Mahavira
மகாவீரர் महावीर
Also Vardhamana, Jina, Nigantha Nataputta, Tirthankara.
Jain
Who this is
Vardhamana Mahavira was the twenty fourth and last Tirthankara of this age, a contemporary of the Buddha in the same region, and the Jain tradition is clear that he did not found it but restated it. He left home at thirty, went naked, and practised austerity for twelve years with a care for not harming any living thing that is stricter than anything else in India. What he taught is ahimsa carried to its conclusion, and anekantavada, the doctrine that no single viewpoint holds the whole of a truth, which is among the most unusual positions any tradition has taken about its own certainty.
How to recognise them
Standing in the kayotsarga posture, arms at the sides and not touching the body, or seated in meditation, always naked in the Digambara images and robed in the Svetambara ones, which is the oldest division in the tradition. A lion is his emblem, at the base of the image. The face is deliberately expressionless; a Tirthankara is beyond response.
Family and companions
Son of King Siddhartha and Queen Trishala of the Jnatrika clan at Kundagrama in Bihar. The Svetambaras hold that he married and had a daughter; the Digambaras hold that he never married, and the two traditions have not reconciled it. His predecessor Parshvanatha, the twenty third Tirthankara, is historically attested and lived some two hundred and fifty years earlier.
How they are worshipped
Mahavir Jayanti in Chaitra; the eight or ten days of Paryushana; Diwali night, on which he attained liberation.
A Tirthankara is liberated and does not intervene, so the worship is remembrance rather than petition: the image is bathed, the five great vows are recalled, and the Navkar Mantra is said, which bows to the qualities and names no individual at all. Paryushana, eight or ten days of fasting and reflection in Bhadrapada, ends with Michhami Dukkadam, asking forgiveness of every living being for any harm done knowingly or not.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The twelve years
He left home at thirty, gave away everything, and within a year or so gave up clothing as well. For twelve years he wandered, took food rarely, did not stay long anywhere, and would not defend himself when attacked. The accounts dwell on his care not to tread on insects, not to disturb water, and not to speak harshly even when provoked, and the attainment at the end of it is treated as the consequence of the twelve years and not as a revelation given to him. Jain practice takes its measure from that: what is asked of a layperson is a fraction of it, deliberately scaled.
The blind men and the elephant
The parable of the blind men each describing a different part of an elephant is told across Indian traditions and is given its sharpest use by the Jains, as the illustration of anekantavada: every one of them was reporting accurately, none was lying, and every one was wrong to conclude that his part was the whole. Jain logic builds this into a formal system of sevenfold predication. It is the tradition’s standing warning against its own dogmatism, and it is the reason Jain texts usually state an opponent’s position before refuting it.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Gujarat
- Palitana on Shatrunjaya hill holds hundreds of temples and is climbed barefoot, and Paryushana closes the business of the Jain community for eight days.
- Maharashtra
- The Digambara tradition is strong in Vidarbha and Marathwada, and the Jain mathas keep the older manuscript libraries.
- Karnataka
- Shravanabelagola holds the colossal Bahubali, anointed in the Mahamastakabhisheka once in twelve years, and Karnataka has the longest unbroken Digambara history.
- North India
- Rajasthan keeps Ranakpur and Dilwara, and the Svetambara tradition is centred in Gujarat and Rajasthan together.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own