A Sense of the Unity of All Things in Jain Āgamas

Abstract

According to Jain dogmatics, souls are uncreated, imperishable. Every soul is an individual entity, independent of the others. But in the oldest Āgamas, we find passages which show a sense of the unity of all things. In this small paper, I would like to indicate a comparable passage which seems to have been overlooked so far.

We find the following correspondences.

The Jain Āgama Dasaveyāliya-sutta IV, 9a reads as follows: savva-bhūy’appa-bhūyassa (a man who identifies himself with all beings). And the Hindu Bhagavad Gītā V, 7c: sarva-bhū’ātma-bhūt’ātmā (whose self has become the self of all beings).