Jain Texts and Scriptures: The Agamas

The Agamas are the holy scriptures of Jainism. They are also called Srutas. A scripture is a holy text that sets out a faith’s teaching.

1. What are the Agamas, and who passed them on?

Jains hold that the Agamas come from the Tirthankaras. A Tirthankara, also called a Jina, is a great Jain teacher. The scripture we have today comes from Mahavira.

Mahavira did not write it himself. Svetambara books record his talks to his chief disciples. A chief disciple is called a Ganadhara. Two of them were Indrabhuti Gautama and Sudharman. Sudharman passed the teaching on to his own disciple, Jambu.

Think of a teacher’s lecture that senior students remember and repeat. Many students wrongly think Mahavira wrote the Agamas. He did not.

2. Which language are the Agamas written in?

The Svetambara Agamas are written in Ardhamagadhi. Ardhamagadhi is a form of Prakrit. Prakrit means the old Indian languages that ordinary people spoke.

Ardhamagadhi was spoken in part of Magadha and mixed with other dialects. The Digambara texts are in a different form, called Sauraseni Prakrit.

So the safe answer to “Sanskrit or Prakrit?” is Prakrit. Both sects wrote their main scriptures in Prakrit forms.

3. How many texts are in the Svetambara canon?

A canon is the full set of texts a tradition accepts as authoritative. The Murtipujaka Svetambara canon has 45 texts. They sit in six groups, like six shelves in one library.

The groups are 11 Angas, 12 Upangas, 10 Prakirnakas, 6 Chedasutras, 4 Mulasutras and 2 Chulikasutras. Added together, that makes 45.

Anga means “limb”. Upanga means “secondary limb”. Prakirna means “scattered pieces”. The eleven Angas are the oldest part of the canon.

4. Which two texts are the Chulikasutras?

The two Chulikasutras are the Nandi Sutra and the Anuyogadvara Sutra.

The Nandi Sutra discusses the five types of knowledge. The Anuyogadvara Sutra is a technical treatise on analytical methods. Analytical methods are ways of breaking a topic into parts to study it.

In short, one text is about knowledge itself. The other is a guide to applying knowledge.

5. Do all Jains accept the same Agamas?

No. Even among Svetambaras, the accepted list differs.

Murtipujaka Svetambaras accept 45 texts. Sthanakvasis accept only 32 as authoritative. They treat the other 13 as apocryphal, meaning not genuine. Terapanthis also accept 32.

Another list mentions 84 Agamas for the Murtipujakas. For exams, use 45.

Do not mix up two similar names. The Svetambara Terapanthis are a different group from the Digambara sub-sect also called Terapantha. Digambaras do not accept the Svetambara books at all.

The story starts with a lost text. It continues with three councils that tried to save the rest.

6. What happened to the Drishtivada and the 14 Purvas?

The Purvas were the oldest layer of Jain teaching. There were 14. Their main teachings were gathered in the 12th Anga, the Drishtivada.

Someone who knew all 14 Purvas was called a Srutakevali. In the Svetambara account, knowledge of all 14 lasted only up to Sthulabhadra, the 8th patriarch after Mahavira. After him the Purvas faded step by step.

By the time the canon was written down, all the Purvas and the 12th Anga were gone. That is why the Svetambara canon has only 11 Angas.

The Digambara account differs a little. Digambaras say a few sections on the karma theory survived from two Purvas. They also say the Angas were lost gradually, over nine more generations.

7. What did the Pataliputra council do?

Svetambara tradition places it about 160 years after Mahavira’s nirvana. Nirvana is Mahavira’s final liberation, at the end of his life.

A drought lasted 12 years. Monks moved away. One account says some went south with Bhadrabahu. Without study, the oral memory of the texts began to slip.

When the drought ended, the monks met at Pataliputra. They collected the fragments of the canon that they could recall. In this way they brought together the 11 Angas.

They could not recover the Drishtivada. Bhadrabahu did not attend, because he had taken the Mahaprana vow, a long meditation vow. Sthulabhadra stayed with him and learned the Purvas, but was barred from teaching the last four.

