MAHÀVIRA. — M., “Great Hero,” is the title given by his fellow believers to Vardhamàna, Jainism (v.), although he was merely the reformer of a monastic order founded by Pàràva about 250 years earlier.
The reform consisted in a tightening of the rule, to which M. added the prohibition against possessing anything whatsoever and the practice of absolute nudity. The epithet 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 Jaina religion. The Pàràvit, on the other hand, called themselves Nirgrantha, “the Unbound” (from worldly interests); consequently, M. is designated in Buddhist sources by the Pāli name Nigantho Nàtaputto, “the Unbound, son of Nàta,” that is, of Siddhàrtha, the chief (râjâ, rex) of the city of Kundapura, today Basukund, in the territory of Vais'ālī, modern Besàrh, capital of Videha or Tirhut. The Nàta (Sanskrit Jââtr) belonged to the military nobility; when Siddhàrtha died, he was succeeded in the government by his eldest son Nandivardhana, while Vardhamàna, who was the second son and had a wife and a daughter, left his family at the age of 28, following, 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 regarded as a spiritual conqueror and a saint. M. devoted the last thirty years of his life to instructing his disciples and to religious propagation in Magadha, Videha, and Kosala—that is, in the provinces of Oudh and 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.
BIBLI: V. JAINISMO.
Ferdinando Belloni Filippi