purvas

Purvas are a category of ancient Jain scriptures traditionally regarded as predating the canonical Agamas. The term purva means ancient or former, and in Jain belief the Purvas encompassed foundational teachings on cosmology, ethics, metaphysics, and the lives and doctrines of the Tirthankaras. They were said to have been transmitted orally by early Jain teachers before being committed to writing, but over time their contents became unavailable to most communities.

Different Jain sects express distinct views about the Purvas. The Digambara tradition holds that the Purvas constituted a very extensive and authoritative corpus that was lost due to historical circumstances and sectarian conflicts. The Śvetāmbara tradition acknowledges the existence of Purva material but regards the canonical Agamas—compiled in later centuries—as the core scriptures. In both traditions, the loss of the Purvas helped shape the development and authority of subsequent Jain literature and doctrine.

Today, no complete Purva text is known to survive, and references to Purvas appear primarily in later writings and tradition. There have been occasional claims of rediscovery or partial recoveries in modern times, but such claims are controversial and not widely accepted by mainstream scholarship. In scholarly contexts, Purvas are generally treated as a traditional category representing ancient Jain literature whose exact content remains largely inaccessible to contemporary readers. They continue to be invoked in discussions of early Jain history and the development of Jain doctrinal authority.