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Lord Mahâvira
Epithets
There is no knowledge of Mahâvîra's given name Vardhamana in the earliest stratum of the biography and the use of the epithet Mahâvîra as a personal name, while occurring in the First book of the Sutrakritanga, is unknown in the first book of the Acaranga. Furthermore, the oldest texts never use the term 'fordmaker' and very seldom jina, the word which gives Jainism its name. Instead we find terms such as Nayaputta, 'son of the Nayas', an obscure expression which seems to refer to Mahâvîra's clan, called in Sanskrit Jnatri, and the name by which he is known in early Buddhist writings, 'ascetic' (muni, samana, niggantha), brahman, 'venerable' (bhagavan) and occasionally araha, 'worthy', a term found frequently in early Buddhism, and veyavi, 'knower of the Veda', which here may just signify 'wise'.
The Acaranga does not describe Mahâvîra as all-knowing but only as all-seeing. 15 However, a eulogy of Mahâvîra as ideal being, supposedly uttered by one of his disciples, occurs in the Sutrakritanga (SKS 1.6) and provides a remarkable picture of the qualities, principal among which was full omniscience, with which early Jain tradition credited him. Stress is laid on his humanity, freedom from the constraints of life and gaining of full physical and mental restraint. The limitless nature of his attainments, through which he sees and knows everything, 'this world and what lies beyond it' (SKS 1.6.28), renders him the equal of the king of the gods and all the great mountains and oceans of the universe. The confidence which this ancient text expresses in the power of Mahâvîra's teachings to alter one's next birth for the better has characterised the attitude of Jains towards Mahâvîra and the other fordmakers to the present day.
The Transfer of The Embryo
The first references to the transfer of Mahâvîra's embryo from the womb of a brahman woman called Devananda to that of Trishala, along with a reverse substitution of the embryo which was already in Trishala's womb, occur in the second chapter of the Acaranga and the Kalpasutra, that is to say, not in the oldest stratum of the biography. The reference in the 'Exposition of Explanations' to Mahâvîra's acknowledgement of Devananda as being his real mother clearly alludes to this aspect of the biography (Bh 9.33).16
