The Birth of the Twenty-Fourth Tirthankara

Mahavir Jayanti celebrates the birth of Mahavira (traditionally 599-527 BCE), the twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara ("ford-maker") of the present age and the great historical teacher of Jainism, roughly a contemporary of the Buddha. Jain tradition does not regard Mahavira as the founder of a new religion but as the reviver and definitive teacher of the eternal Jain path, following twenty-three Tirthankaras before him; born a prince named Vardhamana, he renounced the world, attained omniscience (kevala jnana) through severe austerity, and taught the discipline of non-violence, non-attachment and self-conquest by which the soul is freed from the bondage of karma. The festival falls on the thirteenth day of the bright fortnight of Chaitra (March-April).

The day is the most widely celebrated of the Jain calendar's joyful festivals, kept by both Svetambara and Digambara communities. Images of Mahavira are ceremonially bathed (abhisheka) and carried in procession (in a chariot, the rath yatra); temples hold special worship and the reading of accounts of his life; and the emphasis on his teaching gives the day a strong charitable and ethical cast, with acts of charity, the release or protection of animals, and abstention from harm. In honouring the teacher who gave Jainism its classical form, Mahavir Jayanti also holds up his life of renunciation and non-violence as the pattern the tradition asks its followers to approach.