What do you think?
Rate this book
Jaina Sutras: Part I & II
A translation of the sacred Jaina Sutras. The first volume contains The Akaranga Sutra and The Kalpa Sutra, and the second volume contains The Uttaradhyayana Sutra and The Sutrakritanga Sutra.
674 pages, Paperback
First published January 28, 1968
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 28, 2026
A difficult but enlightening read. It is difficult to find Jainist scriptures in English so the only recourse is to read Jacobi’s translations from over 100 years ago. The method of transliteration of consonants makes for odd spelling (Gaina for Jaina) and the way he abbreviated passages made for confusing reading at times. I do have to commend him on his footnotes which number 1,962, the most I have ever seen in a book. I did not consider myself bound to read them, especially as the majority of them would be of more interest to a specialist than a general reader. I started reading these during Varshitap, which I am following though I am not a Jain, and I found them fascinating but somewhat difficult to read due to the oddities of translation, otherwise I would give this version five stars.
Read
April 6, 2022The scholars date the composition of Jain agamas at around 6th/5th to 3rd century BCE.
While some authors date the composition of the Jain Agamas starting from the 6th century BCE,[9] some western scholars, such as Ian Whicher and David Carpenter, argue that the earliest portions of Jain canonical works were composed around the 4th or 3rd century BCE.[10][11] According to Johannes Bronkhorst it is extremely difficult to determine the age of the Jain Agamas, however:
Mainly on linguistic grounds, it has been argued that the Ācārāṅga Sūtra, the Sūtrakṛtāṅga Sūtra, and the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra are among the oldest texts in the canon. This does not guarantee that they actually date from the time of Mahāvīra, nor even from the centuries immediately following his death, nor does it guarantee that all parts of these texts were composed simultaneously.[12]
Elsewhere, Bronkhorst states that the Sūtrakṛtāṅga "dates from the 2nd century BCE at the very earliest," based on how it references the Buddhist theory of momentariness, which is a later scholastic development.
Nāyā-dhamma-kahāo (Jñāta-dharmakathānga, ‘Parables and religious stories)
While some authors date the composition of the Jain Agamas starting from the 6th century BCE,[9] some western scholars, such as Ian Whicher and David Carpenter, argue that the earliest portions of Jain canonical works were composed around the 4th or 3rd century BCE.[10][11] According to Johannes Bronkhorst it is extremely difficult to determine the age of the Jain Agamas, however:
Mainly on linguistic grounds, it has been argued that the Ācārāṅga Sūtra, the Sūtrakṛtāṅga Sūtra, and the Uttarādhyayana Sūtra are among the oldest texts in the canon. This does not guarantee that they actually date from the time of Mahāvīra, nor even from the centuries immediately following his death, nor does it guarantee that all parts of these texts were composed simultaneously.[12]
Elsewhere, Bronkhorst states that the Sūtrakṛtāṅga "dates from the 2nd century BCE at the very earliest," based on how it references the Buddhist theory of momentariness, which is a later scholastic development.
Nāyā-dhamma-kahāo (Jñāta-dharmakathānga, ‘Parables and religious stories)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews