Person · Jain Tirthankara
Mahāvīra
Also known as Vardhamana, Vardhamana Mahavira, Mahavir, Nigantha Nataputta
The twenty-fourth Tīrthankara, a Jñātrika kshatriya of the Vaishālī region who renounced at thirty and taught for thirty years in the same decades and the same country as the Buddha. Jainism regards him as the last reformer of an older tradition rather than its founder.
- Date
- c. 599 – 527 BCE
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Tradition
- Acharanga Sutra; Kalpa Sutra
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
He appears in the Buddhist canon as Nigantha Nātaputta, a rival teacher, which is one of the rare cases of two Indian religions independently recording the same person. The Pali texts' account of his doctrine is recognisably Jain and recognisably hostile.
Connections (3)
- Life routePāvāpurī
Mahāvīra reached nirvāna at Pāvāpurī, and the Jal Mandir stands in a tank said to have formed where mourners carried away the earth. Jains keep Dīvālī as that night's anniversary — the lamps lit, in the tradition's own reading, because the light of knowledge had gone out of the world.
- Life routeVaishālī
Mahāvīra was born in the Vaishālī region to a Jñātrika kshatriya family with Licchavi connections, and taught in the same Magadha and Kosala the Buddha did, in the same decades. Two renunciant movements came out of one urbanising river plain within a generation. He appears in the Pali canon as Nigantha Nātaputta, a named rival teacher whose doctrine is reported and rejected, which is a rare case of two Indian religions recording the same contemporary.
- Court associationThe Buddha
Mahāvīra appears in the Pali canon as Nigantha Nātaputta, a rival teacher whose doctrine is reported and rejected — one of very few cases where two Indian religions independently record the same contemporary. Both taught in Magadha, both rejected Vedic sacrifice, and both drew from the same merchant and kshatriya support.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Mahavira”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.
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