The Bhagavatī Sūtra, also known as the Vyākhyāprajñapti, stands within the Śvetāmbara Jain canon as one of its principal Aṅgas, a text whose authority rests less on an individual author and more on a living lineage of transmission. Jain tradition understands its roots to lie in the discourses of Mahāvīra, the twenty‑fourth Tīrthaṅkara, especially in the form of dialogues in which he responds to questions posed by his close disciples. These teachings were preserved orally within the early community, carried by the gaṇadharas and subsequent teachers, and only gradually shaped into the extensive work known today. Rather than emerging from the pen of a single composer, it is the outcome of a long process of preservation, organization, and redaction by many ascetics and scholars.

From a historical perspective, the text is thus best viewed as a layered compilation whose core material reaches back to the era of Mahāvīra, while its present form reflects several centuries of careful transmission and systematization. Modern scholarly study, working with linguistic and textual evidence, places the shaping of the Bhagavatī Sūtra over an extended period, with its final redaction occurring well after Mahāvīra’s lifetime. This does not diminish its spiritual stature; instead, it highlights how the community’s sustained engagement with the teachings gave rise to a work that is encyclopedic in scope and doctrinal depth. The Bhagavatī Sūtra therefore embodies both the immediacy of the master’s voice and the cumulative labor of generations of Jain teachers who sought to preserve that voice with fidelity and clarity.