Mahavira

Indian religious leader

• Born: c. 599 BCE
• Birthplace: Kundagrama, Bihar, Magadha (now in India)
• Died: 527 BCE
• Place of death: Pavapuri, Bihar, Magadha (now in India)

By the example of his ascetic life and his charismatic leadership, Vardhamāna revived and systematized the religious tradition of Jainism.

Early Life

Jainists consider Indian religious leader Mahavira to be the twenty-fourth Tirthankara, or savior and spiritual leader, of their faith. While Mahavira is the not the founder of Jainism, as he is sometimes inaccurately described as, his teachings had a profound and lasting impact on Jainist beliefs and practices.

While the two sects of the Jains (Digambara and Svetambara) have differing traditions regarding the life of Mahavira, also known as Vardhamāna (var-duh-MAN-uh), they are in agreement on the most essential features. Mahavira was born in Kundagrama, Bihar, Magadha (in the present-day state of Bihar, India) around 599 BCE to Siddhārtha, chieftain of a warrior (Kṣatriya) clan, whose wife Trishalā was the sister of the king of Vaiśālī. He was given the name Vardhamāna at birth. Mahavira’s conception was foretold to his mother in a series of dreams that are often described in Jain literature and represented artistically. About his youth virtually nothing is recorded, but probably he was trained in archery, horsemanship, and writing, as were other princes of his era. The two Jain sects disagree regarding one point concerning his adult life, the Svetambaras saying that Mahavira married and fathered one daughter, while the Digambaras say that he neither married nor had offspring.

By the age of thirty, Mahavira’s parents had died. With the consent of his elder brother, he decided to abandon his royal position and become a wandering ascetic. He distributed his possessions, plucked out his hair, and renounced the life of the householder to pursue enlightenment. The most significant disagreement between the two sects of Jainism is highlighted by this incident in Mahavira’s life, known as the Great Renunciation. Digambara (“sky-clad”) Jains depict Mahavira as renouncing clothing as well as other possessions, choosing to remain nude and requiring this practice of his followers when they renounced the world. Svetambara (“white-clad”) Jains depict Mahavira as wearing a single white cloth for thirteen months after the Great Renunciation, at which time he adopted nudity but did not require it of his followers after their renunciation. This difference in monastic practice has kept the two sects separate since about 300 BCE.

Life’s Work

In the era in which Mahavira lived, dissatisfaction was growing with the then dominant religious tradition of Brahmanism, which was based on performance of sacrificial rituals and recitation of the sacred words of the Vedas. Asceticism—including endurance of hunger, thirst, pain, exposure to the elements, and celibacy—was an alternative way of being religious, by means of which individuals sought to accumulate power. It was widely believed that the actions (karma) of one’s life would cause one to be reincarnated but that the power accumulated through asceticism could enable one to destroy one’s karma and escape the otherwise endless cycle of rebirth.

Early Life

Like a number of his contemporaries (such as the Buddha and ascetics of the Brahmanic Upaniṣads), Mahavira left his family to live as a homeless wanderer in the hope of escaping rebirth. For twelve years, subjecting himself to great hardship, including extended fasts, and engaging in deep meditation on the nature of the self, Mahavira single-mindedly persevered. Finally, after a fast of two and a half days during which he meditated continuously, he attained enlightenment accompanied by omniscience and was freed from the bondage of his karma. According to the scriptures, following his enlightenment Mahavira taught large assemblies of listeners and organized the community of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen. This was the point at which he acquired the name Mahavira (Great Hero), the title by which he is best known.

Mahavira taught others the means of attaining what he had attained. The ultimate objective was and is escape from the cycle of rebirth, with its suffering a result of the inevitability of disease, old age, and death. The infinite bliss of the cessation of such suffering was not to be attained by following the path of enjoyment of pleasures but by forsaking the finite pleasures and performing rigorous austerities. Restraint of body, speech, and mind and the performance of ascetic practices will destroy the effects of one’s karma, thereby freeing one from rebirth.

In Mahavira’s view, karma is a material substance that becomes attached to one’s soul as a result of actions performed; Jainism is unique in its assertion of the material nature of karma. The souls of individuals who are subject to the passions (desire and hatred) will be further defiled by the adherence of karmic material, while the souls of those few individuals who are free from the passions will not be affected at all; karma will not adhere to such a soul.

