Samavayang (समवायांग)

The Samavayang Sūtra (समवायांग सूत्र) is the fourth of the twelve Aṅga Āgamas — the core scriptural canon of the Jain Śvetāmbara tradition. Its name means "the Sūtra of Combinations/Groupings" — and its method is unique in all of world literature: it takes a number, from one upward, and assembles around that number every truth in Jain doctrine that comes in that quantity. All things that are one in kind. All things that come in twos. All things in threes — and so on. The result is a living cross-reference to the entire Jain scriptural tradition.

In the space of a single Samavay, the reader passes from a philosophical enumeration (the six Leśyās, the seven types of fear) to a cosmological fact (the diameter of Jambūdvīpa, the height of Meru) to a biographical datum (Mahāvīra's body height in hastas, Parśvanātha's number of disciples) to a soteriological milestone (liberation in N births). This juxtaposition is not random — it is the tradition's way of insisting that philosophy, cosmology, biography, and the path to liberation are all part of one unified reality, measurable by the same numbers.

The Samavayang is considered one of the most important reference texts in the tradition — monks and scholars used it as a master concordance for all other Āgamas. Each chapter of this translation covers twenty Samavayas, with the complete Prakrit text, English rendering, and substantive commentary on every entry.