Lord Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara

Mahavira is the 24th Jain tirthankara born in the avasarpini time cycle. The religion preached by the previous tirthankaras was known as the religion of the Shramans or of the Nirgranthas, which Mahavira named as Jainism. All the tirthankaras have preached the same religion with slight variations.

The complexion of Mahavira is golden and symbol is lion. The chaitya tree under which he got omniscience is teak.

 Before discussing the life of Mahavira, we shall proceed to a brief consideration of the political, economic, social and religious condition of India at the time of Mahavira's birth.

The political condition – India was divided into a congeries of many small independent states and there was no single empire. The power of the kshatriyas were at the bottom after the disastrous war of Mahabharat. The time referred here was ninth century B.C. In Northern part of India, the kingdoms existed were Magadha, Anga, Videha, Vajji, Kashi, Koshala, Malla, Vatsa, Panchala, Kuru, Matsya, Avanti, Sindhu and Gandhar. Jain scriptures mentioned about 25 kingdoms belonging to Aryans. Most of these kingdoms were monarchial with little democracy. A strong personality among the male members from within the family was selected as king. The kings of these small clans used to meet together and helped each other during socio-political unrest. Vaishali was the capital of such a federal democracy, which the Vajjis, the Lichhavis, and the Mallas and their numerous sub-clans had combined.

The Economic Condition – In commerce, India was very advanced having merchants going to various foreign countries for trade. In Jain literature, there are references of such sea borne trade which made the traders collect exuberant wealth and thus making his kingdom prosperous.

The Social Condition – The social order of the Brahmins prevailed throughout Northern part of India with the division of caste as brahmin, kshatriya, vaisya and shudra. The women were thought as domestic property and polygamy was very natural.

The Religious Condition – Brahminism was in great vogue. Vedic rituals prevailed everywhere. A section of the Brahmans and kshatriyas used to sacrifice animals and sometimes humans also as their offering to God. The other section believed in Brahmavada and they preached the doctrines of Upanishad to the brahmin students only. Non-brahmins were not allowed to study literature. During this period, a number of shraman ascetics, of the stature of tirthankars, namely, Aristanemi, Parsvanath and Mahavir were born. They started preaching the common people including the kshatriya kings about Ahimsa (non-violence). During this period, there were four differnt religious communities. They were classified as follows: 1) Kriyavadins, comprising those who believed that the soul is entangled in the web of its own karma; 2) Akriyavadins, comprising those who did not believe the existence of soul and its entanglement with the karma, 3) Ajnanavadins, are those who believed in tapas or austerities alone as pathway towards liberation and knowledge is not essential and 4) Vinayavadins, are those who regarded salvation by right conduct only. But one thing was common among these thoughts was that all these religious preachers denounced the killing of animals as sacrifice to God. They regarded renunciation, self-discipline and austerities as the true pathway for salvation. Some of the communities, viz., Ajivika practised severe austerities remaining naked and doing harsh self-mortification.

Mahavira was born in kshatriya Kundagram, capital of Vaishali in 599 B.C., on the thirteenth night of the bright moon in the month of Chaitra when moon was in Uttarphalguni constellation. His father Siddhartha belonged to Jnata clan of the kshatriyas. In Prakrit language ‘Jnata’ means ‘Naya’ and therefore Mahavira was called as ‘Nayaputta’ in ancient Jain scriptures and as ‘Nataputta’ in Buddhist scriptures. Mahavira's mother Trishala was the sister of king Chetak who was the chief of Vaishali kingdom. King Chetak had seven daughters of whom one took initiation into the order of shramans (Jain ascetics) and six were married to six kings. They were king Shrenika of Magadh (Bimbisara), Dadhivahana of Anga, Shatanika of Kaushambi, Pradyot of Avanti, Rudrayana or Udayana of Sindhusauvira and Mahavir’s elder brother Nandivardhan. From all these marriage relations it is evident that the social dignity of Mahavira's father, King Siddhartha was very high.

