Jain metaphysics gives krodha a role considerably more mechanical than the Hindu account of obstructed desire: it is one of four kashayas, passions, whose specific function is to cause karmic matter, otherwise inert particles pervading the universe, to adhere to the soul, jiva, and weigh it down through further rebirth.
The Tattvartha Sutra grades krodha, like the other three kashayas, into four degrees of intensity, from a momentary flash that binds karma only briefly to an enduring, lifelong anger that Jain texts treat as binding karma for the longest possible duration and as the single greatest obstacle to advancing toward the fourteen stages, gunasthana, of spiritual progress the tradition maps out.
Padmanabh Jaini's study of Jain practice explains that this grading is not merely descriptive but has real disciplinary consequence within the monastic community, since confession and atonement rituals, pratikramana, require a practitioner to specify which degree of a given kashaya, including krodha, they are confessing to, the mildest degree treated as swiftly purifiable and the most intense as a serious rupture requiring extended penance. Where the Hindu Gita locates krodha's remedy in addressing the desire that produces it, Jain practice targets equanimity, samatva, directly as krodha's specific antidote, cultivated through meditation aimed at reducing the soul's general disposition toward passionate reaction regardless of the immediate provocation.