Exam books often date this council to about 300 BCE. That date comes from tradition, so treat it as approximate.

8. What were the Mathura and Valabhi councils, and why do exams mix them up?

There were three councils, not two. Each met in a different place under a different leader.

The first was at Pataliputra. The second met at Mathura under Skandila. Tradition dates it 825 years after the nirvana. A parallel meeting at Valabhi was led by Nagarjunasuri.

The third met at Valabhi under Devardhigani. Tradition dates it 980 years after the nirvana. The scriptures were written down systematically after this council.

Mathura and Valabhi seem to have kept separate recitation traditions. So the Svetambara community itself disagreed in the fifth century. A wrong exam option often swaps the place or the leader.

9. How certain is the Valabhi date?

It is not certain. Some traditional sources give 980 or 993 years after Mahavira. That converts to 453 or 466 CE.

One scholarly table also lists 500 to 525 CE, with a question mark on both ranges. It calls the dates “extremely uncertain”. The accounts were written long after the events.

For an exam, write “by tradition” before the date. If a question gives only one year, the question setter usually has 453 CE in mind.

The Digambara side tells a different story. Keep it apart from the Svetambara account.

10. Why do the Digambaras reject the Svetambara canon?

Digambaras do not admit the Svetambara books to be genuine. Their tradition says the original Agamas faded away. It puts this up to 683 years after Mahavira’s nirvana.

Digambara literature does not mention the Pataliputra, Mathura or Valabhi councils at all. So the dispute is about authority, not only about which texts survive.

Digambaras say the present Agamas are lost and mixed with local elements. The Svetambara reply is gentler. Even if the original form changed, it cannot be fully rejected. Its language and culture show a degree of originality.

11. Which texts do the Digambaras treat as Agamas?

The Shatkhandagama of Pushpadanta and Bhutabali is the main one. The Kasayapahuda is its companion text. Virasena’s Dhavala commentary on the Shatkhandagama is also listed. A commentary is a book that explains another book.

These texts are perhaps the earliest source of knowledge of the Drishtivada. Digambaras say a part of that lost 12th Anga survived and became their base.

Two recent government decisions touch these texts. One is about language. The other is about old manuscripts.

12. How did the 2024 classical-language decision touch the Agamas?

On 3 October 2024, the Union Cabinet gave classical status to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali. Six languages already had it: Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia. That makes 11 in all.

The foundational texts of both Jain and Buddhist traditions were written in Prakrit languages. Mahavira and the Buddha also taught in Prakrit.

Be careful with one trap. The status went to Prakrit as a whole. The Ministry of Culture paper does not name Ardhamagadhi.

A Linguistic Experts Committee under the Sahitya Akademi judges each case. The criteria, revised in November 2005, include 1,500 to 2,000 years of early texts or recorded history.

13. What is the Gyan Bharatam Mission, and where do Jain manuscripts fit?

A manuscript is a book written by hand. Gyan Bharatam Mission was announced in Union Budget 2025-26. It is a Ministry of Culture drive to survey, conserve and digitise manuscripts.

The Standing Finance Committee sanctioned Rs 491.66 crore for 2025-2031. An earlier March 2025 release gave Rs 482.85 crore for 2024-31. Use the newer figure.

A National Manuscript Survey began in March 2026. More than 1.19 crore manuscripts have been reported. Over 8 lakh are digitised, and more than 4.40 lakh are on the Gyan Bharatam portal. A crore is ten million. A lakh is one hundred thousand.

On 12 September 2025, the Prime Minister said Acharya Bhadrabahu’s Kalpasutra manuscript safeguards the ancient wisdom of Jainism. He said manuscripts exist in nearly 80 languages, including Prakrit.

Examiners like the Svetambara-Digambara split. They test who did what, and which side holds which view.

14. How did CDS II 2023 test the Svetambara-Digambara split?

The answer is (b). The southward move led by Bhadrabahu after the 12-year drought belongs to the Digambara account. The question asks for the statement that is not correct.

The other three fit the Svetambara side. Its monks wear white clothes. It accepts a canon that lists 12 Angas, though the 12th, the Drishtivada, is lost. It also holds that women can attain salvation.