Absolutely necessary to the successful escape from rebirth is the avoidance of causing injury to living beings, a practice known as ahiṁsā. As a consequence of this strongly held belief, Jains are strict vegetarians. For the same reason, they have traditionally avoided occupations involving injury to living beings, including farming, and have instead often engaged in commerce. Avoidance of injury to life in all of its forms is the first vow of the Jains, ascetics and lay followers alike.

The path of the devout layman or laywoman differs from that of the monk or nun only in the extent to which ascetic self-denial is practiced. For the lay follower, eleven stages of spiritual progress are prescribed by which one is purified and prepares oneself for the ascetic life of the monk or nun. By passing through all eleven stages, the lay follower demonstrates that he or she has overcome the passions and is ready to become a monk or nun. As a result of the severity of the rules of conduct for the Jain lay follower, relatively few individuals in reality are willing or able to adhere to this ideal. Most lay followers support the monks and nuns through donations.

All Jains regard Mahavira as the twenty-fourth and last Jina (conqueror) or tīrthaṅkara (ford-maker) to have lived and taught in this world. His immediate predecessor, Parsva, apparently lived in Benares, India, in the ninth century BCE; Western scholars, however, regard the other twenty-two saintly teachers in the Jain tradition as figures of myth rather than history. The parents of Mahavira are described as followers of Parsva’s doctrine, and there are clear references in Buddhist scriptures to the existence of an established order of Jain ascetics. This information suggests the existence of a Jain community composed of ascetics and lay followers, a community older than that of the Buddhists and predating Mahavira himself. Mahavira’s teachings are presented as eternal truths and the same path as has been taught by all the Jinas. Thus, Mahavira’s contribution was the reviving and reactualization of this ancient tradition. As one who has “crossed over” the ocean of suffering and reached the other side, Mahavira has demonstrated the efficacy of the spiritual discipline of the Jinas.

At the age of about seventy-two, Mahavira died. Although the Jain scriptures repeatedly state that he was a human being, lay followers often have regarded him as superhuman and endowed with marvelous attributes. The exemplary life of Mahavira has greatly influenced the Jain community, which continues to revere his memory.

Significance

Mahavira was both a very able organizer and a thinker of striking originality. The social organization of Jain monks and nuns may well have been the world’s first monastic orders. Thanks to the support of some Indian rulers and sympathetic lay followers, the monastic orders have been able to follow the example of Mahavira for twenty-five centuries. Mahavira was one of the first to oppose the Brahmanic orthodoxy, a tradition of sacrificial ritual that was dominated by priests and aristocrats. In its place he offered a systematic explanation of the laws of the universe and humanity’s place within it. Mahavira’s teachings presented to everyone the possibility of attaining the ultimate state, whether female or male, regardless of social class or place within India's caste system.

The Jain insistence on ahiṁsā, refraining from injuring living beings, has influenced the whole of India and even some who are unfamiliar with Jainism. Vegetarianism, uncommon in India during Mahavira’s lifetime, is now a way of life for many Hindus, and Jainism’s uncompromising position is in part responsible for this change. The leader of India’s independence movement in the first half of the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi, was profoundly influenced by a Jain layman named Raychandbhai Mehta, with whom he corresponded. He helped Gandhi realize the power of nonviolence, and Gandhi began to use nonviolent civil disobedience as a political weapon, agitating for India’s independence from the British Empire, a goal which was realized in 1947. A generation later, Martin Luther King, Jr., with Gandhi as his inspiration, led similar nonviolent protests for civil rights in the United States. Mahavira’s teachings, whether regarded as the ancient doctrine of all the Jinas or as his own unique contribution, are the core of a still-vital religious tradition.

Bibliography

Dundas, Paul. The Jains. Routledge, 2002.

Jaina Sutras. Translated by Hermann Jacobi. Sacred Texts, www.sacred-texts.com/jai/sbe22/index.htm. Accessed 23 May 2023.

"Mahavira." BBC, 10 Sept. 2009, www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/jainism/history/mahavira.shtml. Accessed 23 May 2023.

"Mahavira." The Pluralism Project, Harvard University, pluralism.org/mahavira. Accessed 23 May 2023.