Samayasāra (The Essence of the Self)

One of the most revered philosophical texts of the Digambara Jain tradition, composed in Prakrit verse by the monk Kundakunda, whose dates are uncertain. Its subject is the true nature of the self (jīva) and its relation to karma. Kundakunda's key method is to distinguish two standpoints. From the conventional standpoint (vyavahāra-naya), the soul is bound by karma, acts, enjoys and suffers, and is described in terms of the body and the passions. From the real or absolute standpoint (niścaya-naya), the pure self is only a knower and seer, untouched by matter and not the doer of material karma. Organised around the Jain categories of soul and non-soul, the influx and binding of karma, its stopping and shedding, and liberation, the text argues that bondage comes from identifying with what is not the self, and that liberation begins with discriminating knowledge of the self as pure consciousness. Later commentaries, notably Amṛtacandra's, made it central to Digambara thought.

It offers the classic Jain account of the self as pure consciousness, and its use of two standpoints is a careful way of holding together everyday and ultimate truths about who we are.