Asteya translates literally as non stealing, and the term is shared, like satya, across Hindu, Jain and yogic ethical literature as one of the classical restraints, yamas, common to several traditions; the Jain mahavrata form of it, though, is considerably more exacting than the ordinary prohibition on theft the English gloss suggests. Jain monastic discipline defines adatta, the taken but not given, so broadly that a fully observant monk or nun is expected to request explicit permission before using almost anything, a place to sleep, a seat, drinking water offered by a householder, even air space entered while walking, treating the unauthorised use of any object, however trivial or freely available it might seem, as a form of the same fault ordinary theft names in its grosser form.
The Tattvartha Sutra situates this expansive reading within the broader logic of the mahavratas: since karmic bondage accrues from action regardless of whether the action would be recognised as wrongdoing by ordinary secular standards, a vow aimed at eliminating that bondage cannot rest on a merely legal definition of what counts as taking, and must instead attend to consent and authorisation in a much finer grained way than criminal law requires.