🌻Legends associated with Mahavir Jayanti 🌻
The twenty-fourth and final Tirthankara in the Jain religion during this time was Lord Mahavir. According to Jain philosophy, all Tirthankaras were once human, but through self-realization and meditation, they achieved enlightenment or perfection. The Jains call them their gods. Jainism rejects the idea that God created the universe, guarded it, and destroyed it. In Jainism, the notion that God will reincarnate as a human being in order to vanquish the demons is also rejected.
In the Indian state of Bihar, Lord Mahavir was born on the thirteenth day of the rising moon in the month of Chaitra in 599 B.C. According to the English calendar, this day falls in the month of April. Mahavir Jayanti Day is observed on his birthday.
When Mahavir was a prince, his parents gave him the name Vardhaman. He had numerous worldly pleasures, conveniences, and services at his disposal because he was the king’s son. But when he was thirty, he abandoned his family and the royal household, gave up his material belongings, and became a monk in pursuit of a cure for suffering.
To overcome his cravings, emotions, and attachments, Mahavir spent the ensuing twelve and a half years in intense meditation and stillness. He took care not to hurt or upset other living things, such as plants, animals, or birds. He also went for extended stretches of time without eating. He was named Mahavir, which means “very brave and courageous,” since he remained calm and tranquil in the face of all the unimaginable sufferings. His spiritual abilities reached their full potential during this time, and he ultimately achieved perfect perception, wisdom, power, and pleasure. Keval jnana, or the perfect enlightenment, is the term used to describe this insight.
Mahavir spent the following thirty years walking barefoot around India, proclaiming to the people the timeless truth he realized. His teachings’ ultimate goal is to show how to reach complete liberation from the cycle of birth, life, suffering, unhappiness, and death as well as a lasting state of happiness. Other names for this include Moksha, nirvana, emancipation, and full freedom.
Mahavir clarified that ignorance enslaves all living things (souls) to karmic atoms from all eternity. These karmic atoms are then steadily gathered as a result of our good and negative actions. The soul is conditioned to seek pleasure in physical commodities and belongings due to the influence of karma. This is the fundamental cause of selfish, violent thoughts and actions, as well as of rage, wrath, greed, and other vices. These cause more karmas to accumulate.
According to Mahavir, the true way to achieve freedom from one’s own karmic matter is to combine right faith (samyak darshana), right knowledge (samyak jnana), and right conduct (samyak charitra).
At the heart of right conduct for Jains lie the five great vows:
Nonviolence (Ahimsa): not to cause harm to any living beings
Truthfulness (Satya): to speak the harmless truth only
Non-stealing (Asetya): not to take anything not properly given
Chastity (Brahmacharya): not to indulge in sensual pleasure
Non-possession/Non-attachment (Aparigraha): complete detachment from people, places, and material things
These commitments are fundamental to the life of Jains. Without adopting the notion of relativity (Syadvad) and a philosophy of non-absolutism (Anekantvad), one cannot properly carry out these vows. While the public adheres to the vows to the extent that their lifestyles allow, monks and nuns follow them rigorously and completely.
According to Mahavir, men and women are equal in everything pertaining to spiritual development. Women were also drawn to the promise of emancipation and renunciation. In pursuit of happiness and the ultimate truth, many women abandoned the world and followed Mahavir’s example.
Thus, Jain principles will bring contentment, inner happiness, and delight in the present life if they are correctly comprehended from the correct perspective and faithfully followed. This will raise the soul’s spiritual level in subsequent reincarnations, leading to Perfect Enlightenment and Eternal Bliss, which will put a stop to all cycles of birth and death.
Rich and poor, kings and commoners, men and women, princes and priests, touchable and untouchable—all these groups were drawn to Mahavir. He divided his disciples into four groups: laypeople (Shravak), nuns (Sadhvi), monks (Sadhu), and laywomen (Shravika). The Jain Sangh is the name of this order.
The Agam Sutras are an oral compilation of Lord Mahavir’s teachings that were gathered by his close followers. Future generations were taught these Agam Sutras verbally. Over time, many the Agam Sutras have been lost, destroyed, or altered. The Agam Sutras were written down on Tadpatris, a leafy paper employed in those days to preserve documents for subsequent use, around a millennium later. In contrast to Digambar Jains, Swetambar Jains have acknowledged these Sutras as genuine manifestations of His teachings.
When Lord Mahavir reached nirvana at the age of 72 (527 B.C.), his pure soul departed from his body and earned total freedom. He transformed into a Siddha, a liberated soul with a pure mind who would live in eternal joy. People honored him by celebrating the Festival of Lights (Dipavali) on the night of his nirvana. Dipavali Day is the last day of the Hindu and Jain calendar year.
Before Mahavir, there was Jainism, and his forebears inspired his teachings. Therefore, in contrast to Buddha, Mahavir was not the creator of a new religion but rather a reformer and propagator of an established religious institution. He adhered to the established doctrine of Tirthankar Parshvanath, his predecessor. Mahavir did, however, restructure Jainism’s philosophical principles to fit his own era.
Following Mahavir’s nirvana, the Jain religious order (Sangha) became increasingly intricate a few decades later. There were disagreements on a few little issues, but these had no bearing on Mahavir’s fundamental teachings. The addition of intricate rituals in later generations nearly elevated Mahavir and other Tirthankars to the status of Hindu gods.
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