Jain Sutras

Audience

Although the Jain tradition had mass appeal, the Acaranga Sutra is aimed at Jain monks and nuns and those aspiring to the monastic life. The laity were not expected to take on the severe austerities that the text describes. Their path, rather, was to attain merit by donating to monks and nuns. To the extent that Mahavira’s followers were in constant debate with Brahmins, Buddhists, and others, the text is also intended for those rival sects, as a refutation of their central ideas.

The modern audience for the sutras may include both lay Jains, who take from the text the fundamental teaching of nonviolence, and contemporary monks and nuns who are following some version of the Jain ascetic path. As the oldest extant Jain literature, roughly contemporary with the early Buddhist scriptures, the Jain Sutras also give scholars an idea of what kind of intellectual and social currents were running through India in the early centuries BCE.