Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Jain literature
Summary
Jain literature (Sanskrit: जैन साहित्य) refers to the literature of the Jain religion. It is a vast and ancient literary tradition, which was initially transmitted orally. The oldest surviving material is contained in the canonical Jain Agamas, which are written in Ardhamagadhi, a Prakrit (Middle-Indo Aryan) language. Various commentaries were written on these canonical texts by later Jain monks. Later works were also written in other languages, like Sanskrit and Maharashtri Prakrit.
Jain literature is primarily divided between the canons of the Digambara and Śvētāmbara orders. These two main sects of Jainism do not always agree on which texts should be considered authoritative.
More recent Jain literature has also been written in other languages, like Marathi, Tamil, Rajasthani, Dhundari, Marwari, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and more recently in English.
The Jain tradition believes that their religion is eternal, and the teachings of the first Tirthankara Rishabhanatha existed millions of years ago. It states that the tirthankaras taught in divine preaching halls called samavasarana, which were heard by gods, ascetics and laypersons. These divine discourses were called Śhrut Jnāna (or heard knowledge) and always comprises eleven angas and fourteen purvas. The discourses are remembered and transmitted by the Ganadharas (chief disciples), and is composed of twelve angas (parts, limbs). It is symbolically represented by a tree with twelve branches. The spoken scriptural language is believed to be Ardhamagadhi by the Śvētāmbara Jains, and a form of divine sound or sonic resonance by the Digambara Jains.
According to the Jain tradition, the divine Śhrut Jnāna of a tirthankara is then converted into sutta (scripture) by his disciples, and from such suttas emerge the formal canons. The suttas are grouped into duvala samgagani pidaga (twelve limbed baskets), which are transmitted orally by the disciples. In every universal cycle of Jain cosmology, twenty-four tirthankaras appear and so do the Jain scriptures for that cycle.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.