Samayasāra
Jain text authored by Āchārya Kundakunda
Samayasāra (The Nature of the Self) is a famous Jain text composed by Kundakunda an early Digambar Jain Monk, (1st BCE–2nd century CE) in 439 verses. Its ten chapters discuss the nature of Jīva (pure self/soul), its attachment to Karma and Moksha (liberation). Samayasāra expounds the Jain concepts like Karma, Asrava (influx of karmas), Bandha (Bondage), Samvara (stoppage), Nirjara (shedding) and Moksha (complete annihilation of karmas).
A modern English translation was published by Vijay K. Jain in 2022.
History
Samayasara was written by Acharya Kundakunda in Prakrit. The text marked a pivotal development in Jain philosophical history by systematically establishing the ultimate (niścaya) and conventional (vyavahāra) standpoints to articulate the pure nature of the soul.
Contents
The original Samayasara of Kundakunda consists of 415 verses and was written in Prakrit. The first verse (aphorism) of the Samayasāra is an invocation: O bhavyas (potential aspirants to liberation)! Making obeisance to all the Siddhas, established in the fifth state of existence that is eternal, immutable, and incomparable (perfection par excellence), I will articulate this Samayaprābhrita, which has been propounded by the all-knowing Masters of Scripture. According to Samayasāra, the real self is only that soul which has achieved ratnatraya i.e.
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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 Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7408936. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Samayasāra” 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.