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Sumati-Jnāna jurisprudence combines general ethical principles (dharma) - five fundamental qualities (müla-guņa) and ten or more additional qualities (uttara-guņa) - with specific rules (kalpa) of good conduct (ācāra), supplemented by lists of common transgressions (anācāra or pratisevanā) and corresponding atonements (prāyaścitta). Atonements for self-purification should be requested voluntarily by an offender, following confession (ālocanā) and repentance (pratikramana). Alternatively, penances are imposed as punishments (danda) by the head of the order (ācārya), whose judgments should take into account the circumstances and the status of the offender and make allowances for exceptions (apavāda). The disciplinary proceedings (vyavahāra) are, in theory, determined by superior knowledge (āgama), traditional prescriptions (Śruta), an order (ājñā), a rule (dhāranā) or an accepted practice (jīta), the following criterion always coming into force in absence of the preceding one (Vavahāra 10.2 = Viyāhapannatti 8.8.2). In practice, only the last four criteria are relevant.
The rules of the tradition (śruta) and the procedures of adjudication (vyavahāra) and execution (prasthāvana) of penances are detailed in the six Chedasūtras of the Svetāmbara canon and in their commentaries, the niryuktis, cūrņis, bhāşyas and tīkās. The oldest passages of these texts must have been composed not long after Mahāvīra. After the emergence of differently organized monastic orders, gacchas or ganas, in the medieval period, the commonly accepted disciplinary texts of the Svetāmbara tradition were supplemented by the codified customary laws of individual monastic traditions, sāmācārī or maryādā (incorporating äjnā and dhāraņā), which are still continuously updated by the ācāryas. Ācārya Malayagiri (12th C. E.), in his commentary on Vavahāra 10.9, notes that consequently it is possible to follow the dharma, while violating the law, or maryādā.
In contrast to the Svetāmbaras, Digambaras never developed organized monastic orders, and have only a rudimentary literature on monastic jurisprudence. They regard their own much younger Caraṇānuyoga texts as authoritative for monastic jurisprudence.
Lay supporters of the mendicants, the upāsakas, supporters, or śrāvakas, listeners, were defined early on as part of the fourfold community (tīrtha or saṁgha) of monks, sādhus, nuns, sādhvīs, laymen, śrāvakas, and laywomen, śrāvikās, on condition of vowing to observe in part (deśa-virata) the main ethical principles to which mendicants must be fully committed (sarva-virata). Categorising 'laity' as lower rank ascetics and devising rules based on monastic paradigms was the work of monks (8th to 14th century). Such rules achieve normative force through public vows, and can be individually chosen and self-imposed for specified times. In contrast to monastic law, observance is socially sanctioned qua status recognition, not enforced through juridical procedures.
The principal written sources for judging the proper conduct of the laity are the medieval śrävakācāras, treatises containing rules of conduct (ācāra) for the laity (śrāvaka), and nītiśāstras, texts on statecraft, law and ethics. The word śrāvakācāra and its synonym
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