Place · Jain tirtha · India
Pāwāpuri
Also known as Pawapuri, Pavapuri, Pawa, Apapapuri
Where Mahavira, the twenty-fourth tirthankara, attained parinirvana in 527 BCE after fasting on the full moon of Kartika — the day Jains observe as Diwali for that reason. The marble Jalmandir (water temple) in the middle of a lotus-covered tank marks the cremation site; pilgrims take earth from the surrounding ground where Mahavira is said to have taken his last breath. The town is one of the five Jain Kalyanak kshetras of the Nalanda region, with Rajgir, Nalanda, Guniyaji and Kundalpur all within an eighty-kilometre radius.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Standard reference and local gazetteers; ASI, state archaeology and INTACH records where applicable.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 25.081, 85.421
Connections (1)
- Site adjacencyRājagriha / Rajgir
Pāwāpuri sits in the Nalanda-Rajgir landscape — the cluster of five Jain kalyanak kshetras that includes Pawapuri (parinirvana), Rajgir (first sermon by Mahavira), Nalanda (five chaturmas spent here), Kundalpur (Mahavira's birth) and Guniyaji (meditation site). All five are within an eighty-kilometre radius in Nalanda district, and traditional Jain pilgrimage walks them as one circuit. Rajgir itself was Mahavira's teaching centre and later the first Buddhist council site, so the landscape carries Jain and Buddhist first-origin memory together.