Mahavira
Jain · South Asia · 599 to 527 BCE
Indian teacher who is honoured as the last great teacher of Jainism, which holds that no living being may be harmed.
What it is
Mahavira, born Vardhamana, is honoured by Jains as the 24th and last Tirthankara of the present age, the last of the great teachers of Jainism. One traditional dating places him in 599 to 527 BCE, a contemporary of the Buddha, in the north Indian region of Bihar.
He is linked above all to nonviolence. Jainism holds that every living being may be harmed, and its monastic rules and its vegetarianism follow from that care for other creatures.
The dates are traditional, and they are argued over. Scholars think the traditional dates are early, by as much as a century, because he and the Buddha lived at about the same time. Whether he founded Jainism is also argued over: one account says he may be regarded as its founder, another says he revived and reformed an older community whose earlier leader was Parshvanatha.
The main ideas
- Do no harm. The first duty is nonviolence, called ahimsa, and it is the rule that governs how a Jain deals with every other living thing.
- Great vows. Monks take five great vows that include nonviolence, truthfulness, chastity and detachment from the things of the world.
- Freeing the soul. Jain thought holds that karma is a kind of matter that clings to the soul and draws it back into a body. The soul is freed from this contamination of matter by restraint and austerity.
- Vegetarianism. Because harm to living things is to be avoided, Jains are required to keep to a vegetarian diet.
- An order of followers. He is credited with setting the rules of life for monks, nuns and ordinary followers.
- Many-sided reality. Jain thought holds that reality has many sides, so no single statement captures all of it, and a view ought to be stated from a perspective.
- A time of challenge. He lived when the authority of the Brahman priests was being questioned, and his teaching is read as a response to the Brahmanism then taking shape.
What it looks like in practice
Imagine someone who decides, for one week, to eat nothing that required a creature to die and to watch what makes them angry. Each time a sharp word is about to leave their mouth they stop and ask who it will hurt. This is an illustration of the kind of care the tradition asks for, not a description of what Mahavira himself did.
Books and moments
- Birth. Tradition says he was born in 599 BCE into a ruling warrior family near Vaishali, in what is now Bihar.
- Leaving home. At about thirty he gave up his possessions and became an ascetic.
- About twelve years of austerity. The accounts say that after roughly twelve years of severe asceticism he reached kevala, the state of full knowledge.
- Two accounts of his household. The Shvetambara tradition says he married and had a daughter, and accounts of his life vary between the two main Jain traditions.
- Death. One tradition says he died in 527 BCE, a date that scholars think is too early.
Questions and criticism
- What can be known of his life? The details differ between the two main traditions, and the dates are uncertain, so much of what is told is tradition rather than history.
- Founder or reformer? It is open whether he began something new or renewed an older community led before him by Parshvanatha.
- Is the many-sided view self-defeating? If every claim is true only from a perspective, the claim that reality has many sides may be true only from a perspective as well. It is fair to ask whether that is a weakness or simply what the view says.
Close neighbours
The Buddha lived at about the same time and in the same region, and his teaching also arose against the authority of the Brahmans.
Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.
Who they connect to
Runs parallel to
- Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) · Both taught in the same region and period, and both rejected the authority of the old rituals and taught paths of release.
Sources we used
- Mahavira · Encyclopaedia Britannica, read on 29 October 2026
- Mahavira · Wikipedia, read on 29 October 2026
- Jain Philosophy · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 29 October 2026