Epistemic labels distinguish textual facts, descriptions of tradition, and interpretations. They are not confidence scores.
Tradition · Draft
Ācārāṅga food rules address mendicant non-harm
Ācārāṅga II.1.1 requires male and female mendicants to inspect and reject alms affected by living beings, seeds, sprouts, water, and still-living plant material.
Scholarly disagreement: The passage establishes a rigorous mendicant rule. Jain lay practice is governed through graded vows and contextual disciplines, so projecting this rule unchanged onto all Jains would erase a central institutional distinction.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part I (SBE 22) · Draft · Book II, Lecture 1, Lesson 1, §§1–4
- Cort, Jains in the World · Draft
- Dundas, The Jains · Draft
Tradition · Draft
Ācārāṅga extends non-injury across categories of life
Ācārāṅga I.4.1 directs that breathing, existing, living, and sentient creatures are not to be slain, treated with violence, abused, tormented, or driven away.
Scholarly disagreement: Jacobi's English categories translate a technical Prakrit enumeration, and Jain schools and social roles differ on how non-injury is applied under embodied conditions where all harm cannot be eliminated.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part I (SBE 22) · Draft · Book I, Lecture 4, Lesson 1, §1
- Chapple, Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self · Draft
- Long, Jainism: An Introduction · Draft
Tradition · Draft
Ācārāṅga includes causing and allowing within responsibility
Ācārāṅga I.1.1 names doing an act, causing another to do it, and allowing another to do it among causes of sin that must be comprehended and renounced.
Scholarly disagreement: Commentarial and philosophical accounts refine how intention, negligence, instrumentality, and consent affect karmic bondage; the passage should not be paraphrased as a modern legal test of complicity.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part I (SBE 22) · Draft · Book I, Lecture 1, Lesson 1, §§4–7
- Dundas, The Jains · Draft
Interpretation · Draft
Matthew 5:40-42 requires costly giving
Matthew 5:40–42 portrays nonretaliation as accompanied by active, costly giving in legal and practical encounters, not withdrawal.
Scholarly disagreement: Some scholars describe these instructions as rhetorical idealization, while others argue they are prescriptive boundary-sensitive ethics that could include prudential limits.
- King James Version · Draft · Matthew 5:40-42
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew · Draft
- Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Matthew, vol. 1 · Draft
Interpretation · Draft
Matthew 5:44 extends love and prayer to enemies
Matthew 5:44 explicitly extends love and prayer to enemies and persecutors rather than limiting concern to reciprocal relationships.
Scholarly disagreement: Scholars dispute whether this unit is primarily private discipleship training or a public, community-wide program for social conflict in a politicized setting.
- King James Version · Draft · Matthew 5:43-44
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew · Draft
- Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Matthew, vol. 1 · Draft
Interpretation · Draft
Matthew 5:39 rejects personal retaliatory violence
In Matthew 5:39, Jesus prohibits personal violent retaliation in response to an immediate affront and frames that situation as an opportunity for nonviolent response.
Scholarly disagreement: A core debate concerns ἀντιστῆναι (antistēnai): some interpreters take it as a total renunciation of violent resistance, while others restrict it to retaliation in the personal and legal situations illustrated here. The saying does not itself supply a complete theory of state force.
- King James Version · Draft · Matthew 5:39
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew · Draft
- Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary · Draft
Interpretation · Draft
Matthew 5:45 grounds enemy-love in divine impartiality
Matthew 5:45 points to sun and rain given to both evil and good as the stated rationale for love that extends beyond friends.
Scholarly disagreement: Readings differ over whether the meteorological imagery is primarily metaphoric theology of impartiality or a poetic intensification of ethical reciprocity.
- King James Version · Draft · Matthew 5:45
- Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary · Draft
- Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Matthew, vol. 1 · Draft
Interpretation · Draft
Matthew 26:52 commands immediate disarmament
In Matthew 26:52, Jesus explicitly orders a disciple to put the sword away, signaling refusal to answer arrest pressure with armed escalation.
Scholarly disagreement: Later Christian just-war argument does not rest on this text alone: defenders of later force doctrines treat it as a context-specific arrest scene, while broader nonviolent ethics often treat it as paradigmatic for discipleship under immediate coercion.
- King James Version · Draft · Matthew 26:52
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew · Draft · commentary on Matthew 26:51–54
Interpretation · Draft
Matthew 5:48 closes with a disputed standard of perfection
Matthew 5:48 closes the sequence by commanding disciples to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect.
Scholarly disagreement: Scholars disagree over whether “perfect” means eschatological completion, complete mercy in action, or pedagogical maturity, with implications for ethical scope beyond the passage.
- King James Version · Draft · Matthew 5:48
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew · Draft
- Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1–7: A Commentary · Draft
Interpretation · Draft
Matthew 26:53–56 frames the arrest as voluntary fulfillment
Matthew 26:53–56 portrays Jesus’ arrest as knowingly embraced, with the immediate arrest scene interpreted as fulfillment of scriptural necessity.
Scholarly disagreement: Some argue this establishes a general pacifist program; others argue it should be read as narrative theology of passion fulfillment and therefore not by itself a comprehensive rule for every later case of violent conflict.
- King James Version · Draft · Matthew 26:53-56
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew · Draft · commentary on Matthew 26:53–56
Tradition · Draft
Sūtrakṛtāṅga makes carefulness a practical discipline
Sūtrakṛtāṅga I.10 connects carefulness with giving no offense in movement, allowed food, treating beings as oneself, ceasing injury, and not employing others to harm.
