Mahāvīra

Vardhamāna, known by the title Mahāvīra, “Great Hero”, is revered by Jains as the twenty-fourth and last tīrthaṅkara, “ford-maker”, of the present age: one who has crossed the river of rebirth and made a path for others. Jain tradition dates his life to 599–527 BCE; many scholars place it somewhat later, making him an older contemporary of the Buddha, with whom he shared the religious world of the Ganges plain.

According to the Jain sources, he was born a prince of the Kṣatriya class near Vaiśālī, in present-day Bihar. At about thirty he renounced the world and undertook twelve and a half years of severe austerities, fasting, silence and wandering, after which he attained kevala-jñāna, omniscience. He then taught for some thirty years, gathering a community of monks, nuns and lay followers, and died at Pāvā, attaining final liberation.

The two main Jain traditions, the Digambaras and the Śvetāmbaras, differ in their accounts of his life, for example on whether he married and whether he wore clothes after renunciation. Jains do not regard Mahāvīra as the founder of their religion, but as the last of a long line of teachers who revealed the same eternal truth; his predecessor Pārśva may also have been a historical figure.