Jain Sutras

Impact

Like his contemporary Siddhartha Gautama—who achieved enlightenment and became known as the Buddha—Mahavira preached his message to non-Brahmins and rejected the caste system altogether. But unlike the Buddha, he was not seen as the founder of a new tradition. Instead, he was simply the last great teacher of the Jain tradition, whose instructions were a refinement of what had been handed down by his predecessor, Parsvanatha. Contemporary Buddhist sources speak of the Jains as a rival sect whose members went naked, followed a teacher named Jnataputra (“Son of the Jnatas,” an epithet for Mahavira), and were already well established when Buddhism first came into being.

By the early centuries of the Common Era, the Jain community founded on the teachings of Mahavira and Parsvanatha had splintered into two major divisions. One sect was known as the Digamabaras, or “Sky-clad,” because they went around naked, believing that a monk should own nothing, not even clothes. The other sect was called the Svetambaras, or “White-clad,” because of the white robes they wore. When the Acaranga Sutra, along with a whole list of other canonical Jain texts that had been lost or nearly lost since the time of Mahavira, was “recovered” from the collective memory of the monks in the third century CE, the Digambaras refused to recognize its authority. As a result, the Digambara Jains still consider the text to be lost, while the Svetambaras continue to use the Acaranga Sutra as it is known today.