Scholarly disagreement: The lecture addresses an ascetic ideal whose full observance is role-specific; lay aṇuvratas pursue non-harm through less absolute constraints.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part II (SBE 45) · Draft · Sūtrakṛtāṅga I.10 §§1–10
- Long, Jainism: An Introduction · Draft
- Cort, Jains in the World · Draft
Interpretation · Draft
Sūtrakṛtāṅga does not reduce harm to avowed intention
Sūtrakṛtāṅga II.4 argues that sin is not erased merely because an agent does not consciously consider the operations of mind, speech, and body, while its murderer example also treats a formed hostile resolution as morally consequential.
Scholarly disagreement: The disputant structure and Jacobi's difficult translation make the passage unsafe as a simple slogan. Jain philosophers distinguish material harm from passionate or negligent states in ways that cannot be reconstructed from these four sections alone.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part II (SBE 45) · Draft · Sūtrakṛtāṅga II.4 §§1–4
- Wiley, Historical Dictionary of Jainism · Draft
- Tähtinen, Ahiṃsā · Draft
Tradition · Draft
Sūtrakṛtāṅga treats killing, causing, and consent as binding
Sūtrakṛtāṅga I.1.1 says that killing living beings, causing others to kill, and consenting to their killing increase the agent's iniquity and bondage.
Scholarly disagreement: Later Jain analyses distinguish intention, carelessness, passions, and material injury in greater detail; this verse provides a broad agency frame rather than a complete taxonomy of karmic intensity.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part II (SBE 45) · Draft · Sūtrakṛtāṅga I.1.1 §§2–5
- Dundas, The Jains · Draft
Tradition · Draft
Snp 1.8 uses the mother analogy for boundless loving-kindness
Sutta Nipāta 1.8 teaches a boundless heart through the image of a mother protecting her only child and by directing love to the entire world: above, below, all around, unconstricted, and without enmity.
Scholarly disagreement: These are canonical ethical-poetic instructions; later Buddhist communities have interpreted loving-kindness discourse in different practical ways, so they are not equivalent to a single historical policy position.
- Sujato, Sutta Nipāta · Draft · snp1.8:7.1–8.4
- Jerryson and Juergensmeyer, Buddhist Warfare · Draft · Comparative essays document Buddhist communities interpreting compassion and non-harm differently under different political pressures.
Interpretation · Draft
Snp 4.15 turns from public conflict to the inner dart
After describing armed conflict and social turmoil, Sutta Nipāta 4.15 locates a hard-to-see dart in the heart and says that removing it ends restless running and sinking down.
Scholarly disagreement: The dart can be read as craving, attachment, or a wider complex of affliction. In every case, the passage moves toward renunciant transformation and should not be reduced to a stand-alone program of political pacifism.
- Sujato, Sutta Nipāta · Draft · snp4.15:4.3–5.4
- Jerryson and Juergensmeyer, Buddhist Warfare · Draft · Used to guard against projecting a single renunciant passage over diverse Buddhist political histories.
Tradition · Draft
Snp 1.8 rejects wishing pain under provocation
Sutta Nipāta 1.8 explicitly instructs that even when provoked or aggrieved, one should not wish pain for another person.
Scholarly disagreement: The injunction is unambiguous in this verse sequence, but it does not by itself settle Buddhist responses to collective violence or political defense.
- Sujato, Sutta Nipāta · Draft · snp1.8:6.3–6.4
- Bartholomeusz, In Defense of Dharma · Draft · Historical Buddhist just-war arguments in Sri Lanka show that later political thought can allow conflict under strict conditions.
Tradition · Draft
Snp 4.15 links taking up arms with peril
Sutta Nipāta 4.15 states that peril stems from those who take up arms, describing social life among such actors as conflict and turmoil.
Scholarly disagreement: The verse describes social peril within its context, not a total doctrinal ban on all violence; scholars of Buddhist history identify counterexamples where warfare was justified through other doctrinal or political arguments.
- Sujato, Sutta Nipāta · Draft · snp4.15:1.1–3.4
- Bartholomeusz, In Defense of Dharma · Draft · Dharma and war arguments in Buddhist Sri Lanka · Provides evidence of Buddhist just-war arguments in later Sri Lankan contexts.
Tradition · Draft
Snp 1.8 extends welfare to all beings
Sutta Nipāta 1.8 instructs practitioners to wish happiness and safety for all living beings, including beings already born and those about to be born, without leaving any out.
Scholarly disagreement: The passage is clear as monastic ethical instruction, but scholars caution that this universal sentiment does not by itself define all Buddhist political, legal, or military traditions.
- Sujato, Sutta Nipāta · Draft · snp1.8:4.1–5.4
- Bartholomeusz, In Defense of Dharma · Draft · Use-of-force debates in Sri Lankan Buddhism show wider historical variation than this renunciant verse sequence captures.
Tradition · Draft
Uttarādhyayana denies that relations absorb one's harmful action
Uttarādhyayana Lecture 4 says that careless killers cannot rely on wealth or relations for protection and that relations do not take an agent's place when the fruit of action is reaped.
Scholarly disagreement: This is a karmic and ascetic accountability claim, not a denial that social structures influence violence or that communities bear other forms of responsibility.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part II (SBE 45) · Draft · Uttarādhyayana, Lecture 4, §§1–4
- Dundas, The Jains · Draft
Tradition · Draft
Uttarādhyayana operationalizes non-harm as attention
Uttarādhyayana Lecture 24 presents five samitis and three guptis as disciplines that prevent thought, speech, and body from causing misery or destruction to living beings.
Scholarly disagreement: The detailed rules describe well-disciplined monks. Their values inform wider Jain ethics, but the great-vow/lesser-vow distinction means the same operational burden is not assigned identically to householders.
- Jacobi, Jaina Sūtras, Part II (SBE 45) · Draft · Uttarādhyayana, Lecture 24, §§1–8, 20–26
- Wiley, Historical Dictionary of Jainism · Draft
- Cort, Jains in the World · Draft