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That Which Is: Tattvartha Sutra
This classic Jain manual for understanding the true nature of reality is now published for the first time in an English translation outside of India. Regarded by the Jains as the earliest, most authoritative and comprehensive summary of their religion, this book is sponsored by the Institute of Jainology.
371 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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December 13, 2024
The low rating isn't because I disagreed with the text, but because of how sparse it was, despite being so short. There's just not much content here. The majority of the text reads like something gnostic: it lists divine names and builds up a cosmology which has little bearing to the rest of the moral teachings contained in it. We do get some fun nuggets like the following: "The celestial beings are born in box-beds, and the infernal beings in bladders hung from the ceilings of the holes in hell," but these details are rare and often relegated to the footnotes.
The main thrust of the document is concerned with the removal of Karmic accretion, which is done through "Right faith, right knowledge, and right conduct." Though these three, liberation from the cycle of material rebirth can be achieved (which sounds pretty gnostic to me). Precious little of this document elaborates on the aspects more famous today, such as vegetarianism or perspectivism. Rather than the near-relativism of perspectivism, this text is very sure of itself, often dogmatically so, and little of the nuance/diplomacy of later Jainism seems present in it. Confusingly for western readers, the text also uses terms like "clairvoyance" in ways which are very literal (clear-seeing) rather than the usual sense of predicting the future.
We do get moral injunctions about celibacy and detachment from material reality and desire, but these are much more clearly laid out in other Hindu and Buddhist texts that I've read, so I'd recommend those (the Bhagavad Gita and the Dhammapada respectively). Much of the theological teaching in here is laid out in a philosophically syllogistic manner, but occasionally some beautiful phrases shine through. For example, when talking about the form and substance of various entities, it says "(The function of matter is) also to contribute to pleasure, suffering, life and death of living beings...(The function) of souls is to help one another."
I do appreciate other insights such as "Existence (being or sat) is the differentia of a substance," which to me means that existence is difference, is the very ability to have a gap between intelligible things, to have discrete-ness itself, to categorize (which is also how I would define language). They continue by stating "That which has qualities and modes is a substance... Time also (is a substance)." This surprised me and showed how they somehow anticipated Einstein's theory of relativity via philosophy a thousand or so years before he "discovered" it.
Though its Karmic theology propogates nasty prejudices about "deserving" birth defects and low-birth, it does have some theologically interesting moments; for me, the central premodern truth I'd take away from this book is that Knowledge and Morality are linked together: "Omniscience (perfect knowledge) is attained on the destruction of deluding karmas, and on the destruction of knowledge- and perception-covering karmas and obstructive karmas." The two are interlinked, and it's precisely the modern tendency to divorce the two which is the cause of our problems today. To me, it's bitterly funny to see people debating about how to fix issues such as pollution, resource depletion, and sexual politics. No one ever thinks to look at ancient wisdom and do the hard work of combating gluttony and fostering chastity. Both of these are laughed out of the room by capitalism, which relies almost exclusively on a lust for excess to maintain itself. Ironically, the most anti-capitalist thing you could do would be living a genuinely premodern life. Doing so doesn't require all these convoluted French theoretical texts; all it requires is a little ancient wisdom.
The main thrust of the document is concerned with the removal of Karmic accretion, which is done through "Right faith, right knowledge, and right conduct." Though these three, liberation from the cycle of material rebirth can be achieved (which sounds pretty gnostic to me). Precious little of this document elaborates on the aspects more famous today, such as vegetarianism or perspectivism. Rather than the near-relativism of perspectivism, this text is very sure of itself, often dogmatically so, and little of the nuance/diplomacy of later Jainism seems present in it. Confusingly for western readers, the text also uses terms like "clairvoyance" in ways which are very literal (clear-seeing) rather than the usual sense of predicting the future.
We do get moral injunctions about celibacy and detachment from material reality and desire, but these are much more clearly laid out in other Hindu and Buddhist texts that I've read, so I'd recommend those (the Bhagavad Gita and the Dhammapada respectively). Much of the theological teaching in here is laid out in a philosophically syllogistic manner, but occasionally some beautiful phrases shine through. For example, when talking about the form and substance of various entities, it says "(The function of matter is) also to contribute to pleasure, suffering, life and death of living beings...(The function) of souls is to help one another."
I do appreciate other insights such as "Existence (being or sat) is the differentia of a substance," which to me means that existence is difference, is the very ability to have a gap between intelligible things, to have discrete-ness itself, to categorize (which is also how I would define language). They continue by stating "That which has qualities and modes is a substance... Time also (is a substance)." This surprised me and showed how they somehow anticipated Einstein's theory of relativity via philosophy a thousand or so years before he "discovered" it.
Though its Karmic theology propogates nasty prejudices about "deserving" birth defects and low-birth, it does have some theologically interesting moments; for me, the central premodern truth I'd take away from this book is that Knowledge and Morality are linked together: "Omniscience (perfect knowledge) is attained on the destruction of deluding karmas, and on the destruction of knowledge- and perception-covering karmas and obstructive karmas." The two are interlinked, and it's precisely the modern tendency to divorce the two which is the cause of our problems today. To me, it's bitterly funny to see people debating about how to fix issues such as pollution, resource depletion, and sexual politics. No one ever thinks to look at ancient wisdom and do the hard work of combating gluttony and fostering chastity. Both of these are laughed out of the room by capitalism, which relies almost exclusively on a lust for excess to maintain itself. Ironically, the most anti-capitalist thing you could do would be living a genuinely premodern life. Doing so doesn't require all these convoluted French theoretical texts; all it requires is a little ancient wisdom.
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