Kalpa Sūtra
ancient Jain text written by Bhadrabahu
The Kalpa Sūtra (Sanskrit: कल्पसूत्र) is an important Jain scripture containing the biographies of the Tirthankaras, notably Parshvanatha and Mahavira. Ascribed to Acharya Bhadrabahu, which would place it in the 4th century BCE, it states that it was written down 980 or 993 years after the Nirvana (Moksha) of Mahavira or 1230 years after the Nirvana of Tirthankar Parswanath.
History
Within the six sections of the Jain literary corpus belonging to the Śvetāmbara school, it is classed as one of the Cheda Sūtras. This Sutra contains detailed life histories and, from the mid-15th century, was frequently illustrated with miniature painting. The oldest surviving copies are written on paper in western India in the 14th century.
The Kalpa Sutra is ascribed to Acharya Bhadrabahu, the sixth spiritual successor of the great shraman Chaturvidh sangha of Mahavira, who is said to have composed it some 150 years after the Nirvāṇa of Mahavira. It was compiled probably during the reign of Dhruvasena, 980 or 993 years after Mahavira's liberation.
The Kalpa Sutra was one of the first Jain texts to be translated into English.
Importance
The book is read and illustrated in an eight-day-long festival of Paryushan by Jain monks for general people. Only monks are generally permitted to read this scripture, as in Jainism, this text has very high spiritual values and sanctity.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q422848. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1230.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kalpa Sūtra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.