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Kalpa-Sutra

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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is, in Vedic literature, the name of those Sanscrit works which treat of the ceremonials usual at a Vedic sacrifice. (See VEDA). In Jaina literature it is the name of the most sacred religious work of the Jainas (q.v.). It chiefly relates the legendary history of Mahavira, the last of their twenty-four deified saints, or Tirthankaras, but contains also an account of four other saints of the same class. The author of the work was Bhadra Bahu, and it was composed, Stevenson assumes, in the year A.D. 411. It is held in high respect by the Jainas, who, out of the eight days which, in the middle of the rains, they devote to the reading of their most sacred writings, allot no less than five to the Kalpa Sutra. See Stevenson, The Kalpa-Sutra and Nava Tatva (London, 1848).