Tattvārtha Sūtra (That Which Is)

The first systematic Jain treatise written in Sanskrit, and the one text accepted by both the Śvetāmbara and Digambara traditions, in ten chapters of aphorisms. It opens by declaring that right faith, right knowledge and right conduct together form the path to liberation. It then sets out the realities (tattvas): souls (jīva), the non-living, the influx of karmic matter, bondage, the stopping of influx, the shedding of karma, and liberation. Along the way it distinguishes five kinds of knowledge, from sensory cognition up to omniscience, introduces the standpoints (nayas) from which a thing can be described, classifies living beings from one-sensed earth and plant bodies up to humans, and analyses karma as a subtle matter that binds the soul. Later chapters set out the vows, beginning with non-violence, and the austerities and meditation that free the soul. Its aphorism that souls render service to one another has become an emblem of Jainism.

It is the standard summary of Jain philosophy, and its picture of karma as a physical substance and non-violence as the first vow is unlike anything else in Indian thought.