Sarvārthasiddhi


Sarvārthasiddhi is a famous Jain text authored by Ācārya Pujyapada. It is the oldest extant commentary on Ācārya Umaswami's Tattvārthasūtra. Traditionally though, the oldest commentary on the Tattvārthasūtra is the Gandhahastimahābhāṣya. A commentary is a word-by-word or line-by-line explication of a text.

Author

Ācārya Pujyapada, the author of Sarvārthasiddhi was a famous Digambara monk. Pujyapada was a poet, grammarian, philosopher and a profound scholar of Ayurveda.

Content

The author begins with an explanation of the invocation of the Tattvārthasūtra. The ten chapters of Sarvārthasiddhi are:
  1. Faith and Knowledge
  2. The Category of the Living
  3. The Lower World and the Middle World
  4. The Celestial Beings
  5. The Category of the Non-Living
  6. Influx of Karma
  7. The Five Vows
  8. Bondage of Karma
  9. Stoppage and Shedding of Karma
  10. Liberation
In the text, Dāna is defined as the act of giving one's wealth to another for mutual benefit.

English translation

Prof. S. A. Jain translated the Sarvārthasiddhi in English language. In the preface to his book, he wrote: