa itself, the measurements used in the Jaina canon, the Jaina Loka, the different types of Earth, the 7 Hells, the increase in water levels in the Lavana ocean and like. It also gives information on the subject matter of the 14

Purva The Fourteen Purva translated as ancient or prior knowledge, are a large body of Jain scriptures that was preached by all Tirthankaras (omniscient teachers) of Jainism encompassing the entire gamut of knowledge available in this universe. The pers ...

and the 12th Anga,

Drstivada Drstivāda is a legendary lost text in the Jain religion. It is the last of the 12 Jain āgamas as per Śvetámbara tradition, said to be promulgated by Māhavīra himself and composed by Ganadhara Sudharmaswami. Drstivāda, translated as ...

. Being one of the oldest and most referred texts, it forms the backbone of the Jain literature. There is a description of the life-span of the Gods in the Samavayanga Agama. There is also a mention of the days of their inhalation and exhalation. It further defines and catalogues the main substances of the Jain religion from a different perspective than the

Sthananga Sutra Sthananga Sutra (Sanskrit: Sthānāṅgasūtra Prakrit: Ṭhāṇaṃgasutta) (c. 3rd-4th century CE) forms part of the first eleven Angas of the Jaina Canon which have survived despite the bad effects of this Hundavasarpini kala as per the Ś ...

. Furthermore, it contains references to the Damili script, an early

Tamil script The Tamil script ( , ) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil language, Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. Certain minority languages such as Saurasht ...

known as

Tamil Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamizhi or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in the early form of Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscription ...

References

Citations

Sources

* {{Authority control Jain texts