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Lord Mahavira and His Times
literature grew up by stages during the ten centuries following the death of Mahāvira. The final redaction of this Āgamika literature with several alterations took place at the council of Valabhi under the presidency of Arya Devarddhi in 454 (or 467 A.D.).
It seems that the teachings of Jainism underwent some changes in the interval between the time of Mahāvīra and the final composition of the Jaina canon. Older parts of the Achäränga and the Satrakrtānga may well claim to preserve much original matter, and the same may be true to some extent of some portion of the Bhagavati Sūtra and the Uttarādhyayana Sītra. The earliest Buddhist texts, known as the Pāli Nikayas, also refer to the beliefs and teachings of Mahāvīra. Though we cannot expect them to give a fair and honest exposition of the tenets of their opponents, they somehow corroborate the evidence of the Jaina texts. In the light of both these evidences, an estimate of the teachings of Mahāvīra should be made.
The teachings of Mahāvīra were simple, practical and ethical, but gradually they developed into a complicated system with considerable emphasis on details. Because of conservatism, the evolution was more or less in a straight line, and there are no dissensions on fundamentals in Jainism. Mahāvīra and his disciples propounded not only the doctrinal side of Jainism relating to the nature of the truth and the ideal but also mapped out the practical and disciplinary path leading to the realization of both. It was chiefly in and through the life of monks or mendicants that the ideal of conduct was sought to be fulfilled. NIRVANA
The ultimate object of Jainism as taught by Mahāvira is Nirvāṇa which consists in the attainment of peace and infinite bliss.? Nirvana is just another name for Mokṣa or liberation, Mukti or deliverance, salvation or beatitude. Gautama, a disciple of Mahāvira, explained Nirvāna to Keśí, a disciple of Pārsva : "It is a safe, happy, quiet and eternal place in view of all but difficult of approach where there is no old age, nor death, nor sorrow, nor pain, nor disease. It is a state of 1. Sūtra, I, 11, 11.
