Prashnavyakaran प्रश्नव्याकरण
The tenth and most architecturally precise of the twelve Angas. Structured as a living dialogue between the monk Jambu Swami and his teacher Arya Sudharmashvami, it maps the complete karma framework: the five gates through which binding matter floods the soul, and the five great vows that seal them. This is not philosophy — it is engineering.
Teachings By
Lord Mahavira
Compiled By
Arya Sudharmashvami
#5 Chief Disciple of the Lord
Translated By
Dishant Shah
Chapters
10 Total · 5 Available
Himsa
Violence
The first and primary gate of karmic influx. Twenty-two names, thirty karmic synonyms, its forms in water, land, air, and soil — and the terrible rebirths that follow. The most thorough examination of violence in the canonical literature.
Mrushavad
Falsehood
The second gate: false speech and its cascading karmic weight. How lies, in all their forms — from flattery to false witness to silence that deceives — bind the soul in ways that truth-telling alone can undo.
Adattadan
Stealing / Taking the Ungiven
The third gate: taking what has not been given. The mechanics of how theft — obvious and subtle, physical and conceptual — accumulates binding karma. What it means to truly receive only what is offered.
Abrahmacharya
Unchastity
The fourth gate: the passion-driven actions that cloud the soul's innate clarity. A precise analysis of unchastity as a karmic force — not a moral condemnation but a technical examination of how desire-energy binds across lifetimes.
Parigraha
Possessiveness
The fifth and final gate: the karmic weight of accumulated possessions. Why holding too much is itself a subtle form of violence — and how the desire to accumulate becomes, in time, indistinguishable from the fear of loss.
Ahimsa Mahavrat
The First Great Vow — Non-Violence
The closing of the first gate through vow, practice, and inner transformation. Complete non-violence as a living discipline — not merely the absence of harm, but the active cultivation of care for all beings.
Satya Mahavrat
The Second Great Vow — Perfect Truth
The second great vow: absolute honesty as a liberating force. How complete commitment to truth changes not only one's speech but the quality of one's perception and the weight of one's karma.
Achaurya Mahavrat
The Third Great Vow — Non-Stealing
The third great vow: non-stealing as a complete discipline of receiving. The practice of accepting only what is explicitly offered — and the deep sense of sufficiency that arises from living without taking.
Brahmacharya
The Fourth Great Vow — Celibacy
The fourth great vow: the redirection of vital energy toward liberation. Brahmacharya as a positive force — not renunciation as deprivation, but the channelling of powerful inner resources toward the soul's highest aim.
Aparigraha Mahavrat
The Fifth Great Vow — Non-Possessiveness
The fifth great vow and the culminating discipline: complete release of accumulation. How the soul that holds nothing is finally free to move — and how non-possessiveness is not poverty but the fullest form of wealth.