When Mahavira entered into his mother’s womb, his mother saw fourteen dreams, they were of an elephant, a bull, a lion, ablution of goddess Laxmi, a garland of flowers, the moon, the sun, a flag, a pitcher, a lotus pond, a sea, a heavenly chariot, heaps of jewels and a smokeless fire. According to the Jain scriptures, would be mother seeing these fourteen dreams must be carrying a child in the rank of a tirthankara or an emperor. Since Mahavira entered the mother’s womb, there had been a steady increase in the wealth, food grains and prosperity in the kingdom. Therefore, king Siddhartha named the new born child as Vardhaman. 

King Siddhartha’s eldest son was Nandivardhan and his daughter Sudarshana.

All 24 tirthankars have a long account of their previous births. This is because they had to pass through innumerable life cycles to ward off the karma and attain keval jnan. Mahavira had to cross 26 previous births before his birth as Vardhaman. A few salient pre-births of Mahavira is given below.  The earliest on record is Mahavira's birth as Nayasara, a village overseer in west Videha. He acquired great merits by offering food to monks. The monks spoke inspiring words which imparted right vision to the overseer.

The human entity of Nayasara was born as prince Marichi, son of Bharat and grandson of Rishavdev.Rishavdev predicted that Marichi will reborn as the 24^th tirthankara where he will be known as Mahavira. But before becoming Mahavira, he will take birth as Vasudev named Triprishtha. Then in the region of western Mahavideha, he would become a valorous monarch named Priyamitra.  The teaching of Rishavdev inspired Marichi to select the path of asceticism. But while practicing the harsh rules of monkhood, Marichi realized that he is not fit for monkhood. So, he left the path of asceticism and became a wanderer (parivrajaka). Thus, Marichi became the founder of the parivrajaka sect of monks. One of his noted disciples, Kapila Muni, became the founder of the Sankhya school of Indian philosophy.  

Until his late twenties, Vardhaman led a normal life, like others of his age. Both his parents were followers of Lord Parsvanath, the 23^rd tirthankara who had lived nearly 250 years before Mahavira. Thus, Vardhaman was born and brought up in a religious atmosphere. He had learnt and practiced religion from his childhood. During his youthful days,  he married to Yashoda and  they had a daughter Priyadarshana. When  Vardhaman became 27 years old, his parents died. Shortly after the death of his parents, Vardhaman decided to leave the family. At the age of 30, he renounced all his dwellings and  accepted mendicancy. For the next twelve years, he lived a life of great hardship, training himself to endure the pain and discomforts of the body until he became indifferent to them. For seeking true knowledge, he wandered alone in the wild forests and remained most of the time on fasting and meditation. At last, one day, after twelve and half years of extreme penance and deep meditation, he came to a comprehension about the nature and its surrounding society covering the whole universe. This total knowledge, omniscience or keval jnan allowed him to become  tirthankara. This event took place on the tenth day of the bright half of the month of Vaishakha in the fourth quarter of the day on the bank of river Rijuvaluka. A congregation was held on the spot where he delivered his sermon though there was no learned people to understand his lecture.

Mahavira left the place at once, and moved to Madhyam Pava which was 12 yojanas away from the place of omniscience. Here he settled at the Mahasena park where a second congregation was held where many wise people of his time were assembled.

Mahavira had three different names. They are: Vardhaman, Mahavira and Shramana. The name Vardhaman was given by his parents. Because of his relentless toil (shram) to excel in different fields, he was named Shraman. Because of the power to stay erect amidst all odds, for the immense mental and physical strength, the ability to pardon others who had created trouble to him, to remain quiet and stable under positive or negative circumstances, for all these superhuman deeds he became renowned as Mahavira. 

Mahavira’s auspicious deeds were completed under the effect of two major constellations. It was under the spell of Uttarphalguni star that Mahavir was conceived, born, initiated and attained supreme knowledge or keval jnan. Under the spell of Swati star, he attained cosmic consciousness and attained nirvana.

Reference:

Sramana Bhagavan Mahavira,  by K.C.Lalwani, 1974, Calcutta. 

Lord Mahavira, His Life and Doctrines, by Puran Chand Samsookha, Calcutta.