MAHAVIRA. - M., "Great Hero," is the title given by his co-religionists to Vardhamàna, considered the founder of Jainism (v.), although he is only the reformer of a monastic order founded by Pàràva ca. 250 years earlier.
The reform consisted in a tightening of the rule, to which M. added the prohibition of possessing anything whatsoever, and the practice of absolute nudity. The epithet of M., suggested by the heroism with which Vardhamàna endured the harshest ascetic mortifications, was later associated with that of Jina, "the Conqueror" (of the world and its passions), from which derive the words jaina, "follower of the Jina," and Jainism, the Jain religion. The Pàràvit called themselves instead Nirgrantha, "Unfettered" (from worldly interests), and yet M. is designated by Buddhist sources with the Pàli name Nigantho Nàtaputto, "the Unfettered, son of the Nàta," that is, of Siddhàrtha, the head (râjâ, rex) of the city of Kundapura, today Basukund in the territory of Vais'ālī, present-day Besàrh, capital of Videha or Tirhut. The Nàta (Sanskrit Jââtr) belonged to the military nobility; when Siddhàrtha died, he was succeeded in government by his elder son Nandivardhana, and Vardhamàna, who was the second-born and had a wife and a daughter, abandoned his family at the age of 28, following, like the Buddha (v.), the monastic vocation. He spent twelve years alternating meditation with long fasts and austere penances, until in the thirteenth year he attained perfect knowledge (kevalojhâna) and was considered a spiritual conqueror and a saint. M. devoted the last thirty years of his life to the instruction of disciples and to religious propaganda in Magadha, Videha and Kosala, that is, in the province of Oudh and in Behar. He died at the age of seventy-two at Pàvâ, today Pàvâpuri, near Patna. The date of his death is disputed; the most probable is 477 B.C., from which it is deduced that M. was born in 549.
Bibliography
Ferdinando Belloni Filippi