Int Jain Sangh NJ 2000 04 Mahavir Jayanti

Author(s): Int Jain Sangh NJ
Publisher: USA International Jain Sangh IJS

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Lord Mahavir and His Teachings
Lord Mahavir was the twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara of the Jain religion of this era. According to Jain philosophy, all Tirthankaras were human beings but they had attained a state of perfection or enlightenment through meditation and self-realization. They are the Gods of Jains in the sense that they were the persons extremely revered. The concept of God as a creator, protector, and destroyer of the universe does not exist in Jainism. Also the idea of God's reincarnation as a human being to destroy the demons is not accepted in Jainism.
Lord Mahavir was born on the thirteenth day of rising moon of Chaitra month, 599 BC in the state of Bihar, India. This day falls in the month of April as per English calendar. His birthday is celebrated as Mahavir Jayanti Day.
Pravin K. Shah Jain Study Center of NC
Mahavir was a prince and was given a name Vardhaman by his parents. Being son of a king, he had many worldly pleasures, comforts, and services at his command. But at the age of thirty, he left his family and royal household, gave up his worldly possessions, and became a monk in search of a solution to eliminate pain, sorrow, and sufferings.
Mahavir spent the next twelve and half years in deep silence and meditation to conquer his desires, feelings, and attachments. He carefully avoided harming or annoying other living beings including animals, birds, and plants. He also went without food for long periods. He was calm and peaceful against all unbearable hardships that he was given the name Mahavir, meaning very brave and courageous. During this period, his spiritual powers fully developed. and at the end he realized perfect perception, knowledge, power, and bliss. This realization is known as keval -jnana or the perfect enlightenment.
Mahavir spent the next thirty years travelling on bare foot around India preaching to the people the eternal truth he realized. The ultimate objective of his teaching is how one can attain total freedom from the cycle of birth, life, pain, misery, and death, and achieve the permanent blissful state of one's self. This is known as liberation, nirvana, absolute freedom, or moksha.
Mahavir explained that from eternity, every living being (soul) due to its ignorance is in the bondage of karmic atoms. Then these karmic atoms are continuously accumulated by our good or bad deeds. Under the influence of karma, the soul is habituated to seek pleasures in materialistic belongings and possessions. This is the deep-rooted cause of self-centered violent thoughts, deeds, anger, hatred, greed, and such other vices. These result in further accumulation of karma.
Mahavir preached the right faith (samyak-darshna), right knowledge (samyak-jnana), and right conduct (samyak-charitra) together is the real path to attain the liberation from karmic matter of one's self.
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