India · c. 2nd–5th c. CE (dates uncertain)
Umāsvāti
Author of the Jain text accepted by both main sects
His Tattvārtha Sūtra compressed Jain teaching into concise aphorisms, setting out seven realities from soul and non-soul to liberation, and the path of right faith, knowledge and conduct.
Life and thought
Umāsvāti (also called Umāsvāmī) composed the Tattvārtha Sūtra, the first major summary of Jain doctrine written in Sanskrit rather than the Prakrit of the canon. His dates are uncertain—scholars place him anywhere from the 2nd to the 5th century CE—and both the Śvetāmbara and Digambara sects claim him, which is why his text is the one work all Jain traditions study.
In ten chapters of compressed aphorisms, the Sūtra opens: “Right faith, right knowledge and right conduct together are the path to liberation.” It then sets out seven realities: soul (jīva), non-soul, the inflow of karma, its binding to the soul, the stopping of inflow, the shedding of bound karma, and liberation. Along the way it classifies kinds of knowledge, living beings, cosmology and ethics. Its definition of what exists—whatever arises, perishes and yet endures—expresses the Jain view that a thing is permanent in substance but changing in its modes. Hundreds of commentaries followed.
Works
Meanwhile, in other traditions
354–430Augustine of HippoNorth African bishop who fused Christianity with Platonismborn c. 350–370; died 415HypatiaMathematician and Neoplatonist teacher in Alexandria412–485ProclusHead of the Platonic school in Athens and Neoplatonism’s great systematiserOn the record
Umāsvāti lived sometime in the 2nd–5th century CE; plotted at c. 350–420.
Scholars disagree: Padmanabh Jaini places him around the 2nd century, Paul Dundas dates him and the Tattvārtha Sūtra to the 4th–5th century, and Walter Slaje notes doubts even about whether Umāsvāti and Umāsvāmī were one person. The claim that both main sects accept his text is confirmed: it is studied in all four Jain traditions, and both Śvetāmbaras and Digambaras claim him.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Umaswati” (citing Jaini, Dundas, Slaje)