Indian Jain philosopher (c. 5th century CE) traditionally credited with systematising the canonical Jain doctrine. The principal architect of the Tattvārthādhigama-sūtra (《諦義證得經》, KR6v0028) — the only Jain canonical text accepted by both Śvetāmbara (白衣派) and Digambara (空衣派) schools, and the founding work of Jain sūtra literature — together with his own auto-commentary (svopajña-bhāṣya) on it.
The Digambara tradition places his life-dates 135–219 CE and treats him as the disciple of Kuṇḍakuṇḍa (耿達宮陀); the Śvetāmbara tradition places him in the eighth or ninth century and identifies his teacher as Mūla-? (牟拉) — the figure remains controversial. Modern Western scholarship (Walter Schubring, Helmuth von Glasenapp, Kendall W. Folkert) settles on a fifth-century CE dating, the figure used here. According to tradition he was born at Nyagrodhātaka in north India to Svāti and Vatsī / Umā, ordained at 19, became gaṇa-leader at 44, led the gaṇa for 40 years, and died at 84. He is credited by tradition with 500 works; only five survive, of which the Tattvārtha-sūtra is pre-eminent.
Although a non-Buddhist figure, Umāsvāti is included in the Kanripo corpus as the author of the only Jain text rendered into Chinese (by 方廣錩 in 1996, KR6v0028).